Works

As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday,
And lazily leaning back in my chair,
Enjoying myself in a general way -
Allowing my thoughts a holiday
From weariness, toil and care, -...

Crowd about me, little children -
Come and cluster 'round my knee
While I tell a little story
That happened once with me.

My father he had gone away
A-sailing on the foam,...

Wunst, 'way West in Illinoise,
Wuz two Bears an' their two boys:
An' the two boys' names, you know,
Wuz - like ours is, - Jim an' Jo;
An' their parunts' names wuz same's,...

Abe Martin! - dad-burn his old picture!
P'tends he's a Brown County fixture -
A kind of a comical mixture
Of hoss-sense and no sense at all!
His mouth, like his pipe, 's allus goin',...

When snow is here, and the trees look weird,
And the knuckled twigs are gloved with frost;
When the breath congeals in the drover's beard,
And the old pathway to the barn is lost;...

"O I am weary!" she sighed, as her billowy
Hair she unloosed in a torrent of gold
That rippled and fell o'er a figure as willowy,
Graceful and fair as a goddess of old:...

Folks has be'n to town, and Sahry
Fetched 'er home a pet canary,
And of all the blame', contrary,
Aggervatin' things alive!
I love music - that I love it
When it's free - and plenty of it;...

The Child-World - long and long since lost to view -
A Fairy Paradise! -
How always fair it was and fresh and new -
How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyes
With treasures of surprise!
...

Pa he bringed me here to stay
'Til my Ma she's well. - An' nen
He's go' hitch up, Chris'mus-day,
An' come take me back again
Wher' my Ma's at! Won't I be
Tickled when he comes fer me!
...

I come upon it suddenly, alone -
A little pathway winding in the weeds
That fringe the roadside; and with dreams my own,
I wander as it leads.

Full wistfully along the slender way,...

I have sipped, with drooping lashes,
Dreamy draughts of Verzenay;
I have flourished brandy-smashes
In the wildest sort of way;
I have joked with "Tom and Jerry"
Till wee hours ayont the twal' -...

Allus when our Pa he's away
Nen Uncle Sidney comes to stay
At our house here - so Ma an' me
An' Etty an' Lee-Bob won't be
Afeard ef anything at night
Might happen - like Ma says it might.
...

All were quite gracious in their plaudits of
Bud's Fairy; but another stir above
That murmur was occasioned by a sweet
Young lady-caller, from a neighboring street,
Who rose reluctantly to say good-night...

Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing,
With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing,
Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air,
And a knot of red roses sown in under there...

Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing,
With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing,
Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air,
And a knot of red roses sown in under there...

Piped to the Spirit of John Keats.

I.

Would that my lips might pour out in thy praise
A fitting melody - an air sublime, -
A song sun-washed and draped in dreamy haze -...

Gracie wuz allus a careless tot;
But Gracie dearly loved her doll,
An' played wiv it on the winder-sill
'Way up-stairs, when she ought to not,
An' her muvver telled her so an' all;...

I' got no patience with blues at all!
And I ust to kindo talk
Aginst 'em, and claim, 'tel along last Fall,
They was none in the fambly stock;
But a nephew of mine, from Eelinoy,...

I dreamed I was a spider;
A big, fat, hungry spider;
A lusty, rusty spider
With a dozen palsied limbs;
With a dozen limbs that dangled
Where three wretched flies were tangled...

Mellow hazes, lowly trailing
Over wood and meadow, veiling
Somber skies, with wildfowl sailing
Sailor-like to foreign lands;
And the north-wind overleaping
Summer's brink, and floodlike sweeping...