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,...

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:...

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,...

Uncle he says 'at 'way down in the sea
Ever'thing's ist like it used to be: -
He says they's mermaids, an' mermens, too,
An' little merchildern, like me an' you -
Little merboys, with tops an' balls,...

O were I not a clod, intent
On being just an earthly thing,
I'd be that rare embodiment
Of Heart and Spirit, Voice and Wing,
With pure, ecstatic, rapture-sent,
Divinely-tender twittering...

Ah, Luxury! Beyond the heat
And dust of town, with dangling feet,
Astride the rock below the dam,
In the cool shadows where the calm
Rests on the stream again, and all
Is silent save the waterfall, -...

Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger:
Let's toddle home again, for we have gone astray;
Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger
Back to the Lotus lands of the far-away.
...

Back from a two-years' sentence!
And though it had been ten,
You think, I were scarred no deeper
In the eyes of my fellow-men.
"My fellow-men?" Sounds like a satire,
You think - and I so allow,...

Old friends allus is the best,
Halest-like and heartiest:
Knowed us first, and don't allow
We're so blame much better now!
They was standin' at the bars
When we grabbed "the kivvered kyars"...

O your hands - they are strangely fair!
Fair - for the jewels that sparkle there, -
Fair - for the witchery of the spell
That ivory keys alone can tell;
But when their delicate touches rest...

1
Would that the winds might only blow
As they blew in the golden long ago!
Laden with odors of Orient isles
Where ever and ever the sunshine smiles,
And the bright sands blend with the shady trees,...

Why did we meet long years of yore?
And why did we strike hands and say
"We will be friends and nothing more";
Why are we musing thus to-day?
Because because was just because,...

O love is like an untamed steed! -
So hot of heart and wild of speed,
And with fierce freedom so in love,
The desert is not vast enough,
With all its leagues of glimmering sands,...

Being his mother - when he goes away
I would not hold him overlong, and so
Sometimes my yielding sight of him grows O
So quick of tears, I joy he did not stay
To catch the faintest rumor of them! Nay,...

Be our fortunes as they may,
Touched with loss or sorrow,
Saddest eyes that weep to-day
May be glad to-morrow.

Yesterday the rain was here,
And the winds were blowing -...

The merriment that followed was subdued -
As though the story-teller's attitude
Were dual, in a sense, appealing quite
As much to sorrow as to mere delight,
According, haply, to the listener's bent...

Ho! it's come, kids, come!
"With a bim! bam! bum!
Here's little Billy bangin' on his big bass drum!
He's a-marchin' round the room,
With his feather-duster plume...