Читать книгу The Poems of Madison Cawein. Volume 2 (of 5) - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 38

Sunday shall we ride together?

Not the root-rough, rambling way

Through the wood we went that day,

In last summer’s sultry weather.

Past the Methodist camp-meeting,

Where religion helped the hymn

Gather volume; and a slim

Minister, with textful greeting,

Welcomed us and still expounded.—

From the service on the hill

We had passed three hills and still

Loud, though far, the singing sounded.

Nor that road through weed and berry

Drowsy days led me and you

To the old-time barbecue,

Where the country-side made merry.

Dusty vehicles together;

Darkies with the horses near

Tied to trees; the atmosphere

Redolent of bark and leather,

And of burgoo and of beef; there

Roasting whole within the trench;

Near which spread the long pine bench

Under shading limb and leaf there.

As we went the homeward journey

You exclaimed, “They intermix

Pleasure there and politics,

Love and war: our modern tourney.”

And the fiddles!—through the thickets,

How they thumped the old quadrille!

Scraping, droning on the hill,

It was like a swarm of crickets....

Neither road! The shady quiet

Of that path by beech and birch,

Winding to the ruined church

Near the stream that sparkles by it.

Where the silent Sundays listen

For the preacher—Love—we bring

In our hearts to preach and sing

Week-day shade to Sabbath glisten.