Читать книгу Spider-webs in Verse: A Collection of Lyrics for Leisure Moments, Spun at Idle Hours - Charles William Wallace - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Brother Grant, do you remember

Days and years we spent together

Thro’ the summer’s shiny weather

Till apples dropped in late September?

Nurtured where the warm suns shine in,

We were dreamers then, my brother,

As we lisped to one another,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Guess you haven’t forgotten that yet,

Have you? I can shut my eyes and

See the old tree where we sat yet,—

Hear the rhythm of that thing rise and

Fall like echoes of the distant brine in

Some fair shell; and like it clinging

To the past, my heart keeps singing,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

I’ll be plagued if I can tell yet

What that hitching nonsense jingle

Meant, can you? I can smell yet,

Tho’, the blossoms;—hear the lingle

Of the bells of lolling kine in

Slaughter’s grove;—see the pink of

Fruit above us when I think of

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

I can taste those old Benoni

Apples yet—(fall apples—mellow

As the winds that kissed the bony

Branches into blossom; yellow—

Butter-yellow—and as fine in

Taste as Flemish Beauty pears were)—

For our burdensomest cares were,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Ah, my boy, you haven’t forgotten

How with wooden men we pounded

Them when green till almost rotten

Just to get the juice out? Sounded

Mighty tempting with that wine in

There just squushing for the skin to

Burst and let us both fall into

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Ha! ha! ha! what little scheming

Rascals we were then, my laddie!—

Knock off apples just half-dreaming

Ripeness, stain the stems that had a

Fresh look with some dirt—divine in

Innocence!—then run to mother,

Each one chuckling to the other,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Tell her then we’d found them lying

On the ground (we had, too!) asking

If we might not have them, trying

Every childish art, nor masking

Mouths just watering to dine in

Glory on them. When we’d got our

“Yes!” all earth I’m certain, caught our

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Oh the days and days together

In the lazy days of childhood

Through the shade and shiny weather

Of the Long Agone’s deep wildwood

When we clad our men of pine in

Every phase of human action,

Sang to them the old “attraction,”

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een”!

Through my hazing, half-closed lashes

As I watch the steady blazing

Of my fangled oil-stove, plashes

Of that olden rhythm come lazing

From the lethy mists, and shine in

Irised splendors where the tilting

Timid Robin still is lilting,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Oh the golden old Benonis

With a heart as rich and yellow

As the moon, no apple known is

Half so high or half so mellow,

For they’ve drunk the sun’s whole shine in

And preserved our boyhood’s story

With it’s olden, golden glory,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”