Читать книгу Songs Ysame - Johnston Annie Fellows - Страница 3

WHENCE came the ember

That touched our young souls' candles first with light;

In shadowy years, too distant to remember,

Where childhood merges backward into night?

I know not, but the halo of those tapers

Has ever since around all nature shone;

And we have looked at life through golden vapors

Because of that one ember touch alone.

THOSE, who have heard the whispered breath

Of Nature's secret "Shibboleth,"

And learned the pass-word to unroll

The veil that hides her inmost soul,

May follow; but this by-path leads

Through mullein stalks and jimson-weeds.

And he who scorning treads them down

Would deem but poor and common-place

Those whom he'll meet in homespun gown.

But they who lovingly retrace

Their steps to scenes I dream about,

Will find the latch-string hanging out.

With them I claim companionship,

And for them burn my tallow-dip,

At early candle-lighting.

To these low hills, around which cling

My fondest thoughts, I would not bring

An alien eye long used to sights

Among the snow-crowned Alpine heights.

An eagle does not bend its wing

To low-built nests where robins sing.

Between the fence's zigzag rails,

The stranger sees the road that trails

Its winding way into the dark,

Fern-scented woods. He does not mark

The old log cabin at the end

As I, or hail it as a friend,

Or catch, when daylight's last rays wane,

The glimmer through its narrow pane

Of early candle-lighting.

As anglers sit and half in dream

Dip lazy lines into the stream,

And watch the swimming life below,

So I watch pictures come and go.

And in the flame, Alladin-wise,

See genii of the past arise.

If it be so that common things

Can fledge your fancy with fast wings;

If you the language can translate

Of lowly life, and make it great,

And can the beauty understand

That dignifies a toil-worn hand,

Look in this halo, and see how

The homely seems transfigured now

At early candle-lighting.

A fire-place where the great logs roar

And shine across the puncheon floor,

And through the chinked walls, here and there,

The snow steals, and the frosty air.

Meager and bare the furnishings,

But hospitality that kings

Might well dispense, transmutes to gold,

The welcome given young and old.

Plain and uncouth in speech and dress,

But richly clad in kindliness,

The neighbors gather, one by one,

At rustic rout when day is done.

Vanish all else in this soft light, —

The past is ours again tonight;

'Tis early candle-lighting.

Oh, well-remembered scenes like these:

The candy-pullings, husking-bees —

The evenings when the quilting frames

Were laid aside for romping games;

The singing school! The spelling match!

My hand still lingers on the latch,

I fain would wider swing the door

And enter with the guests once more.

Though into ashes long ago

That fire faded, still the glow

That warmed the hearts around it met,

Immortal, burns within me yet.

Still to that cabin in the wood

I turn for highest types of good

At early candle-lighting.

How fast the scenes come flocking to

My mind, as white sheep jostle through

The gap, when pasture bars are down,

And pass into the twilight brown.

Grandmother's face and snowy cap,

The knitting work upon her lap,

The creaking, high-backed rocking-chair;

The spinning-wheel, the big loom where

The shuttle carried song and thread;

The valance on the high, white bed

Whose folds the lavender still keep.

Oh! nowhere else such dreamless sleep

On tired eyes its deep spell lays,

As that which came in those old days

At early candle-lighting.

A kitchen lit by one dim light,

And 'round the table in affright,

A group of children telling tales.

Outside, the wind – a banshee – wails.

Even the shadows, that they throw

Upon the walls, to giants grow.

The hailstones 'gainst the window panes

Fall with the noise of clanking chains,

Till, glancing back, they almost feel

Black shapes from out the corners steal,

And, climbing to the loft o'erhead,

The witches follow them to bed.

The low flame flickers. Snuff the wick!

For ghosts and goblins crowd so thick

At early candle-lighting.

An orchard path that tramping feet

For half a century have beat;

Here to the fields at sun-up went

The reapers. Here, on errands sent,

Small bare-feet loitered, loath to go.

Here apple-boughs dropped blooming snow,

Through garden borders gaily set

With touch-me-nots and bouncing Bet;

Here passed at dusk the harvester

With quickened step and pulse astir

At sight of some one's fluttering gown,

Who stood with sunbonnet pulled down

And called the cows. Ah, in a glance

One reads that simple, old romance

At early candle-lighting.

One picture more. A winter day

Just done, and supper cleared away.

The romping children quiet grow,

And in the reverent silence, slow

The old man turns the sacred page,

Guide of his life and staff of age.

And then, the while my eyes grow dim,

The mother's voice begins a hymn:

"Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer

That calls me from a world of care!"

What wonder from those cabins rude

Came lives of stalwart rectitude,

When hearth-stones were the altars where

Arose the vestal flame of prayer

At early candle-lighting.

No crumbling castle walls are ours,

No ruined battlements and towers.

Our history, on callow wings,

Soared not in time of feudal kings;

No strolling minstrel's roundelay

Tells of past glory in decay,

But rugged life of pioneer

Has passed away among us here;

And as the ivy tendrils grow

About the ancient turrets, so

The influence of its sturdy truth

Shall live in never-ending youth,

When simple customs of its day

Have, long-forgotten, passed away

With early candle-lighting.

JUST now, beyond the turmoil and the din

Of crowded streets that city walls shut in,

I heard the whistle of a quail begin:

"Bob White! Bob White!"

So faintly and far away falling

It seemed that a dream voice was calling

"Bob White! Bob White!"

How the old sights and sounds come thronging

And thrill me with a sudden longing!

Through quiet country lanes the sunset shines.

Fence corners where the wild rose climbs and twines,

And blooms in tangled black-berry vines,

"Bob White! Bob White!"

I envy yon home-going swallow,

Oh, but swiftly to rise and follow —

Follow its flight,

Follow it back with happy flying,

Where green-clad hills are calmly lying.

Wheat fields whose golden silences are stirred

By whirring insect wings, and naught is heard

But plaintive callings of that one sweet word,

"Bob White! Bob White!"

And a smell of the clover growing

In the meadow lands ripe for mowing,

All red and white.

Over the shady creek comes sailing,

Past willows in the water trailing.

Tired heart, 'tis but in dreams I turn my feet,

Again to wander in the ripening wheat

And hear the whistle of the quail repeat

"Bob White! Bob White!"

But oh! there is joy in the knowing

That somewhere green pastures are growing,

Though out of sight.

And the light on those church spires dying,

On the old home meadow is lying.

HOW broad and deep was the fireplace old,

And the great hearth-stone how wide!

There was always room for the old man's chair

By the cosy chimney side,

And all the children that cared to crowd

At his knee in the evening-tide.

Room for all of the homeless ones

Who had nowhere else to go;

They might bask at ease in the grateful warmth

And sun in the cheerful glow,

For Grandfather's heart was as wide and warm

As the old fireplace, I know.

And he always found at his well-spread board

Just room for another chair;

There was always rest for another head

On the pillow of his care;

There was always place for another name

In his trustful morning prayer.

Oh, crowded world with your jostling throngs!

How narrow you grow, and small;

How cold, like a shadow across the heart,

Your selfishness seems to fall,

When I think of that fireplace warm and wide,

And the welcome awaiting all.

CLOSE to the road it stood among the trees,

The old, bare church, with windows small and high,

And open doors that gave, on meeting day,

A welcome to the careless passer by.

Its straight, uncushioned seats, how hard they seemed!

What penance-doing form they always wore

To little heads that could not reach the text,

And little feet that could not reach the floor.

What wonder that we hailed with strong delight

The buzzing wasp, slow sailing down the aisle,

Or, sunk in sin, beguiled the constant fly

From weary heads, to make our neighbors smile.

How softly from the churchyard came the breeze

That stirred the cedar boughs with scented wings,

And gently fanned the sleeper's heated brow

Or fluttered Grandma Barlow's bonnet strings.

With half-shut eyes, across the pulpit bent,

The preacher droned in soothing tones about

Some theme, that like the narrow windows high,

Took in the sky, but left terrestrials out.

Good, worthy man, his work on earth is done;

His place is lost, the old church passed away;

And with them, when they went, there must have gone

That sweet, bright calm, my childhood's Sabbath day.

SLOWLY adown the village street

With groping cane and faltering feet,

He goes each day through cold or heat —

Old Daddy Hight.

His hair is scant upon his head,

His eyes are dim, his nose is red,

And yet, his mien is stern and dread —

Old Daddy Hight.

The village lads his form descry

While yet afar, and boldly cry —

(For bears are scarce and rods are high)

"Old Daddy Hight!"

But when their fathers meet his glance,

They nod and smile and look askance.

He taught them once the Modoc dance —

Old Daddy Hight.

How long we cling to servitude,

How long we keep the schoolboy's mood!

Still seems with awful power endued —

Old Daddy Hight.

They feel a cringing of the knee,

Those fathers, yet, whene'er they see

Adown the walk pace solemnly —

Old Daddy Hight.

Wide is his fame, of how he taught,

And how he flogged, and reckoned naught

The toils and pains that knowledge bought —

Old Daddy Hight.

He had no lack of "ways and means"

To track the loiterers on the greens;

He scorned all counterfeits and screens —

Old Daddy Hight.

Oh, dire the day that brewed mishap!

That brought to luckless back his strap,

To hanging head his Dunce's cap —

Old Daddy Hight.

No blotted page dared meet his eye;

The owner quaked and wished to die,

When rod in hand, with wrath strode by —

Old Daddy Hight.

He helped them up the thorny steep

Of wisdom's path with pain to creep,

With vigilance that might not sleep —

Old Daddy Hight.

Now, down his life's long, slow decline,

He walks alone at eighty-nine —

The last of his illustrious line —

Old Daddy Hight.

INSIDE the cottage door she sits,

Just where the sunlight, softest there,

Slants down on snowy kerchief's bands,

On folded hands and silvered hair.

The garden pale her world shuts in,

A simple world made sweet with thyme,

Where life, soft lulled by droning bees,

Flows to the mill-stream's lapsing rhyme.

Poor are her cottage walls, and bare;

Too mean and small to harbor pride,

Yet with a musing gaze she sees

Her broad domains extending wide.

Green slopes of hills, and waving fields,

With blooming hedges set between,

Through shifting veils of tender mist,

Smile, half revealed, a mingled scene.

All hers, for lovingly she holds

A yellow packet in her hand,

Whose ancient, faded script proclaims

Her title to this spreading land.

Old letters! On the trembling page

Drop unawares, unheeded tears.

These are her title-deeds, her lands

Spread through the realms of by-gone years.