Chapter C: E. Carryl lived the greater part of his life in New York, but on (1)

retiring from business, removed to Boston and lived there until his
death, which occurred in the summer of 1920.

THE PLAINT OF THE CAMEL

“Canary-birds feed on sugar and seed,
Parrots have crackers to crunch;
And as for the poodles, they tell me the noodles
Have chickens and cream for their lunch.
But there’s never a question
About MY digestion—
ANYTHING does for me!

“Cats, you’re aware, can repose in a chair,
Chickens can roost upon rails;
Puppies are able to sleep in a stable,
And oysters can slumber in pails.
But no one supposes
A poor Camel dozes—
ANY PLACE does for me!

“Lambs are enclosed where it’s never exposed,
Coops are constructed for hens;
Kittens are treated to houses well heated,
And pigs are protected by pens.
But a Camel comes handy
Wherever it’s sandy—
ANYWHERE does for me!

“People would laugh if you rode a giraffe,
Or mounted the back of an ox;
It’s nobody’s habit to ride on a rabbit,
Or try to bestraddle a fox.
But as for a Camel, he’s
Ridden by families—
ANY LOAD does for me!

“A snake is as round as a hole in the ground;
Weasels are wavy and sleek;
And no alligator could ever be straighter
Than lizards that live in a creek.
But a Camel’s all lumpy
And bumpy and humpy—
ANY SHAPE does for me!”

ROBINSON CRUSOE’S STORY

The night was thick and hazy
When the “Piccadilly Daisy”
Carried down the crew and captain in the sea;
And I think the water drowned ’em;
For they never, never found ’em
And I know they didn’t come ashore with me.
Oh! ’twas very sad and lonely
When I found myself the only
Population on this cultivated shore;
But I’ve made a little tavern
In a rocky little cavern,
And I sit and watch for people at the door.

I spent no time in looking
For a girl to do my cooking,
As I’m quite a clever hand at making stews;
But I had that fellow Friday,
Just to keep the tavern tidy,
And to put a Sunday polish on my shoes.

I have a little garden
That I’m cultivating lard in,
As the things I eat are rather tough and dry;
For I live on toasted lizards,
Prickly pears, and parrot gizzards,
And I’m really very fond of beetle-pie.

The clothes I had were furry,
And it made me fret and worry
When I found the moths were eating off the hair;
And I had to scrape and sand ’em,
And I boiled ’em and I tanned ’em,
Till I got the fine morocco suit I wear.
I sometimes seek diversion
In a family excursion
With the few domestic animals you see;
And we take along a carrot
As refreshment for the parrot,
And a little can of jungleberry tea.

Then we gather as we travel,
Bits of moss and dirty gravel,
And we chip off little specimens of stone;
And we carry home as prizes
Funny bugs, of handy sizes,
Just to give the day a scientific tone.

If the roads are wet and muddy
We remain at home and study,—
For the Goat is very clever at a sum,—
And the Dog, instead of fighting,
Studies ornamental writing,
While the Cat is taking lessons on the drum.

We retire at eleven,
And we rise again at seven;
And I wish to call attention, as I close,
To the fact that all the scholars
Are correct about their collars,
And particular in turning out their toes.

_James Whitcomb Riley_

James Whitcomb Riley, who was possibly the most widely read native
poet of his day, was born October 7, 1849, in Greenfield, Indiana, a
small town twenty miles from Indianapolis, where he spent his later
years. Contrary to the popular belief, Riley was not, as many have
gathered from his bucolic dialect poems, a struggling child of the
soil; his father was a lawyer in comfortable circumstances and Riley
was not only given a good education but was prepared for the law.
His temperament, however, craved something more adventurous. At
eighteen he shut the heavy pages of Blackstone, slipped out of the
office and joined a traveling troupe of actors who sold patent
medicines during the intermissions. Riley’s functions were varied:
he beat the bass-drum, painted their flaring banners, wrote local
versions of old songs, coached the actors and, when occasion arose,
took part in the performance himself.

Even before this time, Riley had begun to send verses to the
newspapers, frank experiments, bits of homely sentiment, simple
snatches and elaborate hoaxes—the poem “Leonainie,” published over
the initials “E. A. P.,” being accepted in many quarters as a newly
discovered poem by Poe. In 1882, when he was on the staff of the
Indianapolis _Journal_, he began the series of dialect poems which
he claimed were by a rude and unlettered farmer, one “Benj. F.
Johnson, of Boone, the Hoosier poet”—printing long extracts from
“Boone’s” ungrammatical and badly-spelt letters to prove his find. A
collection of these rustic verses appeared, in 1883, as _The Ole
Swimmin’ Hole_; and Riley leaped into widespread popularity.

Other collections followed rapidly: _Afterwhiles_ (1887),
_Old-Fashioned Roses_ (1888), _Pipes o’ Pan at Zekesbury_ (1889),
_Rhymes of Childhood_ (1890). All met an instant response; Riley
endeared himself, by his homely idiom and his childlike ingenuity,
to a countryful of readers, adolescent and adult.

But Riley’s simplicity is not always as artless as it seems. Time
and again, one can see him trading wantonly on the emotions of his
unsophisticated readers; he sees them about to smile—and broadens
the point of his joke; he observes them on the point of tears—and
pulls out the sobbing _tremolo_ stop. In many respects, he is
patently the most artificial of those poets who claim to give us the
stuff of the soil. He is the poet of obtrusive sentiment rather than
of quiet convictions; of lulling assurance, of philosophies that
never disturb his readers, of sweet truisms rather than searching
truths.

That work of his which may endure, will survive because of the
personal flavor that Riley often fused into it. Such poems as “When
the Frost is on the Punkin,” “The Raggedy Man,” “Our Hired Girl” are
a part of American folk literature; “Little Orphant Annie” is read
wherever there is a schoolhouse or, for that matter, a nursery. In
1912 the schools throughout the country observed his birthday.

Riley died in his little house in Lockerbie Street, Indianapolis,
July 22, 1916.

“WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN”[7]

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock, And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock, And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens, And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best, With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here— Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees; But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock— When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn; The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!— O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock. Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps; And your cider-makin’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!... I don’t know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be As the angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on _me_— I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock— When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

A PARTING GUEST[8]

What delightful hosts are they—
Life and Love!
Lingeringly I turn away,
This late hour, yet glad enough
They have not withheld from me
Their high hospitality.
So, with face lit with delight
And all gratitude, I stay
Yet to press their hands and say,
“Thanks.—So fine a time! Good night.”

_Eugene Field_

Although born (September 3, 1850) in St. Louis, Missouri, Eugene
Field belongs to the literature of the far West. Colorado and the
Rocky Mountain region claimed him as their own and Field never
repudiated the allegiance; he even called most of his poetry
“Western Verse.”

Field’s area of education embraced New England, Missouri, and what
European territory he could cover in six months. At twenty-three he
became a reporter on the St. Louis _Evening Journal_, the rest of
his life being given, with a dogged devotion, to journalism. Driven
by the demands of his unique daily columns (those on the Denver
_Tribune_ [1881–1883] and the Chicago _Daily News_ [1883–1895] were
widely copied), Field first capitalized and then standardized his
high spirits, his erudition, his whimsicality, his fondness for
children. He wrote so often with his tongue in his cheek that it is
difficult to say where true sentiment stops and an exaggerated
sentimentality begins. “Field,” says Fred Lewis Pattee, in his
detailed study of _American Literature Since 1870_, “more than any
other writer of the period, illustrates the way the old type of
literary scholar was to be modified and changed by the newspaper.
Every scrap of Field’s voluminous product was written for immediate
newspaper consumption. He patronized not at all the literary
magazines, he wrote his books not at all with book intent—he made
them up from newspaper fragments.... He was a pioneer in a peculiar
province: he stands for the journalization of literature, a process
that, if carried to its logical extreme, will make of the man of
letters a mere newspaper reporter.”

Though Field still may be overrated in some quarters, there is
little doubt that certain of his child lyrics, his homely
philosophic ballads (in the vein which Harte and Riley popularized)
and his brilliant burlesques will occupy a niche in American
letters. Readers of all tastes will find much to surprise and
delight them in _A Little Book of Western Verse_ (1889), _With
Trumpet and Drum_ (1892), _A Second Book of Verse_ (1893) and those
remarkable versions (and perversions) of Horace, _Echoes from the
Sabine Farm_ (1893) written in collaboration with his equally adroit
brother, Roswell M. Field. A complete one-volume edition of his
verse was issued in 1910.

Field died in Chicago, Illinois, November 4, 1895.

OUR TWO OPINIONS[9]

Us two wuz boys when we fell out,—
Nigh to the age uv my youngest now;
Don’t rec’lect what ’twuz about,
Some small deeff’rence, I’ll allow.
Lived next neighbors twenty years,
A-hatin’ each other, me ’nd Jim,—
He having _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’Nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.

Grew up together ’nd wouldn’t speak,
Courted sisters, ’nd marr’d ’em, too;
’Tended same meetin’-house oncet a week,
A-hatin’ each other through ’nd through!
But when Abe Linkern asked the West
F’r soldiers, we answered,—me ’nd Jim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’Nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.

But down in Tennessee one night
Ther’ wuz sound uv firin’ fur away,
’Nd the sergeant allowed ther’d be a fight
With the Johnnie Rebs some time nex’ day;
’Nd as I wuz thinkin’ uv Lizzie ’nd home
Jim stood afore me, long ’nd slim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’Nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.

Seemed like we knew there wuz goin’ to be
Serious trouble f’r me ’nd him;
Us two shuck hands, did Jim ’nd me,
But never a word from me or Jim!
He went _his_ way ’nd _I_ went _mine_,
’Nd into the battle’s roar went we,—
_I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin of Jim,
’Nd _he_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_.

Jim never came back from the war again,
But I hain’t forgot that last, last night
When, waitin’ f’r orders, us two men
Made up ’nd shuck hands, afore the fight,
’Nd after it all, it’s soothin’ to know
That here I be ’nd younder’s Jim,—
_He_ havin’ _his_ opinyin uv _me_,
’Nd _I_ havin’ _my_ opinyin uv _him_.

LITTLE BOY BLUE[10]

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
The little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

“Now don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So, toddling off to his trundle bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue—
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.

SEEIN’ THINGS[11]

I ain’t afraid uv snakes or toads, or bugs or worms or mice,
An’ things ’at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I’m pretty brave I guess; an’ yet I hate to go to bed,
For, when I’m tucked up warm an’ snug an’ when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me “Happy Dreams” an’ takes away the light,
An’ leaves me lyin’ all alone an’ seein’ things at night!

Sometimes they’re in the corner, sometimes they’re by the door,
Sometimes they’re all a-standin’ in the middle uv the floor;
Sometimes they are a-sittin’ down, sometimes they’re walkin’ round
So softly and so creepy-like they never make a sound!
Sometimes they are as black as ink, an’ other times they’re white—
But color ain’t no difference when you see things at night!

Once, when I licked a feller ’at had just moved on our street,
An’ father sent me up to bed without a bite to eat,
I woke up in the dark an’ saw things standin’ in a row,
A-lookin’ at me cross-eyed an’ p’intin’ at me—_so!_
Oh, my! I wuz so skeered ’at time I never slep’ a mite—
It’s almost alluz when I’m bad I see things at night!

Lucky thing I ain’t a girl or I’d be skeered to death!
Bein’ I’m a boy, I duck my head an’ hold my breath.
An’ I am, oh _so_ sorry I’m a naughty boy, an’ then
I promise to be better an’ I say my prayers again!
Gran’ma tells me that’s the only way to make it right
When a feller has been wicked an’ sees things at night!

An’ so when other naughty boys would coax me into sin,
I try to skwush the Tempter’s voice ’at urges me within;
An’ when they’s pie for supper, or cakes ’at’s big an’ nice,
I want to—but I do not pass my plate f’r them things twice!
No, ruther let Starvation wipe me slowly out o’ sight
Than I should keep a-livin’ on an’ seein’ things at night!

_Edwin Markham_

Edwin Markham was born in Oregon City, Oregon, April 23, 1852, the
youngest son of pioneer parents. His father died before he had
reached his fifth year and in 1857 he was taken by his mother to a
wild valley in the Suisun Hills in central California. Here he grew
to young manhood; farming, broncho-riding, laboring on a cattle
ranch, educating himself in the primitive country schools and
supplementing his studies with whatever books he could procure. At
eighteen he determined to be a teacher and entered the State Normal
School at San Jose. After some years he became superintendent and
principal of various schools in that locality.

Since childhood, Markham had been writing verses of no extraordinary
merit, one of his earliest pieces being a typically Bryonic echo (_A
Dream of Chaos_) full of the high-sounding fustian of the period.
Several years before he uttered his famous challenge, Markham was
writing poems of protest, insurrectionary in theme but conventional
in effect. Suddenly, in 1899, a new force surged through him; a
sense of outrage at the inequality of human struggle voiced itself
in the sweeping and sonorous poem, “The Man with the Hoe.” (See
Preface.) Inspired by Millet’s painting, Markham made the bowed,
broken French peasant a symbol of the poverty-stricken toiler in all
lands—his was a protest not against labor but the drudgery, the
soul-destroying exploitation of labor. “The Yeoman is the landed and
well-to-do farmer,” says Markham, “you need shed no tears for him.
But here in the Millet picture is his opposite—the Hoeman; the
landless, the soul-blighted workman of the world, the dumb creature
that has no time to rest, no time to think, no time for the hopes
that make us men.” ... “The Man with the Hoe,” with its demand for a
keener sense of social responsibility, was not wholly cast in the
key of challenge. It looked to a more expansive future when “all
workers will think and all thinkers will work”; it answered Music’s
great trio of B.’s (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms) with the need of a
greater three: “Bread, Beauty and Brotherhood.”

The success of the poem upon its appearance in the San Francisco
_Examiner_ (January 15, 1899) was instantaneous and universal. The
lines appeared in every part of the globe; it was quoted and copied
in every walk of life, in the literary world, the leisure world, the
labor world. The same year of its publication, it was incorporated
in Markham’s first volume _The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems_
(1899). Two years later, his almost as well known poem was
published. The same passion that fired Markham to champion the great
common workers equipped him to write fittingly of the Great Commoner
in _Lincoln, and Other Poems_ (1901). His later volumes are
dignified and melodious but scarcely remarkable. Never reaching the
heights of his two early classics, there are, nevertheless, many
moments of a related nobility in _The Shoes of Happiness_ (1914) and
_The Gates of Paradise_ (1920).

Markham came East in 1901, his home being on Staten Island, New
York.

OUTWITTED

He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

THE MAN WITH THE HOE[12]

(_Written after seeing Millet’s world-famous painting_)

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this—
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed—
More filled with signs and portents for the soul—
More packt with danger to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him

Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the Future reckon with this man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?

PREPAREDNESS

For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear—
When you are the hammer, strike.

LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE[13]

When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.
She took the tried clay of the common road—
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth,
Dasht through it all a strain of prophecy;
Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears;
Then mixt a laughter with the serious stuff.
Into the shape she breathed a flame to light
That tender, tragic, ever-changing face;
And laid on him a sense of the Mystic Powers,
Moving—all husht—behind the mortal vail.
Here was a man to hold against the world,
A man to match the mountains and the sea.

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;
The smack and tang of elemental things:
The rectitude and patience of the cliff;
The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves;
The friendly welcome of the wayside well;
The courage of the bird that dares the sea;
The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;
The pity of the snow that hides all scars;
The secrecy of streams that make their way
Under the mountain to the rifted rock;
The tolerance and equity of light
That gives as freely to the shrinking flower
As to the great oak flaring to the wind—
To the grave’s low hill as to the Matterhorn
That shoulders out the sky. Sprung from the West,
He drank the valorous youth of a new world.
The strength of virgin forests braced his mind,
The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul.
His words were oaks in acorns; and his thoughts
Were roots that firmly gript the granite truth.

Up from log cabin to the Capitol,
One fire was on his spirit, one resolve—
To send the keen ax to the root of wrong,
Clearing a free way for the feet of God,
The eyes of conscience testing every stroke,
To make his deed the measure of a man.
He built the rail-pile as he built the State,
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow:
The grip that swung the ax in Illinois
Was on the pen that set a people free.

So came the Captain with the mighty heart;
And when the judgment thunders split the house,
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest,
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again
The rafters of the Home. He held his place—
Held the long purpose like a growing tree—
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

_C. E. S. Wood_

Charles Erskine Scott Wood was born at Erie, Pennsylvania, February
20, 1852, educated at the United States Military Academy (1874) and
Columbia, where he received the degrees of Ph.B. and LL.B. in 1883.
Wood served in the United States Army for almost ten years, acting
as lieutenant in various campaigns against the Indians during
1877–8. He was admitted to the bar in 1884, practised at Portland,
Oregon, and retired in 1919.

In 1901, he published _A Book of Tales, Being Myths of the North
American Indians_. In 1904, his symbolic _A Masque of Love_
appeared. His finest work, however, is _The Poet in the Desert_
(1915), a sonorous pageant of protest from which the two selections
have been taken.

SUNRISE

The lean coyote, prowler of the night, Slips to his rocky fastnesses. Jack-rabbits noiselessly shuttle among the sage-brush, And, from the castellated cliffs, Rock-ravens launch their proud black sails upon the day. The wild horses troop back to their pastures.

The poplar-trees watch beside the irrigation-ditches. Orioles, whose nests sway in the cotton-wood trees by the ditch-side, begin to twitter. All shy things, breathless, watch The thin white skirts of dawn, The dancer of the sky, Who trips daintily down the mountain-side Emptying her crystal chalice.... And a red-bird, dipped in sunrise, cracks from a poplar’s top His exultant whip above a silver world.

THE DESERT

She is a nun, withdrawing behind her veil;
Grey, mysterious, meditative, unapproachable.
Her body is tawny with the eagerness of the Sun
And her eyes are pools which shine in deep canyons.
She is a beautiful swart woman
With opals at her throat,
Rubies at her wrists
And topaz about her ankles.
Her breasts are like the evening and the day stars.

She sits upon her throne of light, proud and silent,
Indifferent to wooers.
The Sun is her servitor, the stars her attendants,
Running before her.
She sings a song unto her own ears,
Solitary but sufficient;
The song of her being.
She is a naked dancer, dancing upon
A pavement of porphyry and pearl,
Dazzling, so that the eyes must be shaded.
She wears the stars upon her bosom
And braids her hair with the constellations.

_Irwin Russell_

Irwin Russell was born, June 3, 1853, at Port Gibson, Mississippi,
where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. His restless
nature and wayward disposition drove him from one place to another,
from dissipation to dissipation, from a not too rugged health to an
utter breakdown. In July, 1879, he was forced to leave New York,
working his way down to New Orleans on a coast steamer, trying to
rehabilitate himself as reporter on the New Orleans _Picayune_. But
illness pursued him and the following December Russell died, cut
off, in the midst of his promise, before he had reached his
twenty-seventh year.

Although Russell did not take his poetry seriously and though the
bulk of it is small, its influence has been large. Thomas Nelson
Page and Joel Chandler Harris have acknowledged their indebtedness
to him; the creator of Uncle Remus writing, “Irwin Russell was
among the first—if not the very first—of Southern writers to
appreciate the literary possibilities of the negro character.” He
entered their life, appreciated their fresh turns of thought, saw
things with that peculiar mixture of reverence and unconscious
humor that is so integral a part of negro songs and spirituals.
“Blessing the Dance” and “The Song of the Banjo” (from Russell’s
operetta _Christmas-Night in the Quarters_, possibly his best
known work) are excellent examples; faithful renderings of the
mind of the old-fashioned, simple and sententious child of the
plantation. In the latter poem the old story of Noah is told, with
delightful additions, from the colorful angle of the darky; local
in its setting, revealing in its quaint psychology.

A collection of his poems appeared, with an introduction by Joel
Chandler Harris, in 1888. In 1917, a more inclusive volume,
beautifully printed, with illustrations by E. W. Kemble, was
published by The Century Co.; it was entitled _Christmas-Night in
the Quarters_.

Russell died, in an obscure boarding house in New Orleans, December
23, 1879.

BLESSING THE DANCE

(From _Christmas-Night in the Quarters_)

O Mahsr! let dis gath’rin fin’ a blessin’ in yo’ sight!
Don’t jedge us hard fur what we does—yo’ know it’s Chrismus-night;
An’ all de balunce ob de yeah we does as right’s we kin.
Ef dancin’s wrong, O Mahsr! let de time excuse de sin!

We labors in de vin’ya’d, wukin’ hard an’ wukin’ true;
Now, shorely yo’ won’t notus, ef we eats a grape or two,
An’ takes a leetle holiday,—a leetle restin’-spell,—
Bekase, nex’ week, we’ll start in fresh, an’ labor twicet as well.

Remember, Mahsr,—min’ dis now,—de sinfullness ob sin
Is ’pendin’ ’pon de sperrit what we goes an’ does it in;
An’ in a righchis frame ob min’ we’s gwine to dance an’ sing,
A-feelin’ like King David, when he cut de pigeon-wing.

It seems to me—indeed it do—I mebbe mout be wrong—
Dat people raly _ought_ to dance, when Chrismus comes along;
Des dance bekase dey’s happy—like de birds hops in de trees,
De pine-top fiddle soundin’ to be bowin’ ob de breeze.

We has no ark to dance afore, like Isrul’s prophet king;
We has no harp to soun’ de chords, to holp us out to sing;
But ’cordin’ to de gif’s we has we does de bes’ we knows,
An’ folks don’t ’spise de vi’let-flower bekase it ain’t de rose.

Yes, bless us, please, Sah, eben ef we’s doin’ wrong to-night;
Kase den we’ll need de blessin’ more’n ef we’s doin’ right;
An’ let de blessin’s stay wid us, untel we comes to die,
An’ goes to keep our Chrismus wid dem sheriffs in de sky!

Yes, tell dem preshis anguls we’s a-gwine to jine ’em soon:
Our voices we’s a-trainin’ fur to sing de glory tune;
We’s ready when you wants us, an’ it ain’t no matter when.
O Mahsr! call yo’ chillen soon, an’ take ’em home! _Amen._

DE FUST BANJO

Go ’way, fiddle! folks is tired o’ hearin’ you a-squawkin’. Keep silence fur yo’ betters! don’t you heah de banjo talkin’? About de ’possum’s tail she’s gwine to lecter—ladies, listen! About de ha’r whut isn’t dar, an’ why de ha’r is missin’:

“Dar’s gwine to be a’ oberflow,” said Noah, lookin’ solemn— Fur Noah tuk de “Herald,” an’ he read de ribber column— An’ so he sot his hands to wuk a-clarin’ timber-patches, An’ ’lowed he’s gwine to build a boat to beat de steamah _Natchez_.

Ol’ Noah kep’ a-nailin’ an’ a-chippin’ an’ a-sawin’; An’ all de wicked neighbors kep’ a-laughin’ an’ a-pshawin’; But Noah didn’t min’ ’em, knowin’ whut wuz gwine to happen: An’ forty days an’ forty nights de rain it kep’ a-drappin’.

Now, Noah had done cotched a lot ob ebry sort o’ beas’es— Ob all de shows a-trabbelin’, it beat ’em all to pieces! He had a Morgan colt an’ sebral head o’ Jarsey cattle— An’ druv ’em ’board de Ark as soon’s he heered de thunder rattle.

Den sech anoder fall ob rain! It come so awful hebby, De ribber riz immejitly, an’ busted troo de lebbee; De people all wuz drownded out—’cep’ Noah an’ de critters, An’ men he’d hired to wuk de boat—an’ one to mix de bitters.

De Ark she kep’ a-sailin’ an’ a-sailin’ _an’_ a-sailin’; De lion got his dander up, an’ like to bruk de palin’; De sarpints hissed; de painters yelled; tel’, whut wid all de fussin’, You c’u’dn’t hardly heah de mate a-bossin’ ’roun’ an’ cussin’.

Now Ham, de only nigger whut wuz runnin’ on de packet, Got lonesome in de barber-shop, an’ c’u’dn’t stan’ de racket; An’ so, fur to amuse he-se’f, he steamed some wood an’ bent it, An’ soon he had a banjo made—de fust dat wuz invented.

He wet de ledder, stretched it on; made bridge an’ screws an’ aprin; An’ fitted in a proper neck—’twuz berry long an’ taprin’; He tuk some tin, an’ twisted him a thimble fur to ring it: An’ den de mighty question riz: how wuz he gwine to string it?

De ’possum had as fine a tail as dis dat I’s a-singin’; De ha’r’s so long an’ thick an’ strong,—des fit fur banjo-stringin’; Dat nigger shaved ’em off as short as washday-dinner graces: An’ sorted ob ’em by de size—f’om little E’s to basses.

He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig,—’twuz “_Nebber min’ de wedder_,”— She soun’ like forty-lebben bands a-playin’ all togedder: Some went to pattin’; some to dancin’: Noah called de figgers; An’ Ham he sot an’ knocked de tune, de happiest ob niggers!

Now, sence dat time—it’s mighty strange—dere’s not de slightes’ showin’ Ob any ha’r at all upon de ’possum’s tail a-growin’; An’ curi’s, too, dat nigger’s ways: his people nebber los’ ’em— Fur whar you finds de nigger—dar’s de banjo an’ de ’possum!

_Edith M. Thomas_

Edith Matilda Thomas was born at Chatham, Ohio, August 12, 1854. She
was educated in the Normal Institute at Geneva, Ohio, and has been
living in New York since 1888.

Miss Thomas is the author of some dozen books of verse, most of them
lightly lyrical in mood, although many of her individual poems have
a spiritually dramatic quality. The best of her work may be found in
_Lyrics and Sonnets_ (1887) and _The Flower from the Ashes_ (1915).

“FROST TO-NIGHT”

Apple-green west and an orange bar;
And the crystal eye of a lone, one star ...
And, “Child, take the shears and cut what you will,
Frost to-night—so clear and dead-still.”

Then I sally forth, half sad, half proud,
And I come to the velvet, imperial crowd,
The wine-red, the gold, the crimson, the pied,—
The dahlias that reign by the garden-side.

The dahlias I might not touch till to-night!
A gleam of shears in the fading light,
And I gathered them all,—the splendid throng,
And in one great sheaf I bore them along.

· · · · · ·

In my garden of Life with its all late flowers
I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours:
“Frost to-night—so clear and dead-still” ...
Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.

_George Edward Woodberry_

George Edward Woodberry was born in Beverly, Mass., May 12, 1855,
and studied at Harvard; his early efforts receiving the approval of
James Russell Lowell. From 1891 to 1904 he was Professor of
Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he exercised a
keen influence on many of the younger writers.

His work is decidedly romantic and classical in style, leaning
heavily toward the Tennysonian tradition. Although there is an
undercurrent of spiritual beauty throughout his poetry, he
frequently loses his power of exaltation in a rhetoric that is both
stilted and sentimental. His chief collections of verse are _The
Flight and Other Poems_ (1900), _Wild Eden_ (1914) and _The Roamer
and Other Poems_ (1920). He has also written several books of
essays, criticism and biography.

IMMORTAL LOVE

Immortal Love, too high for my possessing,—
Yet, lower than thee, where shall I find repose?
Long in my youth I sang the morning rose,
By earthly things the heavenly pattern guessing!
Long fared I on, beauty and love caressing,
And finding in my heart a place for those
Eternal fugitives; the golden close
Of evening folds me, still their sweetness blessing.

Oh, happy we, the first-born heirs of nature,
For whom the Heavenly Sun delays his light!
He by the sweets of every mortal creature
Tempers eternal beauty to our sight;
And by the glow upon love’s earthly feature
Maketh the path of our departure bright.

A SONG OF SUNRISE

(_On the Morning of the Russian Revolution_)

To those who drink the golden mist
Whereon the world’s horizons rest,
Who teach the peoples to resist
The terrors of the human breast:—
By burning stake and prison-camp
They lead the march of man divine,
Above whose head the sacred lamp
Of liberty doth blaze and shine;
O’er blood and tears and nameless woe
They hail far off the dawning light;
Through faith in them the nations go,
Sun-smitten in the deepest night:—
Honor to them from East to West
Be on the shouting earth to-day!
Holy their memory! Sweet their rest!
Who fill the skies with freedom’s ray!

_H. C. Bunner_

Henry Cuyler Bunner, one of our most delightful writers of light
verse, was born at Oswego, New York, in 1855. At twenty-two he was
appointed editor of _Puck_ (then the most prominent of comic
weeklies), a position which he held until his death. For more than
ten years he wrote almost all the rhymed contributions to that
journal—to say nothing of quantities of short stories (his _Short
Sixes_, first published in 1890, are still well-known), prose
paragraphs, topical parodies, editorials, etc. Like Field, the
artist was finally buried in the journalist; but, unlike him, Bunner
kept the work of the serious poet separate from that of the
manufacturer of satiric trifles. Yet, in spite of certain exquisite
fragments in _Airs from Arcady_ (1884) and _Rowen: Second Crop
Songs_ (1892), Bunner is likely to be remembered chiefly for his
flippant _vers de société_, his skilful and grave absurdities.

“Behold the Deeds!” is a splendid example of Bunner’s wit and
technical ingenuity. It is a burlesque of the old ballads in the
guise of a Chant-Royal, one of the strictest and most difficult of
the French forms. Another of his uncollected comic pieces (“Shake,
Mulleary and Go-ethe”) owes its origin to the fact that a certain
Western poet (Joaquin Miller) had composed a poem in which the name
of the author of “Faust” was made to rhyme with “teeth.” Bunner not
only adopted this rhyme, but carried the broad satire further by
mispronouncing Molière, achieving one of his happiest compositions.

Bunner’s was, at best, an artificial world, a world of graceful
compliments, polite evasions, rhymed _billets doux_, with light
sighs and lighter laughter tinkling among the tea-cups. Bunner died,
in New Jersey, in 1896.

SHAKE, MULLEARY AND GO-ETHE

I have a bookcase, which is what
Many much better men have not.
There are no books inside, for books,
I am afraid, might spoil its looks.
But I’ve three busts, all second-hand,
Upon the top. You understand
I could not put them underneath—
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.
Shake was a dramatist of note;
He lived by writing things to quote.
He long ago put on his shroud;
Some of his works are rather loud.
His bald-spot’s dusty, I suppose.
I know there’s dust upon his nose.
I’ll have to give each nose a sheath—
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

Mulleary’s line was quite the same;
He has more hair, but far less fame.
I would not from that fame retrench—
But he is foreign, being French.
Yet high his haughty head he heaves,
The only one done up in leaves,
They’re rather limited on wreath—
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

Go-ethe wrote in the German tongue:
He must have learned it very young.
His nose is quite a butt for scoff,
Although an inch of it is off.
He did quite nicely for the Dutch;
But here he doesn’t count for much.
They all are off their native heath—
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

They sit there, on their chests, as bland
As if they were not second-hand.
I do not know of what they think,
Nor why they never frown or wink.
But why from smiling they refrain
I think I clearly can explain:
They none of them could show much teeth—
Shake, Mulleary and Go-ethe.

BEHOLD THE DEEDS!

(_Being the Plaint of Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, Salesman of Fancy
Notions, held in durance of his Landlady for a “failure to connect”
on Saturday night._)

I would that all men my hard case would know,
How grievously I suffer for no sin:
I, Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, for lo!
I of my landlady am lockèd in
For being short on this sad Saturday,
Nor having shekels of silver wherewith to pay:
She turned and is departed with my key;
Wherefore, not even as other boarders free,
I sing, (as prisoners to their dungeon-stones
When for ten days they expiate a spree):
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

One night and one day have I wept my woe;
Nor wot I, when the morrow doth begin,
If I shall have to write to Briggs & Co.,
To pray them to advance the requisite tin
For ransom of their salesman, that he may
Go forth as other boarders go alway—
As those I hear now flocking from their tea,
Led by the daughter of my landlady
Piano-ward. This day, for all my moans,
Dry-bread and water have been servèd me.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Miss Amabel Jones is musical, and so
The heart of the young he-boarder doth win,
Playing “The Maiden’s Prayer” _adagio_—
That fetcheth him, as fetcheth the “bunko skin”
The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray
That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye
Ere sits she with a lover, as did we
Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be
That all that arduous wooing not atones
For Saturday’s shortness of trade dollars three?
_Behold_ the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

Yea! She forgets the arm that was wont to go
Around her waist. She wears a buckle whose pin
Galleth the crook of her young man’s elbow.
I forget not, for I that youth have been!
Smith was aforetime the Lothario gay.
Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay
Close in his room. Not calm as I was he;
But his noise brought no pleasaunce, verily.
Small ease he got of playing on the bones
Or hammering on the stove-pipe, that I see.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!
Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow
I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin!
Thee I will show up—yea, up I will show
Thy too-thick buckwheats and thy tea too thin.
Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray:
Thou dost _not_ “keep a first-class house” I say!
It does not with the advertisements agree.
Thou lodgest a Briton with a puggaree,
And thou hast harbored Jacobses and Cohns,
Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee!
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

_Envoy_

Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye:
She hath stolen my trousers, that I may not flee
Privily by the window. Hence these groans.
There is no fleeing in a _robe de nuit_.
Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones!

A PITCHER OF MIGNONETTE [14]

A pitcher of mignonette
In a tenement’s highest casement,—
Queer sort of flower-pot—yet
That pitcher of mignonette
Is a garden in heaven set,
To the little sick child in the basement—
The pitcher of mignonette,
In a tenement’s highest casement.

_Lizette Woodworth Reese_

Lizette Woodworth Reese was born January 9, 1856, at Baltimore,
Maryland, where she has lived ever since. After an education
obtained chiefly in private schools, she taught English in the
Western High School at Baltimore.

Her first book, _A Branch of May_ (1887), seems, at first glance, to
be merely a continuation of the tradition of English minor verse,
pleasant and impersonal. But an undercurrent of emotion, a quiet
intensity, makes one go back to these simple lyrics and prepares the
reader for the charm of the ensuing volumes.

_A Handful of Lavender_ (1891), _A Quiet Road_ (1896) and _A Wayside
Lute_ (1909) embody an artistry which, in spite of its old-fashioned
contours, is as true as it is tender. A host of the younger
lyricists owe much of their technique to her admirable models, and
few modern sonneteers have equaled the blended music and symbolism
of “Tears.”

TEARS

When I consider Life and its few years—
A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;
A call to battle, and the battle done
Ere the last echo dies within our ears;
A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;
The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;
The burst of music down an unlistening street,—
I wonder at the idleness of tears.
Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight,
Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep,
By every cup of sorrow that you had,
Loose me from tears, and make me see aright
How each hath back what once he stayed to weep:
Homer his sight, David his little lad!

THE DUST

The dust blows up and down
Within the lonely town;
Vague, hurrying, dumb, aloof,
On sill and bough and roof.

What cloudy shapes do fleet
Along the parchèd street;
Clerks, bishops, kings go by—
Tomorrow so shall I.

SPICEWOOD

The spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky,
In moist unchimneyed places, in a wind,
That whips it all before, and all behind,
Into one thick, rude flame, now low, now high.
It is the first, the homeliest thing of all—
At sight of it, that lad that by it fares,
Whistles afresh his foolish, town-caught airs—
A thing so honey-colored and so tall!

It is as though the young Year, ere he pass,
To the white riot of the cherry tree,
Would fain accustom us, or here, or there,
To his new sudden ways with bough and grass,
So starts with what is humble, plain to see,
And all familiar as a cup, a chair.

_Horace Traubel_

Horace Traubel, often referred to as “Whitman’s Boswell,” was born
in Camden, New Jersey, December 19, 1858, of mixed Jewish and
Christian parentage. His scholastic education was desultory; after
leaving school he sold newspapers, worked as an errand boy and
helped his father in a stationery store. Later he became a printer’s
devil, proof-reader, reporter and editorial writer. In 1873 Walt
Whitman came to Camden, little dreaming he would spend the remainder
of his life there. He was almost friendless, a sick man, helpless
and alone. The Traubel household welcomed him in and an
extraordinary friendship sprang up immediately between the aging
poet and the young boy. Traubel saw Whitman some part of each day
for almost twenty years. “As the years fled,” says David Karsner in
his Life of Horace Traubel, “he catered to Whitman’s needs in a
hundred different ways. He would bring Old Walt such papers and
magazines as he knew would interest him. He ran his errands ... and
assumed the details and responsibilities connected with the
publishing of the later editions of Whitman’s books.” This intimacy
is fully recorded in Traubel’s chief work, a series of volumes,
_With Walt Whitman in Camden_, a compilation of extraordinary value
which has been called “Whitman’s unconscious autobiography.”

It is inevitable that Traubel’s own poetry should betray the strong
influence of his great friend and hero. And yet in several poems in
_Optimos_ (1910) and _Chants Communal_ (1914) Traubel achieves a
personal idiom; beneath the wearying length and repetitive phrases,
he communicates the fire of the social revolutionist, the insurgent
who wrote, “I build no fires to burn anybody up. I only build fires
to light up the way.”

Traubel died at Bon Echo, Ontario, Canada, where he had gone for his
health, September 8, 1919.

HOW ARE YOU, DEAR WORLD, THIS MORNING?

_How are you, dear world, this morning? Clean from my bath of sleep, Warm from the bosom of my mother star, Recharged with the energy of my father self, Restored from all derelict hours to the lawful service of time, I come without gift or doctrine or tethering humor To entertain your fateful will._

How are you, dear world, this morning? I went to bed last night in the twist and snarl of a problem. Have you awakened me to a revelation? Has some change come upon the face of the earth and the heart of man? Was life still busy while my life slept? Was something done with the dreams of my sorrow and joy to transfigure in man the drag of his daily task? Have all the prophets who died unfulfilled and all the plain men and women and children who burned or starved from injustice come back to earth to partake of a deferred feast? What is it, dear world, I bring with empty hands to your morning? What is it, dear world, you bring with hands as empty to my bedside?

Do the things that were stolen remain stolen? Do the lives that were destroyed remain dead? Do the stragglers who failed still fail? Does the sleeper who slept the sleep of the merchant awake only to the merchant? Does the law that was yesterday at my throat awake only to the law? Does the singer awake only to sing, the artist to paint, and the orator to talk? Or does the merchant awake to the man? Or does the law of the state awake to the law of the heart? Or do stolen things shift back into right relations? Or is the singer silent, or does the artist put aside his paints, or has the orator stopt talking, because something greater than song or art or eloquence has appeared in the face of the multitude?

How are you, dear world, this morning? We have had confidences other days but somehow the confidences of this day are sweetest of all, They find me where I am remote, they seek me out where I am reluctant, they confirm me where I am weak, They melt me down from flaw and angle into purity and circle, They interpret me to last night’s strangers and they introduce me to the real meanings of my vagrant past, They remove me from my quarrels and they deliver me to truce and peace. For now I see that when of old I thought of justice and believed I was dreaming that only then was I awake, For now I see that the wrongdoer is the first to withdraw wrong and is the only one who can withdraw it, For now I see that all the effort I spent trying to discover why lives were beautiful or ugly has shown me that all ugliness and all beauty finally must lapse in one transfiguration, For now in the confidences of this morning, in the rapture of this awakening, I find my illimitable roots trailed backward and forward and round into all time and all men, Pledging my love to countless surrenders and repeals.

O MY DEAD COMRADE

(_for W. W._)

O my dead comrade—my great dead! I sat by your bedside—it was the close of day— I heard the drip of the rain on the roof of the house: The light shadowed—departing, departing— You also departing, departing— You and the light, companions in life, now, too, companions in death, Retiring to the shadow, carrying elsewhere the benediction of your sunbeams. I sat by your bedside. I held your hand: Once you opened your eyes: O look of recognition! O look of bestowal! From you to me then passed the commission of the future, From you to me that minute, from your veins to mine, Out of the flood of passage, as you slipped away with the tide, From your hand that touched mine, from your soul that touched mine, near, O so near— Filling the heavens with stars— Entered, shone upon me and out of me, the power of the spring, the seed of the rose and the wheat, As of father to son, as of brother to brother, as of god to god!

O my great dead! You had not gone, you had stayed—in my heart, in my veins, Reaching through me, through others through me, through all at last, our brothers, A hand to the future.

_Frank Dempster Sherman_

Frank Dempster Sherman was born at Peekskill, New York, May 6, 1860.
He entered Columbia University in 1879, where, after graduation and
a subsequent instructorship, he was made adjunct professor in 1891
and Professor of Graphics in 1904. He held the latter position until
his death, which occurred September 19, 1916.

Besides being a writer of airy lyrics and epigrammatic quatrains,
Sherman was an enthusiastic genealogist and a designer (especially
of book-plates) of no little skill. As a poet, his gift was
essentially that of a writer of light verse—fragrant, fragile, yet
seldom too sentimental or brittle. Pleasant is the name for it, a
pleasantness perfumed with a pungent wit.

Sherman never wearied of the little lyric; even the titles of his
volumes are instances of his penchant for the brief melody, for the
sudden snatch of song: _Madrigals and Catches_ (1887), _Lyrics for a
Lute_ (1890), _Little-Folk Lyrics_ (1892), _Lyrics of Joy_ (1904). A
sumptuous collected edition of his poems was published, with an
Introduction by Clinton Scollard, in 1917.

AT MIDNIGHT

See, yonder, the belfry tower
That gleams in the moon’s pale light—
Or is it a ghostly flower
That dreams in the silent night?

I listen and hear the chime
Go quavering over the town,
And out of this flower of Time
Twelve petals are wafted down.

BACCHUS