Songs, Merry and Sad [3]
cypress' grot,
Sheltered and safe from flood,
Dirt-daubers each had chosen a spot
To shape his house of mud.
In a warm crevice of the bark
A basking scorpion clung,
With bright blue tail and red-rimmed eyes
And yellow, twinkling tongue.
A lunging trout flashed in the sun,
To do some petty slaughter,
And set the spiders all a-run
On little stilts of water.
Toward noon upon the swamp there stole
A deep, cathedral hush,
Save where, from sun-splocht bough and bole,
Sweet thrush replied to thrush.
An angler came to cast his fly
Beneath a baffling tree.
I smiled, when I had caught his eye,
And he smiled back at me.
When stretched beside a shady elm
I watched the dozy heat,
Nature was moving in her realm,
For I could hear her feet.
Home Songs
The little loves and sorrows are my song:
The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;
The little cares and carols that belong
To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres,
And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires
Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.
If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep,
And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes;
Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep
Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies,
More worth than legions in the dust of strife,
Time, looking back at last, should count my life.
M. W. Ransom
(Died October 8, 1904)
For him, who in a hundred battles stood
Scorning the cannon's mouth,
Grimy with flame and red with foeman's blood,
For thy sweet sake, O South;
Who, wise as brave, yielded his conquered sword
At a vain war's surcease,
And spoke, thy champion still, the statesman's word
In the calm halls of peace;
Who pressed the ruddy wine to thy faint lips,
Where thy torn body lay,
And saw afar time's white in-sailing ships
Bringing a happier day:
Oh, mourn for him, dear land that gave him birth!
Bow low thy sorrowing head!
Let thy seared leaves fall silent on the earth
Whereunder he lies dead!
In field and hall, in valor and in grace,
In wisdom's livery,
Gentle and brave, he moved with knightly pace,
A worthy son of thee!
Protest
Oh, I am weary, weary, weary
Of Pan and oaten quills
And little songs that, from the dictionary,
Learn lore of streams and hills,
Of studied laughter, mocking what is merry,
And calculated thrills!
Are we grown old and past the time of singing?
Is ardor quenched in art
Till art is but a formal figure, bringing
A money-measured heart,
Procrustean cut, and, with old echoes, ringing
Its bells about the mart?
The race moves on, and leaves no wildernesses
Where rugged voices cry;
It reads its prayer, and with set phrase it blesses
The souls of men who die,
And step by even step its rank progresses,
An army marshalled by.
If it be better so, that Babel noises,
Losing all course and ken,
And grief that wails and gladness that rejoices
Should never wake again
To shock a world of modulated voices
And mediocre men,
Then he is blest who wears the painted feather
And may not turn about
To dusks when muses romped the dewy heather
In unrestricted rout
And dawns when, if the stars had sung together,
The sons of God would shout!
Oblivion
Green moss will creep
Along the shady graves where we shall sleep.
Each year will bring
Another brood of birds to nest and sing.
At dawn will go
New ploughmen to the fields we used to know.
Night will call home
The hunter from the hills we loved to roam.
She will not ask,
The milkmaid, singing softly at her task,
Nor will she care
To know if I were brave or you were fair.
No one will think
What chalice life had offered us to drink,
When from our clay
The sun comes back to kiss the snow away.
Now!
Her brown hair knew no royal crest,
No gems nor jeweled charms,
No roses her bright cheek caressed,
No lilies kissed her arms.
Sheltered and safe from flood,
Dirt-daubers each had chosen a spot
To shape his house of mud.
In a warm crevice of the bark
A basking scorpion clung,
With bright blue tail and red-rimmed eyes
And yellow, twinkling tongue.
A lunging trout flashed in the sun,
To do some petty slaughter,
And set the spiders all a-run
On little stilts of water.
Toward noon upon the swamp there stole
A deep, cathedral hush,
Save where, from sun-splocht bough and bole,
Sweet thrush replied to thrush.
An angler came to cast his fly
Beneath a baffling tree.
I smiled, when I had caught his eye,
And he smiled back at me.
When stretched beside a shady elm
I watched the dozy heat,
Nature was moving in her realm,
For I could hear her feet.
Home Songs
The little loves and sorrows are my song:
The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;
The little cares and carols that belong
To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres,
And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires
Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.
If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep,
And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes;
Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep
Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies,
More worth than legions in the dust of strife,
Time, looking back at last, should count my life.
M. W. Ransom
(Died October 8, 1904)
For him, who in a hundred battles stood
Scorning the cannon's mouth,
Grimy with flame and red with foeman's blood,
For thy sweet sake, O South;
Who, wise as brave, yielded his conquered sword
At a vain war's surcease,
And spoke, thy champion still, the statesman's word
In the calm halls of peace;
Who pressed the ruddy wine to thy faint lips,
Where thy torn body lay,
And saw afar time's white in-sailing ships
Bringing a happier day:
Oh, mourn for him, dear land that gave him birth!
Bow low thy sorrowing head!
Let thy seared leaves fall silent on the earth
Whereunder he lies dead!
In field and hall, in valor and in grace,
In wisdom's livery,
Gentle and brave, he moved with knightly pace,
A worthy son of thee!
Protest
Oh, I am weary, weary, weary
Of Pan and oaten quills
And little songs that, from the dictionary,
Learn lore of streams and hills,
Of studied laughter, mocking what is merry,
And calculated thrills!
Are we grown old and past the time of singing?
Is ardor quenched in art
Till art is but a formal figure, bringing
A money-measured heart,
Procrustean cut, and, with old echoes, ringing
Its bells about the mart?
The race moves on, and leaves no wildernesses
Where rugged voices cry;
It reads its prayer, and with set phrase it blesses
The souls of men who die,
And step by even step its rank progresses,
An army marshalled by.
If it be better so, that Babel noises,
Losing all course and ken,
And grief that wails and gladness that rejoices
Should never wake again
To shock a world of modulated voices
And mediocre men,
Then he is blest who wears the painted feather
And may not turn about
To dusks when muses romped the dewy heather
In unrestricted rout
And dawns when, if the stars had sung together,
The sons of God would shout!
Oblivion
Green moss will creep
Along the shady graves where we shall sleep.
Each year will bring
Another brood of birds to nest and sing.
At dawn will go
New ploughmen to the fields we used to know.
Night will call home
The hunter from the hills we loved to roam.
She will not ask,
The milkmaid, singing softly at her task,
Nor will she care
To know if I were brave or you were fair.
No one will think
What chalice life had offered us to drink,
When from our clay
The sun comes back to kiss the snow away.
Now!
Her brown hair knew no royal crest,
No gems nor jeweled charms,
No roses her bright cheek caressed,
No lilies kissed her arms.