THE MAN WHO STOLE A COW.
THE MAN WHO STOLE A COW.
There once lived in a beautiful country, no matter just where, a young
man whose name was David. From his boyhood he was given to idleness and
to dreaming, so much so that he came to be called by those who knew
him Davy Dreamer, and it was predicted of him that he would never come
to any good. But he did come to some good; he married a good wife, and
a pretty one too. She was the daughter of a man as poor as himself,
but she had habits of industry, and great good sense, which was a good
deal better than a dowry of gold or silver; and it was, no doubt, more
owing to her management and hard work--for she was never idle--than to
anything of his doing, that, at middle life, Davy Dreamer owned a neat
cottage and five acres of garden ground. Moreover, it is quite certain
that not a flower-bush nor a sweet-scented herb grew on the little
farm, if so it might be called, which was not of her planting. A woman
who found no time for dreaming was the wife of David. Nevertheless, she
was never heard to rate her good man for his indulgence in his favorite
pastime, and never seen to frown, and some persons believed it was her
smiling which made her face so pretty.
I said at middle life they owned a pretty cottage and a garden, which
with careful cultivation would have yielded not only a competence, but
many of the luxuries of life; but I am sorry to record that David fell
a-dreaming often, at which times the spade was sure to fall out of his
hands, and as the pretty-faced woman who was his wife had tasks in the
house to do, thistles grew up, and briers and rank grass choked the
small vegetables quite down sometimes.
As a natural consequence of this thriftlessness, their wants grew
faster than the means of supplying them; for the little house was
full of children--I know not how many, but so many that David often
desponded and said to his wife in a half-dreaming state,--that it was
quite impossible for one little garden to maintain them all; and so he
would sit for hours musing and meditating on what could be done for the
prevention of want,--of actual starvation in fact.
“There will be some way provided, never fret,” the good wife would
answer; “there are more berries ripe than I can get to the market”; or,
“I have found two new hen’s nests, both full of white, fresh eggs,”
she would say to him, though most likely he heard her not, and often
it is supposed he saw not the things which she did for his comfort
and for the good of his children; for when the cottage wall was newly
whitewashed it was the same to him as before, apparently, and when a
pudding was boiled for Sunday, or a plum-cake baked, David took them
as matters of course, and ate them without seeming to distinguish them
from coarse bread.
If this were so, it was a pity; but I am afraid it was so, for we
have all of us seen Davy Dreamers who took the favors that were done
them as matters of course. We expect pigs to eat the acorns without
looking up to see who thrashes them down; but we have a right, I
think, to expect a little more politeness of men and women. However,
the sweet disposition of the wife of David could not be soured by any
neglect on his part, and, indeed, as he grew impatient and fretful and
fault-finding, she grew still more and more patient and gentle and
loving,--more industrious and painstaking she could not have been.
Sometimes, when she asked David to assist in digging the ground or in
picking the berries, he would answer, “Don’t disturb me now, my dear, I
am making a great plan”; and so it often happened that she picked and
digged alone.
At last, one day when the good woman came home from market with some
money in the bottom of a tow bag, which she had got in exchange for
her fruits and such other articles as she had to sell, she ventured to
ask David what he had been dreaming about. She had never been known to
trouble him so much before, therefore it is reasonable to suppose that
his vision had been unusually extended.
“Why,” said he, “I have been thinking that some of the rich folks about
here might give us a cow and never miss her, and I am told there is
a man living on the other side of the island” (it appears that David
lived on an island) “the hills of whose farm are all covered with
cattle. Now, if I go to him and tell him how poor we are, and how much
one cow would be to us, do you not think he would give us one?”
But the wise woman saw no probability of such good fortune. It was
barely possible, she said, but the experiment was not worth trying; and
even if successful, the mortification of having been a beggar would
imbitter the cow’s milk. The wife of David, it would seem, had her own
little pride, and in my opinion she was all the better for it.
After this Davy Dreamer dreamed almost of nothing but cows, and when he
talked it was all about the rich man at the other end of the island,
who had meadows against meadows all dotted over with beautiful cattle.
“He would never miss a cow; and I dare say if he only knew of our
poverty, he would gladly give us one!” he used to say; and once or
twice he hinted to his wife that she might go to him a-begging. But
she only smiled and let him alone with his dreaming, for she thought
it quite harmless. She had no idea of begging, however, for her part,
and for days and weeks and months worked on, and each return from the
market town saw more and more silver money in the tow bag. She was
never heard to complain, but often to sing, and often to discourse
merrily with her children, who were growing to be blooming men and
women. A nice little plan of her own had the wife of Davy the dreamer.
Meantime, his head was filled with all sorts of vain imaginings. Night
after night he would start up out of sleep, crying out, “Just see what
a pailful!” and morning after morning when he awoke he would peep into
the garden to see if a cow were not browsing the cabbages. For hours
and hours he would sit facing the highway, wasting the time that he
should have used for working; and never a stranger passed along but
that he looked wistfully after him, for each one he supposed to be the
rich man from the other side of the island come to give him the cow.
But morning after morning came and no cow was found to be browsing
in the garden, and stranger after stranger passed along, but if the
rich man from the other side of the island were among them he made no
pause. And all the time he grew more and more fretful and dissatisfied.
He fretted at his wife, and fretted at his children, and fretted at
everything.
“What is it troubles you, Davy?” the good wife used to say; but he
would always answer, “Nothing, nothing!” so short and cross that she
was glad to leave him alone. And then, while he covered his face from
the light and moped and moped, she would go forth into the sunshine and
work and sing, and make the best of things, bad as they were. “Never
mind what father does!” she used to say to the children when they
complained. “If father doesn’t help us, it is our place to get along
without his help, that is all. We must none of us wait for another, nor
depend on another, but each do his own work in the world, and do it
cheerfully; and then, let who will be at fault, we are not.”
“Your father will get over his delusions by and by,” she would say, and
she really had some reason for this hope: for at last he ceased to tell
his dreams. But, alas! if she had known it, it was not because he had
ceased to dream. He did not tell them, because they were evil, that was
all. If his wife would not hear of his begging, how much less would
she hear of what he meant to do now?
It is probable that to his own mind he justified himself, for the mind
must work just as the brook must run, else it grows dull and stagnant,
and reflects nothing clearly; and it is an easy thing for those who do
nothing but dream to let their dreams delude them at last. It is likely
that he came to think he was not going to steal at all, but just to
take what he had a right to. He was poor and wanted a cow, and the rich
man on the other side of the island would not miss her! That, I say, is
likely the way he talked to himself, till he came to think stealing was
no stealing at all.
And while he was doing nothing but make his bad plans, his wife was
working and saving, so that the tow bag had come to have a good deal
of silver in it; and one bright morning in May, when Davy had been
turning and twisting and groaning all night, she arose early, and
having arrayed herself in her best gown and shawl, told him that she
was going to the market town, but that she was not coming back by the
direct road, and might not be home till midnight. “And you must not be
frightened, Davy,” she said, “if I should not be home till moonset.
I am going to do something that will surprise you, I think.” Davy
expressed no curiosity about what she was going to do, but he seemed
wonderfully pleased that she was not coming home till midnight, and
said a good deal to make it appear that the drive after nightfall would
be much pleasanter than before.
She was surprised and a little disappointed at this, for she had hoped
that he would miss her, and would, at least, ask her why she should
be away so long; but she could not but see that her absence would be
agreeable to him.
“Perhaps he is sick, and perhaps he is dreaming again,” she said to
herself by way of excusing him, and so kissed him and departed, but
with a heart much less light than it would have been if he had said one
loving word.
The old clock in the corner had not counted many minutes after the wife
was gone, till the husband, having hastily prepared himself, took his
way to the other side of the island.
He walked vigorously on, for the morning air was sweet, and a new
project is apt to impart new energy. Gayly sung the blackbirds, hopping
along the newly ploughed ground and up and down the fences, and the
bluebirds twittered and fluttered almost in his face; and it was not
yet noon when he came to the other side of the island, and found that
the rich man’s possessions had not been over-estimated. Lying in the
faint shadows of the trees there were cows; standing knee-deep in the
water of the brooks there were cows; and grazing along the green, thick
grass of the hills there were cows,--all with great udders, and looking
so gentle and so pretty. He saw, too, the fine house in which the rich
man lived; it was not much like his cottage, and its splendor seemed to
mock his poverty, so that he grew angry as well as discontented.
There was no person in the field nor in sight, so that he might have
driven one of the cows away quite safely, as it appeared; but though
he broke a goad from a thorn-tree for that purpose, something seemed
to hold him back, and not until nightfall could he persuade himself to
single one from the number and drive her away. But when at last the sun
was down and the shadows began to darken, there came into the field the
keeper of the cows and called them home to be milked; and Davy, who had
been waiting all day for this favoring hour, was half glad when he saw
the coveted opportunity passing away. But it seems that when our hand
is once lifted up to do evil, Satan stands ready to take it, and to
lead us; and what we call chance favored the man’s bad designs.
One of the cows, unmindful of the call of her master, stayed feeding
along the hollow and was not missed among so many. Suddenly the clouds,
which had been floating about during the day, darkened together; so
that but for the white face of the cow, the old man could not have seen
her a dozen yards away. Summoning up all the resolution of the growth
of years, he drove her with the thorn-goad away from her own home. Many
times he paused and listened, thinking he heard footsteps pursuing him;
and many times he hid in the thickets, for he thought voices called
him to stop, and if the harmless cow but turned her face toward him
and lowed, he almost shrieked aloud; so trembling and listening, and
framing lies to tell to his good wife when he should reach home, he
crept slowly forward.
Having fasted all day, he grew faint, and the unaccustomed exercise had
made him tired, so that he resolved to rest for a time and drink some
of the cow’s milk, and at the rising of the moon, which he apprehended
would scatter the clouds, go on refreshed.
Under the shelter of a low-spreading beech, upon which the dead leaves
of the last year hung thick, he stopped; and taking a small but stout
cord from his pocket, secured the cow, tying her by the horn to the
trunk of the tree. She seemed very gentle and quiet, but, though he
knew not why, he could not make up his mind to taste her milk, hungry
and tired as he was; so leaning against the tree, he resolved to wait
the rising of the moon, and to take a nap meantime. But this resolve
was much easier made than executed. Sleep would not come to him for any
scolding or fretting, as his wife had always been used to do. It was
not because his bed was the ground, and not because his grass pillow
could not be moved like his feather one at home, that he could not
sleep,--though he tried to make himself believe so; it was because he
had done that which he should not have done that he could not sleep.
It seemed to him that every step he heard was the step of some one
coming to arrest him; and his imagination made pictures of prison
walls, of jailers, and of everything that was frightful to think of.
The very moon seemed to look reproachfully on him from the sky, and to
say: “You are a thief, old man! and you had better go and jump into the
river, if you can’t be an honest man!”
The corn-blades, as they rustled, seemed to him to be talking to him,
and to say: “Have you ever made a cornstalk grow or an apple-tree bloom
and bear? have you planted a wheat-field or sown a meadow, or done
anything else to help the world along, or to make it any the better for
your having lived?” In the leaves of the tree under which he was lying,
the wind seemed to stop and to stay there, fretting and scolding; he
had always thought the wind murmured and sung before, but it certainly
scolded now. The voice that used to whisper in the leaves seemed now
to be saying, “I am ashamed of you! I am ashamed of you!” over and over
and over. Poor old man! he was ashamed of himself, and that was why the
wind took such a sound.
Two crows alighted near by him, on the dead branch of an old tree,
and though it was not the time for them to make a noise, being night,
they set up a cry; but instead of saying Caw! caw! as is the way of
crows, they seemed to Davy to be saying Cow! cow! So that he concluded
that they too knew what he had done. And more than this, he thought
everybody would hear them, and the whole world would know of it.
He wished he had never heard of the rich man; he wished he had stayed
at home and minded his own business, and never seen a cow, nor heard
of a cow, nor thought of a cow! but above all, he wished that he had
not stolen a cow! Sometimes he was almost persuaded to drive her back,
turn her into her own green pasture, go home to his good wife and
confess all the truth, and try to be a better man; but it is hard to
turn evidence against ourselves, and the man who has lied once will
generally tell forty other lies to conceal the one, rather than own
the simple truth. I suppose a man never suffered more from the torment
of conscience than Davy the Dreamer suffered as he lay there on the
ground by the side of his cow. And yet she looked so beautiful as she
stood there chewing the cud in the moonlight, he could not help the
thought, now and then, that she would be a great delight to him if he
once had her in his own pasture, and if he could be sure that no living
mortal would ever know how he came by her! But even this fancy did
not quite satisfy him. “There is one person that will know,” said he,
“and that is myself! O, misery, misery! if I could only bribe my own
thoughts to let me alone!” But this Davy could not do, for no man ever
could do it; and feeling how impossible it was to have his own respect,
to have anything but his own condemnation, he trembled and hid his face
in the wild grass about him like a frightened beast.
At last the full moon got over the trees and the hills and the low
clouds, and in the clear sky shone out in full splendor. And with
the beautiful light some part of his awful fear vanished; and having
listened, and hearing no step, and the crows being now still, he softly
untied the cow and drove her homeward. He did not get on very far,
however, before he found that he had lost his way. In the first place,
he had never been from home, and did not know the roads; and in the
next, his mind was so full of terror as to bewilder him, and in fact
make him almost like a crazy man. He could not tell north from south,
nor east from west, and when he came to where the roads forked, he
could not for the life of him conclude which way to go. So he drove his
cow into the woods, tied her to a tree, as before, and resolved to wait
till morning.
By and by the cow lay down among the dry leaves, and her deep quiet
breathing, together with the security of the place, soothed Davy,
so that he at length lay down beside her, and, nestled close to her
speckled hide, fell asleep, and in his sleep he dreamed, and this was
what he dreamed.
It seemed to him that he got safely home with his cow, even to the
garden gate. And that on looking up he saw that his house was burned
down; and while he stood in consternation, one of his neighbors met him
and told him that his wife was dead of a broken heart, and that his
children were some of them run away, and some of them in prison for
stealing cows!
He awoke with a stifled cry in his heart, and sitting up, saw that it
was daylight, and that the gray dew was lying all over his hair and
clothes; his limbs were stiff, and he was chilled through and through.
[Illustration: THE MAN WHO STOLE A COW.]
A squirrel near by was chattering among the tangled roots of an old
tree, and it seemed to Davy that he kept saying, “Good for you! good
for you! good for you!” So that it was all the same with him,
whether asleep or awake there was no peace.
When he tried to walk his legs dragged under him as if they were half
asleep, and his mind was benumbed as well as his body; but still it was
filled with strange, crazy notions that tormented him cruelly.
A little way from where he had passed the night there was a mossy stone
sticking up out of the ground, three times as big as his head, and at
one moment he was tempted to wrench this stone out of its place, and
knock the cow on the head with it: if she were only dead, it seemed to
him that that would make it as if he had not stolen her.
Chilled, hungry, bewildered, half crazy, he knew not what to do, for he
was just as much lost as he had been in the dark. Sometimes he thought
he would go and give himself up as a thief; still he did not, nor did
he do anything else except stagger blindly about, and almost wish
himself dead and buried under the dry leaves of the forest.
By and by the cow got hungry too, and pulled at the rope with which she
was tied, and lowed again and again; so loud that Davy thought somebody
would certainly hear her; and come and take her away, and himself too,
with iron handcuffs on!
At length, he struck the cow in his rage because she lowed so loud,
and suddenly jerking at the rope with which she was tied, she broke it,
and ran away. Now Davy no sooner saw her escaping from him than the old
desire to have a cow for his own, to see her feeding in his garden, and
his children drinking her milk, all came back upon him, and he hobbled
after her as fast as he could go; but such a wild-goose chase as she
led him it is not worth while to describe. Through thistles, briers,
and hedges, through woods and across meadows, and up and down hills,
it seemed to Davy that he was being led to the end of the earth, and
what was his surprise when toward nightfall, he found himself in the
identical pasture field from which he had stolen the cow. If he had
been afraid before, how much more was he afraid now!
He hid himself behind a stone-wall and waited for the night to fall,
not daring even to lift up his head; and when he saw the owner of the
cows come to drive them home to be milked, he crouched down into the
very earth.
All the cattle seemed delighted that the estray was come back among
them, and gathered round her and licked her sides and her neck and her
forehead, and made little moans as though they were talking and telling
how glad they were.
“I shall never be able to divide her from her mates,” thought Davy; and
his heart sank down within him; for, in spite of all he had suffered,
he was fully resolved to steal the cow over again. Again fortune
favored him. When the owner of the cattle drove the others out of the
meadow, he turned this one, the handsomest of all, back, and Davy heard
him say to her, “What business have you here? why don’t you stay at
home, you foolish creature?”
He could not quite tell what this meant; perhaps some one had bought
the cow, and that thought made him doubly anxious to have her. So, just
as soon as the gray twilight crept along the meadows, he tied the cow
by the horn and led her away.
He was so weak by this time, with fasting, and the trouble he had had,
that before he had travelled many miles he fell down, and could not
go another step. He milked a little of the cow’s milk in his hand,
swallowed it, and then lay down to get a little further strength from
sleep. But the sleep of a man who has stolen a cow is not refreshing,
as you may well believe, and he arose in the morning chilled and
cramped, and altogether in a worse condition than he had yet been.
He was obliged to halt so often during that day, that night again fell
while he was yet a long way from home. So for the third night he lodged
in the woods, and it is altogether probable that the crows and the
squirrels talked to him just as they did before. Just as the sun was
going down on the evening of the fourth day of his absence, he reached
home and drove the cow in at the garden gate. His house was not burned
down, as he had dreamed it was, but it was so changed that he hardly
knew it. The front was all whitewashed, and there were curtains of
scarlet stuff shining at the windows, and the grass had been clipt in
the dooryard, some young trees set, and so many things done that Davy
hardly knew it all for the same place.
All at once, while he yet stood amazed, his children came running out
with shining faces and sleek hair, and began to cry, “O father, have
you fetched her at last!” and then to fondle and caress the stolen cow
as though she were an expected guest.
He had just got inside and had latched the gate, when turning round he
saw his wife coming forth to meet him, if, indeed, that smiling woman
dressed so neatly in a new gown and cap was his wife. “O Davy!” she
cries, as she takes his hand and kisses it; “we began to be afraid the
cow had run away with you!” And then she asks him as she leads him into
the house, if he doesn’t think she has made a pretty good selection of
a cow. Davy is so puzzled by all this that he does not know what to
say, and least of all does he know how to look in his wife’s face, for
he sees plainly that, however things are, she trusts him and believes
in him with all her heart. After a time the light began to break in
upon his brain. “Did you see the rich man at the other end of the
island?” she says; and “O, isn’t it a beautiful place?” and, “Did he
tell you how much I paid for the cow? I thought I would come home and
surprise you with the good news; but good news travels fast, and when I
got home I found that you had already heard it, and was gone to fetch
her. How good it was of you, to be sure!” And so she ran on till Davy
understood it all. She had bought the identical cow he had stolen, the
morning before he reached the rich man’s meadows. He was no thief,
after all, and nobody in the world could ever know his secret. At first
he felt very happy, and skipped and danced about like a boy; but this
could not last with a wicked secret in his bosom, and he soon began to
droop and to lose all appetite, especially for milk.
The house had been all brightened up inside as well as out; and besides
the scarlet curtains, there was a new rag carpet and an easy-chair for
himself, and a good many other things; but none nor all of them could
give him pleasure, for all the time he knew himself to be a thief. One
day his wife said to him, “I thought, Davy, we were preparing such a
happy surprise for you, while you were gone for the cow, but nothing
seems to please you, and we did it all for you!”
Then Davy broke down, and crying like a boy, told his wife all the
ugly truth; and after that he had great pleasure in the new things,
especially the easy-chair, and milk tasted sweet to him, and there was
nowhere a happier family than that of Davy Dreamer, for he was cured of
his dreaming.
THE POTTER’S LUCK.
I.
It was the summer’s prime, and all the court
Were in the royal forest at their sport,
Hunting the hare to please the merry king,
Driving the game, and shooting on the wing;
Pages, and hounds, and troops of gentlemen
With horns that rung the echoes from the glen;
Ladies and lords with plumes and scarlet cloaks,
Sweeping across the shadows of the oaks.
II.
The while a potter, sitting by the way,
Took in his hand a little piece of clay,
And from the habit of his life began
To furbish it: he was a sad, sick man,
Having at home three children, pinched and pale,--
Is it a wonder that his heart should fail
With such a trouble tugging at the strings?
This hunting pleasure of the merry king’s
Was not for any man, as you will guess,
Being so friendly with his own distress;
He knew not how to spend his holiday,
But just to keep on working with the clay!
III.
Well, as betwixt his palms the piece he rolled,
A little zigzag stone that shined like gold
Dropt out, and rested on his knee. Just then
A lovely and sweet-hearted gentleman
Broke through the bushes,--leapt the wall that stood
About the outskirts of the royal wood,
And saw the potter sitting thus alone,--
Upon his knee the shining zigzag stone:
And in his white hand took it, paying down
On the poor potter’s knee a silver crown;
Then leapt the wall and through the bushes sped.
That night the potter came, with lightsome tread,
Home to his house, and when he showed the crown,
You would have thought the roof was coming down!
Such merry children it were good to see,--
One at his shoulder, one on either knee;
And as a hand, brown as a leaf that’s dead,
He laid upon each little golden head,
And told, with heart a-tremble in his tone,
About the shining bit of zigzag stone,
And all about the lovely gentleman,
Who, breaking through the bushes of the glen,
Leapt the great wall, and on his knee laid down--
The Lord knew why, he said--the silver crown,
His brown hands shook, his eyes with tears grew dim,
That such grand luck should fall by chance to him.
IV.
Then she, the eldest, at his shoulder, said,
Putting one fair, bare arm about his head,
Her eyes bent down, her fingers pale and thin,
Going so soft along his rough gray chin:
“You say the Lord knows why such luck should fall;
It seems to me, now, just no luck at all!
But for your working all the day alone
Beside the royal wood, this precious stone
Would not have fallen upon your knee,--nor then
The silver crown of this fine gentleman!
To pay an honest debt is not so ill;
To earn the pay you get, is better still!”
And you who read the tale, I trust, agree
The honor went where honor ought to be.
A POET’S WALK.
Once his way a poet took
Through a deep and dewy glen;
Write about me in your book!
Cried the redbreast, cried the wren.
Twittering low from every bush,
Chirping loud from every tree,
Cried the pewet, cried the thrush,
Cried the blackbird, write of me!
Sing about my eyes, my wings,--
Mine is but a humble boon,--
So they cried, the silly things!
Crossing each the other’s tune.
But the poet, sign of grace
Giving not by look or tone,
Turned into a shady place,
Where a daisy lived alone.
All her modest shoulders hid
In a veil of leaves of grass,
Dropping either snowy lid
Sat she still to see him pass.
Then the poet, with a quill
That some eager bird had shook
Downward, all against her will,
Wrote about her in his book.
THE SNOW-FLOWER.
The fields were all one field of snow,
The hedge was like a silver wall;
And when the March began to blow,
And clouds to fill, and rain to fall,
I wept that they should spoil it all.
At first the flakes with flurrying whirl
Hid from my eyes the rivulet,
Lying crooked, like a seam of pearl
Along some royal coverlet,--
I stood, as I remember yet,
With cheeks close-pressed against the pane,
And saw the hedge’s hidden brown
Come out beneath the fretting rain;
And then I saw the wall go down,--
My silver wall, and all was brown.
And then, where all had been so white,
As still the rain slid slant and slow,
Bushes and briers came out in sight,
And spikes of reeds began to show,
And then the knot-grass, black and low.
One day, when March was at the close,
The mild air balm, the sky serene,
The fields that had been fields of snows,
And, after, withered wastes, were seen
With here and there some tender green;
That day my heart came sudden up
With pleasure that was almost pain,--
Being in the fields, I found a cup,
Pure white, with just a blood-red vein
Dashed round the edges, by the rain,--
The rain, which I that wild March hour
So foolishly had wept to see,
Had shaped the snow into a flower,
And thus had brought it back to me
Sweeter than only snow could be.
EASY WORK.
Little children, be not crying;
You have easy work to do;
Look not upward for the flying
Of the angels in the blue;
Look not for some great example,
Such as deaths of martyrs give;
One command above is ample
For the teaching you to live:
So that you will find out roses
Brighter than are by the brooks;
Poesy with sweeter closes
Than are in the poet’s books;
Friends to gently watch and tend you
When your hours of pain go by,
And at last their prayers to lend you,
When your time has come to die.
In your working, in your praying,
In your actions, great or small,
In your hearts keep Jesus’ saying,--
“Love each other”: this is all.
COURAGE.
Knowing the right and true,
Let the world say to you
Worst that it can:
Answer despite the blame,
Answer despite the shame,
I’ll not belie my name,--
I’ll be a man!
Armed only with the right,
Standing alone to fight
Wrong, old as time,
Holding up hands to God
Over the rack and rod,--
Over the crimson sod,
That is sublime!
Monarchs of old, at will
Parcelled the world, but still
Crowns may be won:
Yet there are piles to light,--
Putting all fear to flight,
Shouting for truth and right,
Who will mount on?
JENNY AND I.
We rise before the lark,
And keep working till dark,
And by striving to do right we are fearless of the wrong;
We never scold and fret,
And we never go in debt,
And that’s the way my Jenny and I get along.
Nor lodge nor servants’ hall
Give us any care at all,
No lady’s maid or coachman have we to find or lose;
And with Jenny on my knee,
And no prying eyes to see,
We can say what we wish to say, and do what we choose.
You might think our little house
Just a shelter for a mouse,
And counting each treasure, I am free to declare
That a “real India shawl”
Would have cost the price of all,
Yet I and my Jenny have enough and to spare.
From the trembling tongues of trees,
Through the prairie’s grassy seas,
In the green, growing cornfields, and beside the rainy brooks;
In the flowery springtide-prime,
And the Indian summer time,
We have always sweeter poems than poets write in books.
When banks are breaking down,
And disaster like a frown
Weighs hard, in the city, on the low and the high,
We have still our cribs and mows,
Our oxen, sheep, and cows,
And so we calmly sleep o’ nights, my Jenny and I.