That she inclined to spare the rod although she spoiled the child;
And when at last in self-defence she had to whip us, she
Appeared to feel those whippings a great deal more than we!
But how we bellowed and took on, as if we’d like to die--
Poor mother really thought she hurt, and that’s what made _her_ cry!
Then how we youngsters snickered as out the door we slid,
For mother’s whippings never hurt, though father’s always did.
In after years poor father simmered down to five feet four,
But in our youth he seemed to us in height eight feet or more!
Oh, how we shivered when he quoth in cold, suggestive tone:
“I’ll see you in the woodshed after supper all alone!”
Oh, how the legs and arms and dust and trouser buttons flew--
What florid vocalisms marked that vesper interview!
Yes, after all this lapse of years, I feelingly assert,
With all respect to mother, it was father’s whippings hurt!
The little boy experiencing that tingling ’neath his vest
Is often loath to realize that all is for the best;
Yet, when the boy gets older, he pictures with delight
The buffetings of childhood--as we do here to-night.
The years, the gracious years, have smoothed and beautified the ways
That to our little feet seemed all too rugged in the days
Before you went to selling clothes and I to peddling rimes--
So, Harvey, let us sit a while and think upon those times.
THE ARMENIAN MOTHER
I was a mother, and I weep;
The night is come--the day is sped--
The night of woe profound, for, oh,
My little golden son is dead!
The pretty rose that bloomed anon
Upon my mother breast, they stole;
They let the dove I nursed with love
Fly far away--so sped my soul!
That falcon Death swooped down upon
My sweet-voiced turtle as he sung;
’Tis hushed and dark where soared the lark,
And so, and so my heart was wrung!
Before my eyes, they sent the hail
Upon my green pomegranate-tree--
Upon the bough where only now
A rosy apple bent to me.
They shook my beauteous almond-tree,
Beating its glorious bloom to death--
They strewed it round upon the ground,
And mocked its fragrant dying breath.
I was a mother, and I weep;
I seek the rose where nestleth none--
No more is heard the singing bird--
I have no little golden son!
So fall the shadows over me,
The blighted garden, lonely nest.
Reach down in love, O God above!
And fold my darling to thy breast.
HEIGHO, MY DEARIE
A moonbeam floateth from the skies,
Whispering: “Heigho, my dearie;
I would spin a web before your eyes--
A beautiful web of silver light
Wherein is many a wondrous sight
Of a radiant garden leagues away,
Where the softly tinkling lilies sway
And the snow-white lambkins are at play--
Heigho, my dearie!”
A brownie stealeth from the vine,
Singing: “Heigho, my dearie;
And will you hear this song of mine--
A song of the land of murk and mist
Where bideth the bud the dew hath kist?
Then let the moonbeam’s web of light
Be spun before thee silvery white,
And I shall sing the livelong night--
Heigho, my dearie!”
The night wind speedeth from the sea,
Murmuring: “Heigho, my dearie;
I bring a mariner’s prayer for thee;
So let the moonbeam veil thine eyes,
And the brownie sing thee lullabies--
But I shall rock thee to and fro,
Kissing the brow _he_ loveth so.
And the prayer shall guard thy bed, I trow--
Heigho, my dearie!”
TO A USURPER
Aha! a traitor in the camp,
A rebel strangely bold,--
A lisping, laughing, toddling scamp,
Not more than four years old!
To think that I, who’ve ruled alone
So proudly in the past,
Should be ejected from my throne
By my own son at last!
He trots his treason to and fro,
As only babies can,
And says he’ll be his mamma’s beau
When he’s a “gweat, big man”!
You stingy boy! you’ve always had
A share in mamma’s heart.
Would you begrudge your poor old dad
The tiniest little part?
That mamma, I regret to see,
Inclines to take your part,--
As if a dual monarchy
Should rule her gentle heart!
But when the years of youth have sped,
The bearded man, I trow,
Will quite forget he ever said
He’d be his mamma’s beau.
Renounce your treason, little son,
Leave mamma’s heart to me;
For there will come another one
To claim your loyalty.
And when that other comes to you,
God grant her love may shine
Through all your life, as fair and true
As mamma’s does through mine!
THE BELL-FLOWER TREE
When Brother Bill and I were boys,
How often in the summer we
Would seek the shade your branches made,
O fair and gracious bell-flower tree!
Amid the clover bloom we sat
And looked upon the Holyoke range,
While Fido lay a space away,
Thinking our silence very strange.
The woodchuck in the pasture-lot,
Beside his furtive hole elate,
Heard, off beyond the pickerel pond,
The redwing-blackbird chide her mate.
The bumblebee went bustling round,
Pursuing labors never done--
With drone and sting, the greedy thing
Begrudged the sweets we lay upon!
Our eyes looked always at the hills--
The Holyoke hills that seemed to stand
Between us boys and pictured joys
Of conquest in a further land!
Ah, how we coveted the time
When we should leave this prosy place
And work our wills beyond those hills,
And meet creation face to face!
You must have heard our childish talk--
Perhaps our prattle gave you pain;
For then, old friend, you seemed to bend
Your kindly arms about us twain.
It might have been the wind that sighed,
And yet I thought I heard you say:
“Seek not the ills beyond those hills--
Oh, stay with me, my children, stay!”
See, I’ve come back; the boy you knew
Is wiser, older, sadder grown;
I come once more, just as of yore--
I come, but see! I come alone!
The memory of a brother’s love,
Of blighted hopes, I bring with me,
And here I lay my heart to-day--
A weary heart, O bell-flower tree!
So let me nestle in your shade
As though I were a boy again,
And pray extend your arms, old friend,
And love me as you used to then.
Sing softly as you used to sing,
And maybe I shall seem to be
A little boy and feel the joy
Of thy repose, O bell-flower tree!
FAIRY AND CHILD
Oh, listen, little Dear-My-Soul,
To the fairy voices calling,
For the moon is high in the misty sky
And the honey dew is falling;
To the midnight feast in the clover bloom
The bluebells are a-ringing,
And it’s “Come away to the land of fay”
That the katydid is singing.
Oh, slumber, little Dear-My-Soul,
And hand in hand we’ll wander--
Hand in hand to the beautiful land
Of Balow, away off yonder;
Or we’ll sail along in a lily leaf
Into the white moon’s halo--
Over a stream of mist and dream
Into the land of Balow.
Or, you shall have two beautiful wings--
Two gossamer wings and airy,
And all the while shall the old moon smile
And think you a little fairy;
And you shall dance in the velvet sky,
And the silvery stars shall twinkle
And dream sweet dreams as over their beams
Your footfalls softly tinkle.
THE GRANDSIRE
I loved him so; his voice had grown
Into my heart, and now to hear
The pretty song he had sung so long
Die on the lips to me so dear!
_He_ a child with golden curls,
And I with head as white as snow--
I knelt down there and made this pray’r:
“God, let me be the first to go!”
How often I recall it now:
My darling tossing on his bed,
I sitting there in mute despair,
Smoothing the curls that crowned his head.
They did not speak to me of death--
A feeling _here_ had told me so;
What could I say or do but pray
That I might be the first to go?
Yet, thinking of him standing there
Out yonder as the years go by,
Waiting for me to come, I see
’Twas better he should wait, not I.
For when I walk the vale of death,
Above the wail of Jordan’s flow
Shall rise a song that shall make me strong--
The call of the child that was first to go.
HUSHABY, SWEET MY OWN
Fair is the castle up on the hill--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
The night is fair, and the waves are still,
And the wind is singing to you and to me
In this lowly home beside the sea--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
On yonder hill is store of wealth--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
And revellers drink to a little one’s health;
But you and I bide night and day
For the other love that has sailed away--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
See not, dear eyes, the forms that creep
Ghostlike, O my own!
Out of the mists of the murmuring deep;
Oh, see them not and make no cry
Till the angels of death have passed us by--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
Ah, little they reck of you and me--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
In our lonely home beside the sea;
They seek the castle up on the hill,
And there they will do their ghostly will--
Hushaby, O my own!
Here by the sea a mother croons
“Hushaby, sweet my own!”
In yonder castle a mother swoons
While the angels go down to the misty deep
Bearing a little one fast asleep--
Hushaby, sweet my own!
CHILD AND MOTHER
O Mother-My-Love, if you’ll give me your hand,
And go where I ask you to wander,
I will lead you away to a beautiful land--
The Dreamland that’s waiting out yonder.
We’ll walk in a sweet-posie garden out there
Where moonlight and starlight are streaming
And the flowers and the birds are filling the air
With the fragrance and music of dreaming.
There’ll be no little tired-out boy to undress,
No questions or cares to perplex you;
There’ll be no little bruises or bumps to caress,
Nor patching of stockings to vex you.
For I’ll rock you away on a silver-dew stream,
And sing you asleep when you’re weary,
And no one shall know of our beautiful dream
But you and your own little dearie.
And when I am tired I’ll nestle my head
In the bosom that’s soothed me so often,
And the wide-awake stars shall sing in my stead
A song which our dreaming shall soften.
So, Mother-My-Love, let me take your dear hand,
And away through the starlight we’ll wander--
Away through the mist to the beautiful land--
The Dreamland that’s waiting out yonder!
MEDIEVAL EVENTIDE SONG
Come hither, lyttel childe, and lie upon my breast to-night,
For yonder fares an angell yclad in raimaunt white,
And yonder sings ye angell as onely angells may,
And his songe ben of a garden that bloometh farre awaye.
To them that have no lyttel childe Godde sometimes sendeth down
A lyttel childe that ben a lyttel angell of his owne;
And if so bee they love that childe, he willeth it to staye,
But elsewise, in his mercie, he taketh it awaye.
And sometimes, though they love it, Godde yearneth for ye childe,
And sendeth angells singing, whereby it ben beguiled;
They fold their arms about ye lamb that croodleth at his play,
And beare him to ye garden that bloometh farre awaye.
I wolde not lose ye lyttel lamb that Godde hath lent to me;
If I colde sing that angell songe, how joysome I sholde be!
For, with mine arms about him, and my musick in his eare,
What angell songe of paradize soever sholde I feare?
Soe come, my lyttel childe, and lie upon my breast to-night,
For yonder fares an angell yclad in raimaunt white,
And yonder sings that angell, as onely angells may,
And his songe ben of a garden that bloometh farre awaye.
THE LITTLE PEACH
Little peach in the orchard grew,--
A little peach of emerald hue;
Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew,
It grew.
One day, passing that orchard through,
That little peach dawned on the view
Of Johnny Jones and his Sister Sue--
Them two.
Up at that peach a club they threw--
Down from the stem on which it grew
Fell that peach of emerald hue.
Mon Dieu!
John took a bite and Sue a chew,
And then the trouble began to brew,--
Trouble the doctor couldn’t subdue.
Too true!
Under the turf where the daisies grew
They planted John and his Sister Sue,
And their little souls to the angels flew,--
Boo hoo!
What of that peach of the emerald hue,
Warmed by the sun, and wet by the dew?
Ah, well, its mission on earth is through.
Adieu!
[Illustration: _The Little Peach_]
ARMENIAN LULLABY
If thou wilt shut thy drowsy eyes,
My mulberry one, my golden sun!
The rose shall sing thee lullabies,
My pretty cosset lambkin!
And thou shalt swing in an almond-tree,
With a flood of moonbeams rocking thee--
A silver boat in a golden sea,
My velvet love, my nestling dove,
My own pomegranate blossom!
The stork shall guard thee passing well
All night, my sweet! my dimple-feet!
And bring thee myrrh and asphodel,
My gentle rain-of-springtime!
And for thy slumbrous play shall twine
The diamond stars with an emerald vine
To trail in the waves of ruby wine,
My myrtle bloom, my heart’s perfume,
My little chirping sparrow!
And when the morn wakes up to see
My apple bright, my soul’s delight!
The partridge shall come calling thee,
My jar of milk-and-honey!
Yes, thou shalt know what mystery lies
In the amethyst deep of the curtained skies,
If thou wilt fold thy onyx eyes,
You wakeful one, you naughty son,
You cooing little turtle!
CHRISTMAS TREASURES
I count my treasures o’er with care,--
The little toy my darling knew,
A little sock of faded hue,
A little lock of golden hair.
Long years ago this holy time,
My little one--my all to me--
Sat robed in white upon my knee,
And heard the merry Christmas chime.
“Tell me, my little golden-head,
If Santa Claus should come to-night,
What shall he bring my baby bright,--
What treasure for my boy?” I said.
And then he named this little toy,
While in his round and mournful eyes
There came a look of sweet surprise,
That spake his quiet, trustful joy.
And as he lisped his evening prayer
He asked the boon with childish grace;
Then, toddling to the chimney-place,
He hung this little stocking there.
That night, while lengthening shadows crept,
I saw the white-winged angels come
With singing to our lowly home
And kiss my darling as he slept.
They must have heard his little prayer,
For in the morn, with rapturous face,
He toddled to the chimney-place,
And found this little treasure there.
They came again one Christmas-tide,--
That angel host, so fair and white;
And, singing all that glorious night,
They lured my darling from my side.
A little sock, a little toy,
A little lock of golden hair,
The Christmas music on the air,
A watching for my baby boy!
But if again that angel train
And golden-head come back for me,
To bear me to Eternity,
My watching will not be in vain.
OH, LITTLE CHILD
Hush, little one, and fold your hands--
The sun hath set, the moon is high;
The sea is singing to the sands,
And wakeful posies are beguiled
By many a fairy lullaby--
Hush, little child--my little child!
Dream, little one, and in your dreams
Float upward from this lowly place--
Float out on mellow, misty streams
To lands where bideth Mary mild,
And let her kiss thy little face,
You little child--my little child!
Sleep, little one, and take thy rest--
With angels bending over thee,
Sleep sweetly on that Father’s breast
Whom our dear Christ hath reconciled--
But stay not there--come back to me,
Oh, little child--_my_ little child!
GANDERFEATHER’S GIFT
I was just a little thing
When a fairy came and kissed me;
Floating in upon the light
Of a haunted summer night,
Lo, the fairies came to sing
Pretty slumber songs and bring
Certain boons that else had missed me.
From a dream I turned to see
What those strangers brought for me,
When that fairy up and kissed me--
Here, upon this cheek, he kissed me!
Simmerdew was there, but she
Did not like me altogether;
Daisybright and Turtledove,
Pilfercurds and Honeylove,
Thistleblow and Amberglee
On that gleaming, ghostly sea
Floated from the misty heather,
And around my trundle-bed
Frisked, and looked, and whispering said--
Solemnlike and all together:
“_You_ shall kiss him, Ganderfeather!”
Ganderfeather kissed me then--
Ganderfeather, quaint and merry!
No attenuate sprite was he,
--But as buxom as could be;--
Kissed me twice, and once again,
And the others shouted when
On my cheek uprose a berry
Somewhat like a mole, mayhap,
But the kiss-mark of that chap
Ganderfeather, passing merry--
Humorsome, but kindly, very!
I was just a tiny thing
When the prankish Ganderfeather
Brought this curious gift to me
With his fairy kisses three;
Yet with honest pride I sing
That same gift he chose to bring
Out of yonder haunted heather.
Other charms and friendships fly--
Constant friends this mole and I,
Who have been so long together.
Thank you, little Ganderfeather!
BAMBINO
Bambino in his cradle slept;
And by his side his grandam grim
Bent down and smiled upon the child,
And sung this lullaby to him,--
This “ninna and anninia”:
“When thou art older, thou shalt mind
To traverse countries far and wide,
And thou shalt go where roses blow
And balmy waters singing glide--
So ninna and anninia!
“And thou shalt wear, trimmed up in points,
A famous jacket edged in red,
And, more than that, a peakèd hat,
All decked in gold, upon thy head--
Ah! ninna and anninia!
“Then shalt thou carry gun and knife,
Nor shall the soldiers bully thee;
Perchance, beset by wrong or debt,
A mighty bandit thou shalt be--
So ninna and anninia!
“No woman yet of our proud race
Lived to her fourteenth year unwed;
The brazen churl that eyed a girl
Bought her the ring or paid his head--
So ninna and anninia!
“But once came spies (I know the thieves!)
And brought disaster to our race;
God heard us when our fifteen men
Were hanged within the market-place--
But ninna and anninia!
“Good men they were, my babe, and true,--
Right worthy fellows all, and strong;
Live thou and be for them and me
Avenger of that deadly wrong--
So ninna and anninia!”
LITTLE HOMER’S SLATE
After dear old grandma died,
Hunting through an oaken chest
In the attic, we espied
What repaid our childish quest;
’Twas a homely little slate,
Seemingly of ancient date.
On its quaint and battered face
Was the picture of a cart,
Drawn with all that awkward grace
Which betokens childish art;
But what meant this legend, pray:
“Homer drew this yesterday”?
Mother recollected then
What the years were fain to hide--
She was but a baby when
Little Homer lived and died;
Forty years, so mother said,
Little Homer had been dead.
This one secret through those years
Grandma kept from all apart,
Hallowed by her lonely tears
And the breaking of her heart;
While each year that sped away
Seemed to her but yesterday.
So the homely little slate
Grandma’s baby’s fingers pressed,
To a memory consecrate,
Lieth in the oaken chest,
Where, unwilling we should know,
Grandma put it, years ago.
THE ROCK-A-BY LADY
The Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby street
Comes stealing; comes creeping;
The poppies they hang from her head to her feet,
And each hath a dream that is tiny and fleet--
She bringeth her poppies to you, my sweet,
When she findeth you sleeping!
There is one little dream of a beautiful drum--
“Rub-a-dub!” it goeth;
There is one little dream of a big sugar-plum,
And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come
Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum,
And a trumpet that bloweth!
And dollies peep out of those wee little dreams
With laughter and singing;
And boats go a-floating on silvery streams,
And the stars peek-a-boo with their own misty gleams,
And up, up, and up, where the Mother Moon beams,
The fairies go winging!
Would you dream all these dreams that are tiny and fleet?
They’ll come to you sleeping;
So shut the two eyes that are weary, my sweet,
For the Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby street,
With poppies that hang from her head to her feet,
Comes stealing; comes creeping.
“BOOH!”
On afternoons, when baby boy has had a splendid nap,
And sits, like any monarch on his throne, in nurse’s lap,
In some such wise my handkerchief I hold before my face,
And cautiously and quietly I move about the place;
Then, with a cry, I suddenly expose my face to view,
And you should hear him laugh and crow when I say “Booh!”
Sometimes the rascal tries to make believe that he is scared,
And really, when I first began, he stared, and stared, and stared;
And then his under lip came out and farther out it came,
Till mamma and the nurse agreed it was a “cruel shame”--
But now what does that same wee, toddling, lisping baby do
But laugh and kick his little heels when I say “Booh!”
He laughs and kicks his little heels in rapturous glee, and then
In shrill, despotic treble bids me “do it all aden!”
And I--of course I do it; for, as his progenitor,
It is such pretty, pleasant play as this that I am for!
And it is, oh, such fun! and I am sure that we shall rue
The time when we are both too old to play the game of “Booh!”
GARDEN AND CRADLE
When our babe he goeth walking in his garden,
Around his tinkling feet the sunbeams play;
The posies they are good to him,
And bow them as they should to him,
As fareth he upon his kingly way;
And birdlings of the wood to him
Make music, gentle music, all the day,
When our babe he goeth walking in his garden.
When our babe he goeth swinging in his cradle,
Then the night it looketh ever sweetly down;
The little stars are kind to him,
The moon she hath a mind to him
And layeth on his head a golden crown;
And singeth then the wind to him
A song, the gentle song of Bethlem-town,
When our babe he goeth swinging in his cradle.
THE NIGHT WIND
Have you ever heard the wind go “Yooooo”?
’Tis a pitiful sound to hear!
It seems to chill you through and through
With a strange and speechless fear.
’Tis the voice of the night that broods outside
When folk should be asleep,
And many and many’s the time I’ve cried
To the darkness brooding far and wide
Over the land and the deep:
“Whom do you want, O lonely night,
That you wail the long hours through?”
And the night would say in its ghostly way:
“Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!”
My mother told me long ago
(When I was a little tad)
That when the night went wailing so,
Somebody had been bad;
And then, when I was snug in bed,
Whither I had been sent,
With the blankets pulled up round my head,
I’d think of what my mother’d said,
And wonder what boy she meant!
And “Who’s been bad to-day?” I’d ask
Of the wind that hoarsely blew,
And the voice would say in its meaningful way
“Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!”
That this was true I must allow--
You’ll not believe it, though!
Yes, though I’m quite a model now,
I was not always so.
And if you doubt what things I say,
Suppose you make the test;
Suppose, when you’ve been bad some day
And up to bed are sent away
From mother and the rest--
Suppose you ask, “Who has been bad?”
And then you’ll hear what’s true;
For the wind will moan in its ruefulest tone:
“Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!”
KISSING TIME
’Tis when the lark goes soaring
And the bee is at the bud,
When lightly dancing zephyrs
Sing over field and flood;
When all sweet things in nature
Seem joyfully achime--
’Tis then I wake my darling,
For it is kissing time!
Go, pretty lark, a-soaring,
And suck your sweets, O bee;
Sing, O ye winds of summer,
Your songs to mine and me;
For with your song and rapture
Cometh the moment when
It’s half-past kissing time
And time to kiss again!
So--so the days go fleeting
Like golden fancies free,
And every day that cometh
Is full of sweets for me;
And sweetest are those moments
My darling comes to climb
Into my lap to mind me
That it is kissing time.
Sometimes, maybe, he wanders
A heedless, aimless way--
Sometimes, maybe, he loiters
In pretty, prattling play;
But presently bethinks him
And hastens to me then,
For it’s half-past kissing time
And time to kiss again!
JEST ’FORE CHRISTMAS
Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain’t a girl--ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an’ things that’s worn by Fauntleroy!
Love to chawnk green apples an’ go swimmin’ in the lake--
Hate to take the castor-ile they give for belly-ache!
’Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain’t no flies on
me,
But jest ’fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be!
Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat;
First thing she knows she doesn’t know where she is at!
Got a clipper sled, an’ when us kids goes out to slide,
’Long comes the grocery cart, an’ we all hook a ride!
But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an’ cross,
He reaches at us with his whip, an’ larrups up his hoss,
An’ then I laff an’ holler, “Oh, ye never teched _me_!”
But jest ’fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be!
Gran’ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,
I’ll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan,
As was et up by the cannibuls that lives in Ceylon’s Isle,
Where every prospeck pleases, an’ only man is vile!
But gran’ma she has never been to see a Wild West show,
Nor read the Life of Daniel Boone, or else I guess she’d know
That Buff’lo Bill an’ cow-boys is good enough for me!
_Excep’_ jest ’fore Christmas, when I’m good as I kin be!