



Produced by Alan R. Light





SONGS, MERRY AND SAD

by John Charles McNeill

[American (North Carolina) poet.  1874-1907.]



               To
               JOSEPH P. CALDWELL
               ("The Old Man")




Contents


     The Bride
     "Oh, Ask Me Not"
     Isabel
     To ------
     To Melvin Gardner:  Suicide
     Away Down Home
     For Jane's Birthday
     A Secret
     The Old Bad Woman
     Valentine
     A Photograph
     Jesse Covington
     An Idyl
     Home Songs
     M. W. Ransom
     Protest
     Oblivion
     Now!
     Tommy Smith
     Before Bedtime
     "If I Could Glimpse Him"
     Attraction
     Love's Fashion
     Alcestis
     Reminiscence
     Sonnet
     Lines
     An Easter Hymn
     A Christmas Hymn
     When I Go Home
     Odessa
     Trifles
     Sunburnt Boys
     Gray Days
     An Invalid
     A Caged Mocking-Bird
     Dawn
     Harvest
     Two Pictures
     October
     The Old Clock
     Tear Stains
     A Prayer
     She Being Young
     Paul Jones
     The Drudge
     The Wife
     Vision
     September
     Barefooted
     Pardon Time
     The Rattlesnake
     The Prisoner
     Sonnet
     Folk Song
     "97":  The Fast Mail
     Sundown
     At Sea
     L'envoi




SONGS, MERRY AND SAD




The Bride



     The little white bride is left alone
     With him, her lord; the guests have gone;
         The festal hall is dim.
     No jesting now, nor answering mirth.
     The hush of sleep falls on the earth
         And leaves her here with him.

     Why should there be, O little white bride,
     When the world has left you by his side,
         A tear to brim your eyes?
     Some old love-face that comes again,
     Some old love-moment sweet with pain
         Of passionate memories?

     Does your heart yearn back with last regret
     For the maiden meads of mignonette
         And the fairy-haunted wood,
     That you had not withheld from love,
     A little while, the freedom of
         Your happy maidenhood?

     Or is it but a nameless fear,
     A wordless joy, that calls the tear
         In dumb appeal to rise,
     When, looking on him where he stands,
     You yield up all into his hands,
         Pleading into his eyes?

     For days that laugh or nights that weep
     You two strike oars across the deep
         With life's tide at the brim;
     And all time's beauty, all love's grace
     Beams, little bride, upon your face
         Here, looking up at him.




"Oh, Ask Me Not"



     Love, should I set my heart upon a crown,
      Squander my years, and gain it,
     What recompense of pleasure could I own?
      For youth's red drops would stain it.

     Much have I thought on what our lives may mean,
      And what their best endeavor,
     Seeing we may not come again to glean,
      But, losing, lose forever.

     Seeing how zealots, making choice of pain,
      From home and country parted,
     Have thought it life to leave their fellows slain,
      Their women broken-hearted;

     How teasing truth a thousand faces claims,
      As in a broken mirror,
     And what a father died for in the flames
      His own son scorns as error;

     How even they whose hearts were sweet with song
      Must quaff oblivion's potion,
     And, soon or late, their sails be lost along
      The all-surrounding ocean:

     Oh, ask me not the haven of our ships,
      Nor what flag floats above you!
     I hold you close, I kiss your sweet, sweet lips,
      And love you, love you, love you!




Isabel



     When first I stood before you,
         Isabel,
     I stood there to adore you,
         In your spell;
     For all that grace composes,
     And all that beauty knows is
     Your face above the roses,
         Isabel.

     You knew the charm of flowers,
         Isabel,
     Which, like incarnate hours,
         Rose and fell
     At your bosom, glowed and gloried,
     White and pale and pink and florid,
     And you touched them with your forehead,
         Isabel.

     Amid the jest and laughter,
         Isabel,
     I saw you, and thereafter,
         Ill or well,
     There was nothing else worth seeing,
     Worth following or fleeing,
     And no reason else for being,
         Isabel.




To ------



     Some time, far hence, when Autumn sheds
      Her frost upon your hair,
     And you together sit at dusk,
      May I come to you there?
     And lightly will our hearts turn back
      To this, then distant, day
     When, while the world was clad in flowers,
      You two were wed in May.

     When we shall sit about your board
      Three old friends met again,
     Joy will be with us, but not much
      Of jest and laughter then;
     For Autumn's large content and calm,
      Like heaven's own smile, will bless
     The harvest of your happy lives
      With store of happiness.

     May you, who, flankt about with flowers,
      Will plight your faith to-day,
     Hold, evermore enthroned, the love
      Which you have crowned in May;
     And Time will sleep upon his scythe,
      The swallow rest his wing,
     Seeing that you at autumntide
      Still clasp the hands of spring.




To Melvin Gardner:  Suicide



     A flight of doves, with wanton wings,
      Flash white against the sky.
     In the leafy copse an oriole sings,
      And a robin sings hard by.
     Sun and shadow are out on the hills;
     The swallow has followed the daffodils;
     In leaf and blade, life throbs and thrills
      Through the wild, warm heart of May.

     To have seen the sun come back, to have seen
      Children again at play,
     To have heard the thrush where the woods are green
      Welcome the new-born day,
     To have felt the soft grass cool to the feet,
     To have smelt earth's incense, heavenly sweet,
     To have shared the laughter along the street,
      And, then, to have died in May!

     A thousand roses will blossom red,
      A thousand hearts be gay,
     For the summer lingers just ahead
      And June is on her way;
     The bee must bestir him to fill his cells,
     The moon and the stars will weave new spells
     Of love and the music of marriage bells--
      And, oh, to be dead in May!




Away Down Home



     'T will not be long before they hear
      The bullbat on the hill,
     And in the valley through the dusk
      The pastoral whippoorwill.
     A few more friendly suns will call
      The bluets through the loam
     And star the lanes with buttercups
         Away down home.

     "Knee-deep!" from reedy places
      Will sing the river frogs.
     The terrapins will sun themselves
      On all the jutting logs.
     The angler's cautious oar will leave
      A trail of drifting foam
     Along the shady currents
         Away down home.

     The mocking-bird will feel again
      The glory of his wings,
     And wanton through the balmy air
      And sunshine while he sings,
     With a new cadence in his call,
      The glint-wing'd crow will roam
     From field to newly-furrowed field
         Away down home.

     When dogwood blossoms mingle
      With the maple's modest red,
     And sweet arbutus wakes at last
      From out her winter's bed,
     'T would not seem strange at all to meet
      A dryad or a gnome,
     Or Pan or Psyche in the woods
         Away down home.

     Then come with me, thou weary heart!
      Forget thy brooding ills,
     Since God has come to walk among
      His valleys and his hills!
     The mart will never miss thee,
      Nor the scholar's dusty tome,
     And the Mother waits to bless thee,
         Away down home.




For Jane's Birthday



     If fate had held a careless knife
      And clipped one line that drew,
     Of all the myriad lines of life,
      From Eden up to you;
     If, in the wars and wastes of time,
      One sire had met the sword,
     One mother died before her prime
      Or wed some other lord;

     Or had some other age been blest,
      Long past or yet to be,
     And you had been the world's sweet guest
      Before or after me:
     I wonder how this rose would seem,
      Or yonder hillside cot;
     For, dear, I cannot even dream
      A world where you are not!

     Thus heaven forfends that I shall drink
      The gall that might have been,
     If aught had broken a single link
      Along the lists of men;
     And heaven forgives me, whom it loves,
      For feigning such distress:
     My heart is happiest when it proves
      Its depth of happiness.

     Enough to see you where you are,
      Radiant with maiden mirth!
     To bless whatever blessed star
      Presided o'er your birth,
     That, on this immemorial morn,
      When heaven was bending low,
     The gods were kind and you were born
      Twenty sweet years ago!




A Secret



     A little baby went to sleep
      One night in his white bed,
     And the moon came by to take a peep
      At the little baby head.

     A wind, as wandering winds will do,
      Brought to the baby there
     Sweet smells from some quaint flower that grew
      Out on some hill somewhere.

     And wind and flower and pale moonbeam
      About the baby's bed
     Stirred and woke the funniest dream
      In the little sleepy head.

     He thought he was all sorts of things
      From a lion to a cat;
     Sometimes he thought he flew on wings,
      Or fell and fell, so that

     When morning broke he was right glad
      But much surprised to see
     Himself a soft, pink little lad
      Just like he used to be.

     I would not give this story fame
      If there were room to doubt it,
     But when he learned to talk, he came
      And told me all about it.




The Old Bad Woman



     The Old Bad Woman was coming along,
     Busily humming a sort of song.

     You could barely see, below her bonnet,
     Her chin where her long nose rested on it.

     One tooth thrust out on her lower lip,
     And she held one hand upon her hip.

     Then we went to thinking mighty fast,
     For we knew our time had come at last.

     For what we had done and didn't do
     The Old Bad Woman would put us through.

     If you cried enough to fill your hat,
     She wouldn't care; she was used to that.

     Of the jam we had eaten, she would know;
     How we ran barefooted in the snow;

     How we cried when they made us take our bath;
     How we tied the grass across the path;

     How we bound together the cat and cur--
     We couldn't deny these things to her.

     She pulled her nose up off her chin
     And blinked at us with an awful grin.

     And we almost died, becaze and because
     Her bony fingers looked like claws.

     When she came on up to where we were,
     How could we be polite to her?

     You needn't guess how she put us through.
     If you are bad, she'll visit you.

     And when she leaves and hobbles off
     You'll think that she has done enough;

     For the Old Bad Woman will and can
     Be just as bad as the Old Bad Man!




Valentine



     This is the time for birds to mate;
        To-day the dove
     Will mark the ancient amorous date
        With moans of love;
     The crow will change his call to prate
        His hopes thereof.

     The starling will display the red
        That lights his wings;
     The wren will know the sweet things said
        By him who swings
     And ducks and dips his crested head
        And sings and sings.

     They are obedient to their blood,
        Nor ask a sign,
     Save buoyant air and swelling bud,
        At hands divine,
     But choose, each in the barren wood,
        His valentine.

     In caution's maze they never wait
        Until they die;
     They flock the season's open gate
        Ere time steals by.
     Love, shall we see and imitate,
        You, love, and I?




A Photograph



     When in this room I turn in pondering pace
     And find thine eyes upon me where I stand,
     Led on, as by Enemo's silken strand,
     I come and gaze and gaze upon thy face.

     Framed round by silence, poised on pearl-white grace
     Of curving throat, too sweet for beaded band,
     It seems as if some wizard's magic wand
     Had wrought thee for the love of all the race.

     Dear face, that will not turn about to see
     The tulips, glorying in the casement sun,
     Or, other days, the drizzled raindrops run

     Down the damp walls, but follow only me,
     Would that Pygmalion's goddess might be won
     To change this lifeless image into thee!




Jesse Covington



     If I have had some merry times
      In roaming up and down the earth,
     Have made some happy-hearted rhymes
      And had my brimming share of mirth,
     And if this song should live in fame
      When my brief day is dead and gone,
     Let it recall with mine the name
      Of old man Jesse Covington.

     Let it recall his waggish heart--
      Yeke-hey, yeke-hey, hey-diddle-diddle--
     When, while the fire-logs fell apart,
      He snatched the bow across his fiddle,
     And looked on, with his eyes half shut,
      Which meant his soul was wild with fun,
     At our mad capers through the hut
      Of old man Jesse Covington.

     For all the thrilling tales he told,
      For all the tunes the fiddle knew,
     For all the glorious nights of old
      We boys and he have rollicked through,
     For laughter all unknown to wealth
      That roared responsive to a pun,
     A hale, ripe age and ruddy health
      To old man Jesse Covington!




An Idyl



     Upon a gnarly, knotty limb
      That fought the current's crest,
     Where shocks of reeds peeped o'er the brim,
      Wild wasps had glued their nest.

     And in a sprawling 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