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SAINT ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES

_A Tale of Salt Lake City_

With A Bibliographical Note

By Robert Buchanan

_First Cheap Edition_

London

1896



TO OLD DAN CHAUCER.


                   Maypole dance and Whitsun ale,

                   Sports of peasants in the dale,

                   Harvest mirth and junketting,

                   Fireside play and kiss-in-ring,

                   Ancient fun and wit and ease, --

                   Gone are one and all of these;

                   All the pleasant pastime planned

                   In the green old Mother-land:

                   Gone are these and gone the time

                   Of the breezy English rhyme,

                   Sung to make men glad and wise

                   By great Bards with twinkling eyes:

                   Gone the tale and gone the song

                   Sound as nut-brown ale and strong,

                   Freshening the sultry sense

                   Out of idle impotence,

                   Sowing features dull or bright

                   With deep dimples of delight!


                   Thro' the Motherland I went

                   Seeking these, half indolent:

                   Up and down, saw them not:

                   Only found them, half forgot.

                   Buried in long-darken'd nooks

                   With thy barrels of old books,

                   Where the light and love and mirth

                   Of the morning days of earth

                   Sleeps, like light of sunken suns

                   Brooding deep in cob-webb'd tuns!

                   Everywhere I found instead,

                   Hanging her dejected head,

                   Barbing shafts of bitter wit,

                   The pale Modern Spirit sit--

                   While her shadow, great as Gog's

                   Cast upon the island fogs,

                   In the midst of all things dim

                   Loom'd, gigantically grim.

                   Honest Chaucer, thee I greet

                   In a verse with blithesomefeet.

                   And ino' modern bards may stare,

                   Crack a passing joke with Care!

                   Take a merry song and true

                   Fraught with inner meanings too!

                   Goodman Dull may croak and scowl:--

                   Leave him hooting to the owl!

                   Tight-laced Prudery may turn

                   Angry back with eyes that burn,

                   Reading on from page to page

                   Scrofulous novels of the age!

                   Fools may frown and humbugs rail,

                   Not for them I tell the Tale;

                   Not for them,, but souls like thee.

                   Wise old English Jollity!

                   Newport, October,  1872




ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES


               Art thou unto a helpmate bound?

               Then stick to her, my brother!

               But hast thou laid her in the ground?

               Don't go to seek another!

               Thou hast not sin'd, if thou hast wed,

               Like many of our number,

               But thou hast spread a thorny bed,

               And there alas! must slumber!

               St. Paul, Cor. I., 7, 27-28.

               O let thy fount of love be blest

               And let thy wife rejoice,

               Contented rest upon her breast

               And listen to her voice;

               Yea, be not ravish'd from her side

               Whom thou at first has chosen,

               Nor having tried one earthly bride

               Go sighing for a Dozen!

               Sol. Prov. V., 18-20.




APPROACHING UTAH.--THE BOSS'S TALE.




I--PASSING THE HANCHE.


               "Grrr!" shrieked the boss, with teeth clench'd

                        tight,

               Just as the lone ranche hove in sight,

               And with a face of ghastly hue

               He flogg'd the horses till they flew,

               As if the devil were at their back,

               Along the wild and stony track.

               From side to side the waggon swung,

               While to the quaking seat I clung.

               Dogs bark'd; on each side of the pass

               The cattle grazing on the grass

               Raised heads and stared; and with a cry

               Out the men rush'd as we roll'd by.


               "Grrr!" shriek'd the boss; and o'er and o'er

               He flogg'd the foaming steeds and swore;

               Harder and harder grew his face

               As by the rançhe we swept apace,

               And faced the hill, and past the pond,

               And gallop'd up the height beyond,

               Nor tighten'd rein till field and farm

               Were hidden by the mountain's arm

               A mile behind; when, hot and spent,

               The horses paused on the ascent,

               And mopping from his brow the sweat.

               The boy glanced round with teeth still set,

               And panting, with his eyes on me,

               Smil'd with a