807

THE COURTIN'

God makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur 'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown

An' peeked in thru' the winder,

An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in—
There war n't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted

The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young
Fetched back f'om Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,

Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.

'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur,
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A 1,
Clear grit an' human natur',
None could n't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells— All is, he could n't love 'em.

But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;

My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upun it.

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!
She seemed to 've gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper,—
All ways to once her feelins flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle,
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk

Ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work, Parin' away like murder.

'You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?' 'Wal... no .. I come dasignin' 'To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es Agin to-morror's i'nin'.'

To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be persumin';
Mebby to mean yes an' say no
Comes nateral to women.

He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t'other,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He could n't ha' told ye nuther.

Says he, 'I'd better call agin;'

་

Says she, Think likely, Mister:'

Thet last word pricked him like a pin, Wal, he up an' kist her.

An'.

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin' o'smily roun' the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.

For she was jes' the quiet kind

Whose naturs never vary,

Like streams that keep a summer mind Snowhid in Jenooary.

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued

Too tight for all expressin',

Tell mother see how metters stood,
An' gin 'em both her blessin'.

Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,

An' all I know is they was cried
In meetin' come nex' Sunday.

808 ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION

July 21, 1865

WEAK-WINGED is song,

I

Nor aims at that clear-ethered height
Whither the brave deed climbs for light:
We seem to do them wrong,

Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearse
Who in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse,
Our trivial song to honor those who come
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum,
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire,
Live battle-odes whose lines were steel and fire:
Yet sometimes feathered words are strong,
A gracious memory to buoy up and save
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave
Of the unventurous throng.

II

To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes back
Her wisest Scholars, those who understood
The deeper teaching of her mystic tome,
And offered their fresh lives to make it good:
No lore of Greece or Rome,

No science peddling with the names of things,
Or reading stars to find inglorious fates,
Can lift our life with wings

Far from Death's idle gulf that for the many waits,
And lengthen out our dates

With that clear fame whose memory sings

In manly hearts to come, and nerves them and dilates: Nor such thy teaching, Mother of us all!

Not such the trumpet-call

Of thy diviner mood,

That could thy sons entice

From happy homes and toils, the fruitful nest
Of those half-virtues which the world calls best,

Into War's tumult rude;

But rather far that stern device

The sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood
In the dim, unventured wood,

The Veritas1 that lurks beneath

The letter's unprolific sheath,

Life of whate'er makes life worth living, Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal food,

One heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving.

III

Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil
Amid the dust of books to find her,
Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,

With the cast mantle she hath left behind her.
Many in sad faith sought for her,

Many with crossed hands sighed for her;
But these, our brothers, fought for her,
At life's dear peril wrought for her,
So loved her that they died for her,
Tasting the raptured fleetness
Of her divine completeness:

Their higher instinct knew

Those love her best who to themselves are true,
And what they dare to dream of, dare to do;
They followed her and found her
Where all may hope to find,

Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind,

But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her
Where faith made whole with deed

Breathes its awakening breath

Into the lifeless creed,

They saw her plumed and mailed,

With sweet, stern face unveiled,

And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death,

1 Veritas, the motto on the seal of Harvard University, inscribed upon three open books.