Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse Part 14

A cloud of cinder-dotted smoke, whose billows rise and swell

A solemn Sabbath stillness lies along the Mudville lanes

A stretch of hill and valley, swathed thick in robes of white

Almost every other evenin', jest as reg'lar as the clock

"Blessed are the poor in spirit": there, I'll just remember that

Climb to my knee, little boy, little boy,--

For years I've seen the frothy lines go thund'rin' down the sh.o.r.e

From the window of the chapel softly sounds an organ's note

Grandfather's "summer sweets" are ripe

He ain't no gold-laced "Belvidere"

Hey, you swelled-up turkey feller!

Home from college came the stripling, calm and cool and debonair

I hain't no great detective, like yer read about,--the kind

I never was naturally vicious;

I remember, when a youngster, all the happy hours I spent

I s'pose I hain't progressive, but I swan, it seems ter me

I'll write, for I'm witty, a popular ditty

I'm pretty nearly certain that 't was 'bout two weeks ago,--

I've got a little yaller dog, a wuthless kind of chap

In Mother's room still stands the chair

In the gleam and gloom of the April weather

It's a wonderful world we're in, my dear

It's alone in the dark of the old wagon-shed

It's getting on ter winter now, the nights are crisp and chill

It stands at the bend where the road has its end

Jason White has come ter town

Just a simple little picture of a sunny country road

Kind er _like_ a stormy day, take it all together,--

Little bare feet, sunburned and brown,

Little foot, whose lightest pat

Me and Billy's in the woodshed; Ma said, "Run out-doors and play;

My dream-s.h.i.+p's decks are of beaten gold

My sister's best feller is 'most six-foot-three

My son Hezekiah's a painter; yes, that's the purfession he's at;

Now Councilman O'Hoolihan do'n't b'lave in annixation

O, it's Christmas Eve, and moonlight, and the Christmas air is chill

O you boys grown gray and bearded, you that used ter chum with me

Oh, the cool September mornin's! now they 're with us once agin

Oh, the Friday evening meetings in the vestry, long ago

Oh! the horns are all a-tootin' as we rattle through the town

Oh, the song of the Sea--

Oh, the story-book boy! he's a wonderful youth

Oh, the wild November wind

Oh! they've swept the parlor carpet, and they've dusted every chair

Oh, those sweet old-fas.h.i.+oned posies, that were mother's pride and joy

Old Dan'l Hanks he says this town

On a log behind the pigsty of a modest little farm

Once, by the edge of a pleasant pool

Our Aunt 'Mandy thinks that boys

Our Sary Emma is possessed ter be at somethin' queer;