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Read Ebook: Pieces People Ask For Serious Humorous Pathetic Patriotic and Dramatic Selections in Prose and Poetry for Reading and Recitations by Baker George M George Melville Editor
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Ebook has 628 lines and 61207 words, and 13 pages
"That's good--pard. It's all glory--comin' over--the Range--mother's face--her--face"--
"Thine is the glory, we ask--for Jesus' sake--Amen."
"Pard"--
"What, Rough? I'm all unstrung. I"--
"Fare"--
"Rough! Yer worse! What, dead?"
Yes, the wanderings were over. Ended with a prayer, rough and sincere, like the heart that had ceased to throb; a prayer and a few real tears, even in that lone cabin in the ca?on; truer than many a death scene knows, although a nation does honor to the dying; a prayer that pleased Him better than many a prayer of the schools and creeds. A rough but gentle hand closed the eyes. The first rays of the morning sun broke through a crevice in the little cabin, and hung like his mother's smile over the couch of the sleeping boy. Only one mourner watched with Rough as he waited for the new name which will be given to us all, when that light comes to the world from over the Range.
THE DRIVER OF NINETY-THREE.
Street-car driver, "Ninety-three!" Very weary and worn was he, As he dragged himself to his little home; Long, long hours from year to year, Never a day for rest, no cheer, In the woods or meadows in joy to roam.
All day through in tiresome round, Wages scanty, and prospects bound In a treadmill life from sun to sun, Facing the winter's cold and sleet, Facing the summer's burning heat, With little to hope and little won.
The clothing was poor of "Ninety-three," And poor as well for the family; But the wife was patient with gentle grace. "I've watched all day by the baby's bed; I think he is going, John," she said, With an anxious look on her pallid face.
He gazed with pride on his baby boy. "He is handsome, wife!" and a look of joy Just for a moment dried the tears. "How does he look in the glad daylight? I have never seen him, except at night;" And he sighed as he thought of the weary years.
Labor the blessing of life should be, But it seemed like a curse to "Ninety-three," For twice too long were the toiling hours; Never the time to improve the mind, Or joy in his little ones to find: Grasping and thoughtless are human powers.
"I must take a day," said "Ninety-three" To the wealthy railroad company; "I shall see the face of my child," he said. Oh, bitter the thought to wait till death Has whitened the cheek and stopped the breath, Before we can see our precious dead!
METAMORA TO THE COUNCIL.
You sent for me, and I've come: if you have nothing to say, I go back again. How is it, brothers? The doubt seems on all your faces, and your young warriors grasp their fire-weapons, as if they waited the onset of the foe. You were like a small thing upon the great waters; you had no earth to rest upon; you left the smoke of your father's wig-wam far in the distance, when the lord of the soil took you as little children to his home; our hearths were warm, and the Indian was the white man's friend. Your great Book tells you to give good gifts. The Indian needs no book: the Great Spirit has written with his finger on his heart. Wisconego here? let me see his eye! Art thou not he whom I snatched from the war-club of the Mohegan, when the lips of the foe thirsted for thy blood, and their warriors had sung thy death-song? Say unto these people that they have bought thy tongue, and that thy coward heart has uttered a lie. Slave of the whites, go! follow Sassawan! White man, beware! the wrath of the wronged Indian shall fall on you like a mighty cataract that dashes the uprooted oak down its mighty chasm; the dread war-cry shall start you from dreams at night, and the red hatchet gleam in the blaze of your burning dwellings. Tremble, from the east to the west, from the north to the south, till the lands you have stolen groan beneath your feet! Thus do I smite your nation, and defy your power!
HOW THE RANSOM WAS PAID.
On the helpless Flemish village Cruel Alva swooped and fell; And the peace of trade and tillage Turned to martial clank and yell. In the town-house, tall and handsome, Stood the great duke looking down On the burghers proffering ransom For the safety of the town.
O'er his brow gray locks were twining, For his casque was laid aside, And his good sword carved and shining From the sword-belt was untied. Prince he seemed of born commanders; Pride and power each gesture told; As he cried, "Ye men of Flanders, Bring me twenty casks of gold!"
Then upon them fell a sadness, And a shadow like a pall, While they murmured, "'Tis rank madness Such a sum from us to call!" And the spokesman of the village Murmured feebly, "Sure you jest." Answered Alva, "Gold or pillage, Choose whichever may suit you best!"
Faint and stunned they turned despairing, When arose a laugh of joy, And before their startled staring In there pranced a little boy; On his curls the duke's helm rested, As with noisy glee he roared, And his good steed mailed and crested Was great Alva's mighty sword!
Round about the room he gambolled, Peeping through the helmet bars; Now he leaped, and now he ambled, Like a Cupid mocking Mars. Then he stayed his merry prancing, And of Alva's knees caught hold, Where a ray of sunlight glancing Turned his sunny curls to gold.
Swift the mother, sorely frightened, Strove to take the cherub wild; But the duke's stern features lightened As he kept her from the child; And he drank the pretty prattle-- For the baby knew no fear-- Till his eye, so fierce in battle, Softened with a pearly tear.
RE-ENLISTED.
Oh did you see him in the street, dressed up in army blue, When drums and trumpets into town their storm of music threw,-- A louder tune than all the winds could muster in the air,-- The Rebel winds, that tried so hard our flag in strips to tear?
You didn't mind him? Oh, you looked beyond him, then, perhaps, To see the mounted officers rigged out with trooper caps, And shiny clothes, and sashes, and epaulets and all. It wasn't for such things as these he heard his country call.
She asked for men; and up he spoke, my handsome, hearty Sam,-- "I'll die for the dear old Union, if she'll take me as I am." And if a better man than he there's mother that can show, From Maine to Minnesota, then let the nation know.
That couldn't be improved by all the badges in the land: A patriot, and a good, strong man; are generals much more grand? We rest our pride on that big heart, wrapt up in army blue, The girl he loves, Mehitabel, and I, who love him too.
He's never shirked a battle yet, though frightful risks he's run, Since treason flooded Baltimore, the spring of sixty-one; Through blood and storm he's held out firm, nor fretted once, my Sam, At swamps of Chickahominy, or fields of Antietam.
Though many a time he's told us, when he saw them lying dead, The boys that came from Newburyport, and Lynn, and Marblehead, Stretched out upon the trampled turf, and wept on by the sky, It seemed to him the Commonwealth had drained her life-blood dry.
"But then," he said, "the more's the need the country has of me: To live and fight the war all through, what glory it will be! The Rebel balls don't hit me; and, mother, if they should, You'll know I've fallen in my place, where I have always stood."
He's taken out his furlough, and short enough it seemed: I often tell Mehitabel he'll think he only dreamed Of walking with her nights so bright you couldn't see a star, And hearing the swift tide come in across the harbor bar.
The stars that shine above the stripes, they light him southward now; The tide of war has swept him back; he's made a solemn vow To build himself no home-nest till his country's work is done: God bless the vow, and speed the work, my patriot, my son!
And yet it is a pretty place where his new house might be,-- An orchard-road that leads your eye straight out upon the sea. The boy not work his father's farm? it seems almost a shame; But any selfish plan for him he'd never let me name.
He's re-enlisted for the war, for victory or for death; A soldier's grave, perhaps! the thought has half-way stopped my breath, And driven a cloud across the sun. My boy, it will not be! The war will soon be over, home again you'll come to me.
He's re-enlisted; and I smiled to see him going too! There's nothing that becomes him half so well as army blue. Only a private in the ranks! but sure I am, indeed, If all the privates were like him, they'd scarcely captains need.
SHE STOOD ON THE STAIR.
She stood at the turn of the stair, With the rose-tinted light on her face, And the gold of her hair gleaming out From a mystical billow of lace.
And I waited and watched her apart, And a mist seemed to compass my sight; For last year we were nearer than friends, And to me she was nothing to-night.
And the jasmine she wore at her throat Was heavy with fragrance, and cast The sorrowful present away, And carried me back to the past.
Yes, her face is as proud and as sweet, And the flowers are the same as of old. Is her voice just as gentle and low? Is her heart just as cruel and cold?
Does she dream of one summer ago, As she stands on the rose-tinted stair? Does she think of her Newport romance, While she buttons her long mosquetaire?
And some one is singing a song, And high o'er the music it rings, And she listens and leans from the stair, For these are the words that it sings:--
"Oh, love for a month or a week, Oh, love for a year or a day; But, oh for the love that will live-- That will linger forever and aye!"
There's a stillness--the music has stopped, And she turns with an indolent grace: Am I waking, or still do I dream, Or is there a tear on her face?
Then I step from the shadow apart, Till I stand by her side on the stair: One step to the flowers and light From the darkness and gloom of despair.
And I take both her hands in my own, And I look in her eyes once again,-- And I shiver and tremble and shake When I think what a fool I have been.
THE HOUSE IN THE MEADOW.
It stands in a sunny meadow, The house so mossy and brown, With its cumbrous old stone chimneys, And the gray roof sloping down.
The trees fold their green arms round it,-- The trees a century old; And the winds go chanting through them, And the sunbeams drop their gold.
The cowslips spring in the marshes, The roses bloom on the hill, And beside the brook in the pasture The herds go feeding at will.
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