Saint Abe and His Seven Wives. Buchanan Robert Williams

      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!

      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.

      "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 look of savage glee.

      Joe Wilson is the boss's name,

      A Western boy well known to fame.

      He goes about the dangerous land

      His life for ever in his hand;

      Has lost three fingers in a fray,

      Has scalp'd his Indian too they say;

      Between the white man and the red

      Four times he hath been left for dead;

      Can drink, and swear, and laugh, and brawl,

      And keeps his big heart thro' it all

      Tender for babes and women.

      He

      Turned, smiled, and nodded savagely;

      Then, with a dark look in his eyes

      In answer to my dumb surprise,

      Pointed with jerk of the whip's heft

      Back to the place that we had left,

      And cried aloud,

      "I guess you think

      I'm mad, or vicious, or in drink.

      But theer you're wrong. I never pass

      The ranche down theer and bit of grass,

      I never pass 'em, night nor day,

      But the fit takes me jest that way!

      The hosses know as well as me

      What's coming, miles afore we see

      The dem'd old corner of a place,

      And they git ready for the race!

      Lord! if