Second Book of Verse. Field Eugene

      NOTABLY fond of music, I dote on a sweeter tone

      Than ever the harp has uttered or ever the lute has known.

      When I wake at five in the morning with a feeling in my head

      Suggestive of mild excesses before I retired to bed;

      When a small but fierce volcano vexes me sore inside,

      And my throat and mouth are furred with a fur that seemeth a buffalo hide, —

      How gracious those dews of solace that over my senses fall

      At the clink of the ice in the pitcher the boy brings up the hall!

      Oh, is it the gaudy ballet, with features I cannot name,

      That kindles in virile bosoms that slow but devouring flame?

      Or is it the midnight supper, eaten before we retire,

      That presently by combustion setteth us all afire?

      Or is it the cheery magnum? – nay, I'll not chide the cup

      That makes the meekest mortal anxious to whoop things up:

      Yet, what the cause soever, relief comes when we call, —

      Relief with that rapturous clinkety-clink that clinketh alike for all.

      I've dreamt of the fiery furnace that was one vast bulk of flame,

      And that I was Abednego a-wallowing in that same;

      And I've dreamt I was a crater, possessed of a mad desire

      To vomit molten lava, and to snort big gobs of fire;

      I've dreamt I was Roman candles and rockets that fizzed and screamed, —

      In short, I have dreamt the cussedest dreams that ever a human dreamed:

      But all the red-hot fancies were scattered quick as a wink

      When the spirit within that pitcher went clinking its clinkety-clink.

      Boy, why so slow in coming with that gracious, saving cup?

      Oh, haste thee to the succor of the man who is burning up!

      See how the ice bobs up and down, as if it wildly strove

      To reach its grace to the wretch who feels like a red-hot kitchen stove!

      The piteous clinks it clinks methinks should thrill you through and through:

      An erring soul is wanting drink, and he wants it p. d. q.!

      And, lo! the honest pitcher, too, falls in so dire a fret

      That its pallid form is presently bedewed with a chilly sweat.

      May blessings be showered upon the man who first devised this drink

      That happens along at five a. m. with its rapturous clinkety-clink!

      I never have felt the cooling flood go sizzling down my throat

      But what I vowed to hymn a hymn to that clinkety-clink devote;

      So now, in the prime of my manhood, I polish this lyric gem

      For the uses of all good fellows who are thirsty at five a. m.,

      But specially for those fellows who have known the pleasing thrall

      Of the clink of the ice in the pitcher the boy brings up the hall.

      WHAT though the radiant thoroughfare

      Teems with a noisy throng?

      What though men bandy everywhere

      The ribald jest and song?

      Over the din of oaths and cries

      Broodeth a wondrous calm,

      And mid that solemn stillness rise

      The bells of Notre Dame.

      "Heed not, dear Lord," they seem to say,

      "Thy weak and erring child;

      And thou, O gentle Mother, pray

      That God be reconciled;

      And on mankind, O Christ, our King,

      Pour out Thy gracious balm," —

      'Tis thus they plead and thus they sing,

      Those bells of Notre Dame.

      And so, methinks, God, bending down

      To ken the things of earth,

      Heeds not the mockery of the town

      Or cries of ribald mirth;

      For ever soundeth in His ears

      A penitential psalm, —

      'T is thy angelic voice He hears,

      O bells of Notre Dame!

      Plead on, O bells, that thy sweet voice

      May still forever be

      An intercession to rejoice

      Benign divinity;

      And that thy tuneful grace may fall

      Like dew, a quickening balm,

      Upon the arid hearts of all,

      O bells of Notre Dame!

      SAINT JO, Buchanan County,

      Is leagues and leagues away;

      And I sit in the gloom of this rented room,

      And pine to be there to-day.

      Yes, with London fog around me

      And the bustling to and fro,

      I am fretting to be across the sea

      In Lover's Lane, Saint Jo.

      I would have a brown-eyed maiden

      Go driving once again;

      And I'd sing the song, as we snailed along,

      That