While flowing rivers yield a blameless sport,
Shall live the name of Walton: Sage benign!
Whose pen, the mysteries of the rod and line
Unfolding, did not fruitlessly exhort
To reverend watching of each still report
That Nature utters from her rural shrine.
Meek, nobly versed in simple discipline,
He found the longest summer day too short,
To his loved pastime given by sedgy Lee,
Or down the tempting maze of Shawford brook,
Fairer than life itself, in this sweet Book,
The cowslip-bank and shady willow-tree;
And the fresh meads where flowed, from every nook
Of his full bosom, gladsome Piety!

    My name used to be in the papers daily
    As having dined somewhere,
    Or traveled somewhere,
    Or rented a house in Paris,
    Where I entertained the nobility.
    I was forever eating or traveling,
    Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden.
    Now I am here to do honor
    To Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang.
    No one cares now where I dined,
    Or lived, or whom I entertained,
    Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden.

I

There dwells a mighty pair -
Slow, statuesque, intense -
Amid the vague Immense:
None can their chronicle declare,
Nor why they be, nor whence.

II

Mother of all things made,
Matchless in artistry,
Unlit with sight is she. -
And though her ever well-obeyed
Vacant of feeling he.

III

The Matron mildly asks -
A throb in every word -
"Our clay-made creatures, lord,
How fare they in their mortal tasks
Upon Earth's bounded bord?

IV

"The fate of those I bear,
Dear lord, pray turn and view,
And notify me true;
Shapings that eyelessly I dare
Maybe I would undo.

V

"Sometimes from lairs of life
Methinks I catch a groan,
Or multitudinous moan,
As though I had...

O spirit of the wind and sky,
Where doth thy harp neglected lie?
Is there no heart thy bard to be,
To wake that soul of melody?
Is liberty herself a slave?
No! God forbid it! On, ye brave!

I've loved thee as the common air,
And paid thee worship everywhere:
In every soil beneath the sun
Thy simple song my heart has won.
And art thou silent? Still a slave?
And thy sons living? On, ye brave!

Gather on mountain and on plain!
Make gossamer the iron chain!
Make prison walls as paper screen,
That tyrant maskers may be seen!
Let earth as well as heaven be free!
So, on, ye brave, for liberty!

I've loved thy being from a boy:
The Highland hills were once my joy:
Then morning mists did round them lie,
Like sunshine in the happi...

    Written In Madison Caweln's "Lyrics and Idyls."

    Herein are blown from out the South
    Songs blithe as those of Pan's pursed mouth -
    As sweet in voice as, in perfume,
    The night-breath of magnolia-bloom.

    Such sumptuous languor lures the sense -
    Such luxury of indolence -
    The eyes blur as a nymph's might blur,
    With water-lilies watching her.

    You waken, thrilling at the trill
    Of some wild bird that seems to spill
    The silence full of winey drips
    Of song that Fancy sips and sips.

    Betimes, in brambled lanes wherethrough
    The chipmunk stripes himself from view,
    You pause to lop a creamy spray
    Of elder-blossoms by the way.

    Or where the morning dew is yet
    Gra...

He listened at the porch that day,
To hear the wheel go on, and on;
And then it stopped, ran back away,
While through the door he brought the sun:
But now my spinning is all done.

He sat beside me, with an oath
That love ne'er ended, once begun;
I smiled, believing for us both,
What was the truth for only one:
And now my spinning is all done.

My mother cursed me that I heard
A young man's wooing as I spun:
Thanks, cruel mother, for that word,
For I have, since, a harder known!
And now my spinning is all done.

I thought, O God! my first-born's cry
Both voices to mine ear would drown:
I listened in mine agony,
It was the silence made me groan!
And now my spinning is all done.

Bury me 'twixt my mother's grave,
(Who...

Fly not yet, 'tis just the hour,
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night,
    And maids who love the moon.
'Twas but to bless these hours of shade
That beauty and the moon were made;
'Tis then their soft attractions glowing
Set the tides and goblets flowing.
    Oh! stay,--Oh! stay,--
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, and oh, 'tis pain
    To break its links so soon.

Fly not yet, the fount that played
In times of old through Ammon's shade,
Though icy cold by day it ran,
Yet still, like souls of mirth, began
    To burn when night was near.
And thus, should woman's heart and looks,
At noon be cold as winter brooks,
Nor kindle till the night, returning...

Time was when I was free as air,
The thistle’s downy seed my fare,
My drink the morning dew;
I perch’d at will on every spray,
My form genteel, my plumage gay,
My strains for ever new.


But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain,
And form genteel were all in vain,
And of a transient date;
For, caught and caged, and starved to death,
In dying sighs my little breath
Soon pass’d the wiry grate.


Thanks, gentle swain, for all my woes,
And thanks for this effectual close
And cure of every ill!
More cruelty could none express;
And I, if you had shown me less,
Had been your prisoner still.

Wine and woman and song,
Three things garnish our way:
Yet is day over long.

Lest we do our youth wrong,
Gather them while we may:
Wine and woman and song.

Three things render us strong,
Vine leaves, kisses and bay;
Yet is day over long.

Unto us they belong,
Us the bitter and gay,
Wine and woman and song.

We, as we pass along,
Are sad that they will not stay;
Yet is day over long.

Fruits and flowers among,
What is better than they:
Wine and woman and song?
Yet is day over long.

Tune - "Salt-fish and dumplings."


I.

    I coft a stane o' haslock woo',
        To make a wat to Johnny o't;
    For Johnny is my only jo,
        I lo'e him best of ony yet.
                The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't,
                    The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't;
                When ilka ell cost me a groat,
                    The tailor staw the lynin o't.

II.

    For though his locks be lyart gray,
        And tho' his brow be beld aboon;
    Yet I hae seen him on a day,
        The pride of a' the parishen.
                The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't,
                    The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't;
                When ilka ell cost me a groat,
                    The tailor staw ...

Who is this who gently slips
Through my door, and stands and sighs,
Hovering in a soft eclipse,
With a finger on her lips
And a meaning in her eyes?

Once she came to visit me
In white robes with festal airs,
Glad surprises, songs of glee;
Now in silence cometh she,
And a sombre garb she wears.

Once I waited and was tired,
Chid her visits as too few;
Crownless now and undesired,
She to seek me is inspired
Oftener than she used to do.

Grave her coming is and still,
Sober her appealing mien,
Tender thoughts her glances fill;
But I shudder, as one will
When an open grave is seen.

Wherefore, friend,--for friend thou art,--
Should I wrong thee thus and grieve?
Wherefore push thee from my heart?
Of my morning...

(MAY 17, 1864)
(See Note 26)

'Twas then this land of ours we drew
From centuries of ice and sorrow,
And let it of the sun's warmth borrow,
And law and plow brought order new;
We dug the wealth in mountain treasured,
Our stately ships the oceans measured,
And springtime thoughts were free to run
As round the Pole the midnight sun.

And still with God we'll conquer, hold:
Each plot reclaimed for harvest-reaping,
Each ship our sea takes to its keeping,
Each child-soul we to manhood mold,
Each spark of thought our life illuming,
Each deed to fruit of increase blooming, -
A province adds unto our land
And o'er our freedom guard shall stand.

Black as a chimney is his face,
    And ivory white his teeth,
And in his brass-bound cart he rides,
    The chestnut blooms beneath.

'Sooeep, Sooeep!' he cries, and brightly peers
    This way and that, to see
With his two light-blue shining eyes
    What custom there may be.

And once inside the house, he'll squat,
    And drive his rods on high,
Till twirls his sudden sooty brush
    Against the morning sky.

Then, 'mid his bulging bags of soot,
    With half the world asleep,
His small cart wheels him off again,
    Still hoarsely bawling, 'Sooeep!'

High travelling winds by royal hill
Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
The caverns of the spring.

To-night across a wild wet plain
A shadow sobs and strays;
The trees are whispering in the rain
Of long departed days.

I cannot say what forest saith
Its words are strange to me:
I only know that in its breath
Are tones that used to be.

Yea, in these deep dim solitudes
I hear a sound I know
The voice that lived in Penrith woods
Twelve weary years ago.

And while the hymn of other years
Is on a listening land,
The Angel of the Past appears
And leads me by the hand;

And takes me over moaning wave,
And tracts of sleepless change,
To set me by a lonely grave
Within a lonely range.

Be not dismayed though crosses cast thee down;
Thy fall is but the rising to a crown.

I

The curtains now are drawn,
And the spindrift strikes the glass,
Blown up the jagged pass
By the surly salt sou'-west,
And the sneering glare is gone
Behind the yonder crest,
While she sings to me:
"O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,
And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,
And death may come, but loving is divine."

II

I stand here in the rain,
With its smite upon her stone,
And the grasses that have grown
Over women, children, men,
And their texts that "Life is vain";
But I hear the notes as when
Once she sang to me:
"O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,
And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,
And death may come, but loving is divine."

"Beloved Vale!" I said, "when I shall con
Those many records of my childish years,
Remembrance of myself and of my peers
Will press me down: to think of what is gone
Will be an awful thought, if life have one."
But, when into the Vale I came, no fears
Distressed me; from mine eyes escaped no tears;
Deep thought, or dread remembrance, had I none.
By doubts and thousand petty fancies crost
I stood, of simple shame the blushing Thrall;
So narrow seemed the brooks, the fields so small!
A Juggler's balls old Time about him tossed;
I looked, I stared, I smiled, I laughed; and all
The weight of sadness was in wonder lost.

    A little grey curl from my father's head
    I find unburned on the hearth,
    And give it a place in my diary here,
    With a feeling half sadness, half mirth.
    For the long white locks are our special pride,
    Though he smiles at his daughter's praise;
    But, oh, they have grown each year more thin,
    Till they are now but a silvery haze.

    That wise old head! (though it does grow bald
    With the knocks hard fortune may give)
    Has a store of faith and hope and trust,
    Which have taught him how to live.
    Though the hat be old, there's a face below
    Which telleth to those who look
    The history of a good man's life,
    And it cheers like a blessed book.

    [A]A peddler of jewels, of clocks, and of books,
    ...