Eugene Field

“ But ’neath that pall in yonder hall
The little face is white;
Whilst by a merry voice
Thy soul is filled with cheer,
Another weeps for one that sleeps
All mute and cold anear;
One father hath his hope,{69}
And one is childless now;
He wears a crown and rules a town—
Only a cobbler thou!
Wouldst thou exchange thy lot
At price of such a woe?
I’ll nest no more above thy door,
But, as thou bidst me, go.
Cobbler.
Nay, stork! thou shalt remain—
I mean not what I said;
Good neighbors we must always be,
So make thy home o’erhead. ”

“ The blighted garden, lonely nest.
Reach down in love, O God above!
And fold my darling to thy breast.
{95} HEIGHO, MY DEARIE
A MOONBEAM floateth from the skies,
Whispering: “Heigho, my dearie;
I would spin a web before your eyes—
A beautiful web of silver light
Wherein is many a wondrous sight
Of a radiant garden leagues away,
Where the softly tinkling lilies sway
And the snow-white lambkins are at play—
Heigho, my dearie!” ”

“ The old fire-hangbird confidently used to come and go,
As if she were indifferent to the bandit horde below!{41}
And sometimes clinging to her nest we thought we heard her chide
The callow brood whose cries betrayed the fear that reigned inside:
“Hush, little dears! all profitless shall be their wicked quest—
I knew my business when I built the old fire-hangbird’s nest!”
For many, very many years that mother-bird has come
To rear her pretty little brood within that cozy home. ”

“ It’s many a hearty thrashing to that Deacon Morse we owe—
Mother’s whippings didn’t count—father’s did, though!
We used to sneak off swimmin’ in those careless, boyish days,
And come back home of evenings with our necks and backs ablaze;
How mother used to wonder why our clothes were full of sand,{90}
But father, having been a boy, appeared to understand.
And, after tea, he’d beckon us to join him in the shed
Where he’d proceed to tinge our backs a deeper, darker red;
Say what we will of mother’s, there is none will controvert
The proposition that our father’s lickings always hurt! ”

“ When brother Rufe and I were boys a forty years ago.
So, when they grew from romping lads to busy, useful men,
They could recall with proper pride their country life again;
And of those recollections of their youth I’m sure the best
Would be of how they sought in vain the old fire-hangbird’s nest! ”

“ But how we bellowed and took on, as if we’d like to die—
Poor mother really thought she hurt, and that’s what made her cry!{91}
Then how we youngsters snickered as out the door we slid,
For mother’s whippings never hurt, though father’s always did. ”

“ Are falling as I write;
And feel once more upon your brow
The kiss of long ago—
You are too young to know it now,
But some time you shall know.
{38} THE FIRE-HANGBIRD’S NEST
AS I am sitting in the sun upon the porch to-day,
I look with wonder at the elm that stands across the way;
I say and mean “with wonder,” for now it seems to me
That elm is not as tall as years ago it used to be! ”

“ My laughing darling in my arms.{75}
Who knows but in Eternity,
I, like a truant child, shall wait
The glories of a life to be,
Beyond the Heavenly Father’s gate?
And will that Heavenly Father heed
The truant’s supplicating cry,
As at the outer door I plead,
“’Tis I, O Father! only I?”
{76} HUGO’S “CHILD AT PLAY”
A CHILD was singing at his play—
I heard the song, and paused to hear;
His mother moaning, groaning lay,
And, lo! a specter stood anear! ”

“ COME, Harvey, let us sit a while and talk about the times
Before you went to selling clothes and I to peddling rimes—
The days when we were little boys, as naughty little boys
As ever worried home-folks with their everlasting noise!
Egad! and, were we so disposed, I’ll venture we could show
The scars of wallopings we got some forty years ago;
What wallopings I mean I think I need not specify—
Mother’s whippings didn’t hurt, but father’s! oh, my!{89}
The way that we played hookey those many years ago—
We’d rather give ’most anything than have our children know! ”

“ And now there are two lambkins in one flock that will not speak.
The yellow rooster froze his feet, a-wadin’ through the snow,
And now he leans agin the fence when he starts in to crow;
The chestnut colt that was so skittish when he went away—
I’ve broke him to the sulky and I drive him every day!
We’ve got pink window curtains for the front spare-room up-stairs,
And Lizzie’s made new covers for the parlor lounge and chairs;{83}
We’ve roofed the barn and braced the elm that has the hangbird’s nest—
Oh, there’s been lots of changes since our William went out West! ”

“ Ah me! the years go swiftly by,
And yet how fondly I recall
The week when we were children all—
Dear Hawthorne children, you and I—
Just eight of us, together!
{24} LITTLE BLUE PIGEON
SLEEP, little pigeon, and fold your wings—
Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes;
Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging—
Swinging the nest where her little one lies.
Away out yonder I see a star—
Silvery star with a tinkling song ”

“ While each patriot’s hope stays the fullness of sorrow,
While our eyes are bedimmed and our voices are low,{32}
He dreams of the daughter who comes with the morrow
Like an angel come back from the dear long ago. ”

“ Is a wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
{49} GOLD AND LOVE FOR DEARIE
OUT on the mountain over the town,
All night long, all night long,
The trolls go up and the trolls go down,
Bearing their packs and singing a song;
And this is the song the hill-folk croon,
As they trudge in the light of the misty moon—
This is ever their dolorous tune:
“Gold, gold! ”

“ And if so bee they love that childe, he willeth it to staye,
But elsewise, in his mercie, he taketh it awaye.{111}
And sometimes, though they love it, Godde yearneth for ye childe,
And sendeth angells singing, whereby it ben beguiled;
They fold their arms about ye lamb that croodleth at his play,
And beare him to ye garden that bloometh farre awaye.
I wolde not lose ye lyttel lamb that Godde hath lent to me;
If I colde sing that angell songe, how joysome I sholde be!
For, with mine arms about him, and my musick in his eare,
What angell songe of paradize soever sholde I feare? ”

“ He kenned with joy a lyttel boy
Ben allwais in the way.
And then a moder felt her heart
How that it ben to-torne,
She kissed eche day till she ben gray
The shoon he use to worn;
No bairn let hold untill her gown
Nor played upon the floore,—
Godde’s was the joy; a lyttel boy
Ben in the way no more!
{28} TEENY-WEENY
EVERY evening, after tea,
Teeny-Weeny comes to me,
And, astride my willing knee,
Plies his lash and rides away;
Though that palfrey, all too spare,
Finds his burden hard to bear,
Teeny-Weeny doesn’t care ”

“ Colde be assuaged by some sweete voice repeating
‘Lollyby, lolly, lollyby’;
That like this lyttel chylde I, too, ben sleeping
With plaisaunt phantasies about me creeping,
To ‘lolly, lolly, lollyby’!”
Some time—mayhap when curfew bells are ringing—
A weary harte shall heare straunge voices singing
“Lollyby, lolly, lollyby”;
Some time, mayhap, with Chryst’s love round me streaming,
I shall be lulled into eternal dreeming,
With “lolly, lolly, lollyby.” ”

“ Only bring me back my wee, wee croodlin’ doo!
Why! here you are, my little croodlin’ doo!
Looked in er cradle, but didn’t find you there—
Looked f’r my wee, wee croodlin’ doo ever’where;
Be’n kind lonesome all er day withouten you—
Where you be’n, my teeny, wee, wee croodlin’ doo?{59}
Now you go balow, my little croodlin’ doo ”

“ Since he kissed them and put them there.
{80} FATHER’S LETTER
I’M going to write a letter to our oldest boy who went
Out West last spring to practise law and run for president;
I’ll tell him all the gossip I guess he’d like to hear,
For he hasn’t seen the home-folks for going on a year!
Most generally it’s Marthy does the writing, but as she
Is suffering with a felon, why, the job devolves on me—
So, when the supper things are done and put away to-night,
I’ll draw my boots and shed my coat and settle down to write.{81} ”

“ Cy Cooper says— (but I’ll not pass my word that it is so,
For Cy he is some punkins on spinning yarns, you know) —
He says that, since the freshet, the pickerel are so thick{82}
In Baker’s pond you can wade in and kill ’em with a stick!
The Hubbard girls are teaching school, and Widow Cutler’s Bill
Has taken Eli Baxter’s place in Luther Eastman’s mill ”