KATIE LEE AND WILLIE GRAY.
Two brown heads with tossing curls,
Red lips shutting over pearls,
Bare feet, white and wet with dew,
Two eyes black and two eyes blue-
Little boy and girl were they,
Katie Lee and Willie Gray.
They were standing where a brook,
Bending like a shepherd's crook,
Flashed its silver, and thick ranks
Of willow fringed its mossy banks-
Half in thought and half in play,
Katie Lee and Willie Gray.
They had cheeks like cherry red,
He was taller, 'most a head;
She with arms like wreaths of snow,
Swung a basket to and fro,
As they loitered, half in play,
Katie Lee and Willie Gray.
"Pretty Katie," Willie said,
And there came a dash of red
Through the brownness of the cheek, "Boys are strong and girls are weak, And I'll carry, so I will,
Katie's basket up the hill.”
Katie answered with a laugh,
"You shall only carry half;"
Then said, tossing back her curls,
"Boys are weak as well as girls.”
Do you think that Katie guessed
Half the wisdom she expressed?
Men are only boys grown tall;
Hearts don't change much, after all;
KATIE LEE AND WILLIE GRAY.
And when, long years from that day,
Katie Lee and Willie Gray
Stood again beside the brook,
Bending like a shepherd's crook-
Is it strange that Willie said,
While again a dash of red
Crowned the brownness of his cheek,
"I am strong and you are weak;
Life is but a slippery steep,
Hung with shadows cold and deep.
"Will you trust me, Katie dear?
Walk beside me without fear?
May I carry, if I will,
All your burdens up the hill?"
And she answered, with a laugh,
"No, but you may carry half."
Close beside the little brook,
Bending like a shepherd's crook,
Working with its silver hands
Late and early at the sands,
Stands a cottage, where, to-day,
Katie lives with Willie Gray.
In the porch she sits, and lo!
Swinging a basket to and fro,
Vastly different from the one
That she swung in years agone;
This is long, and deep, and wide,
And has rockers at the side.
A STRANGE LOVE.
I CLASPED her struggling to my heart,
I whispered love unknown;
One kiss on her red lips I pressed,
And she was all my own.
I loved her with a love profound,
E'en death could not destroy,
And yet, I must confess, I found
My bliss had some alloy.
For once I saw her unaware
Upon a fellow's lap;
He claiming kisses ripe and rare-
I did not like the chap.
She had some faults (so have we all),
But one I hope to throttle;
She had, alas, what I may call
A weakness for the bottle.
One morn I caught her ere was made Her toilet, and beneath
An old straw hat her laugh betrayed,
My darling had no teeth.
Unconscious of my presence she,
With artful antics rare,
Tossed off the hat, and-Gracious me!
Her head was minus hair.
But love is founded on a rock,
And mighty in its might;
For I could learn without a shock,
She could not read or write.
She could not dance nor sing a tone,
And scarcely could converse;
But what cared I, she was my own,
For better or for worse.
And yet I loved her and confessed
Devotion, and, it may be,
You'd do the same if you possessed
Another such a baby.
BELUBBED fellow-trabelers: In holdin' forth to-day,
I doesn't quote no special verse for what I has to say.
De sermon will be berry short, an' dis here am de tex'—
Dat half-way doin's ain't no 'count for dis worl' or de nex'.
Dis worl' dat we's a-libbin' in is like a cotton-row,
Whar ebery cullud gentleman has got his line to hoe;
And every time a lazy nigger stops to take a nap,
De grass keeps on a-growin' for to smudder up his crap.
When Moses led de Jews acrost de waters ob de sea,
Dey had to keep a-goin' jes' as fas' as fas' could be:
Do you suppose dat dey could eber hab succeeded in deir wish,
And reached de Promised Land at last-if dey had stopped to fish?
My frien's, dar was a garden once, where Adam libbed wid Eve,
Wid no one round to bodder dem, no neighbors for to thieve,
And ebery day was Christmas, and dey got deir rations free,
And eberything belonged to dem; except an apple tree.
You all know 'bout de story-how de snake come snoopin' round—
A slump-tail, rusty moccasin, a-crawlin' on de groun'—
How Eve and Adam eat de fruit, and went and hid deir face,
Till de angel oberseer come and drove 'em off de place.
Now 'spose dat man and 'oman hadn't 'tempted for to shirk,
But had gone about deir gardenin' and 'tended to deir work,
Dey wouldn't hab been loafin' whar dey had no business to,
And de debbel neber'd had a chance to tell 'em what to do.
No half-way doin's, bredren! It'll neber do, I say!
Go at your task and finish it, and den's de time to play-
For eben if de crap is good, de rain'll spile de bolls,
Unless you keeps a-pickin' in de garden ob your souls.
Keep a-plowin' and a-hoein' and a-scrapin' ob de rows,
And when de ginnin's ober you can pay up what you owes;
But if you quits a-workin' ebery time de sun is hot,
De sheriff's gwine ter lebby on eberyting you's got.
Whateber 'tis you're dribin' at, be shore and dribe it through,
And don't let nuffin stop you, but do what you's gwine ter do;
For when you sees a nigger foolin', den, as shore's you're born,
You's gwine to see him comin' out de small end ob de horn.
I thanks you for de 'tention you has gib dis afternoon—
Sister Williams will oblidge us by a-raisin' ob a tune-
I see dat Brudder Johnson's 'bout to pass aroun' de hat,
And don't let's hab no half-way doin's when it comes to dat!
YOU PUT NO FLOWERS ON MY PAPA'S GRAVE.
WITH Sable-draped banners, and slow measured tread,
The flower-laden ranks pass the gates of the dead;
And seeking each mound where a comrade's form rests,
Leave tear-bedewed garlands to bloom on his breast.
Ended at last is the labor of love;
Once more through the gateway the saddened lines move—
A wailing of anguish, a sobbing of grief,
Falls low on the ear of the battle-scarred chief;
Close crouched by the portals, a sunny-haired child
Besought him in accents which grief rendered wild :
"Oh! sir, he was good, and they say he died brave—
Why! why did you pass by my dear papa's grave?
I know he was poor, but as kind and as true
As ever marched into the battle with you—
His grave is so humble, no stone marks the spot,
You may not have seen it. Oh, say you did not!
For my poor heart would break if you knew he was there,
And thought him too lowly your offerings to share.
He didn't die lowly-he poured his heart's blood,
In rich crimson streams, from the top-crowning sod
Of the breastworks which stood in front of the fight—
And died shouting, 'Onward! for God and the right!'
|