Читать книгу: «Mother Goose for Grown Folks», страница 2

CRADLED IN GREEN

 
"Rockaby, baby,
Your cradle is green;
Father's a nobleman,
Mother's a queen;
And Betty's a lady,
And wears a gold ring,
And Johnny's a drummer,
And drums for the king!"
 
 
O golden gift of childhood!
That, with its kingly touch,
Transforms to more than royalty
The thing it loveth much!
 
 
O second sight, bestowed alone
Upon the baby seer,
That the glory held in Heaven's reserve
Discerneth even here!
 
 
Though he be the humblest craftsman,
No silk nor ermine piled
Could make the father seem a whit
More noble to the child;
And the mother,—ah, what queenlier crown
Could rest upon her brow,
Than the fair and gentle dignity
It weareth to him now?
 
 
E'en the gilded ring that Michael
For a penny fairing bought,
Is the seal of Betty's ladyhood
To his untutored thought;
And the darling drum about his neck,—
His very newest toy,—
A bandsman unto Majesty
Hath straightway made the boy!
 
 
O golden gift of childhood!
If the talisman might last,
How the dull Present still should gleam
With the glory of the Past!
But the things of earth about us
Fade and dwindle as we go,
And the long perspective of our life
Is truth, and not a show!
 

"SIMILIA SIMILIBUS."

 
"There was a man in our town,
And he was wondrous wise:
He jumped into a bramble-bush,
And scratched out both his eyes.
But when he saw his eyes were out,
With all his might and main
He jumped into another bush,
And scratched them in again!"
 
 
Old Dr. Hahnemann read the tale,
(And he was wondrous wise,)
Of the man who, in the bramble-bush,
Had scratched out both his eyes.
 
 
And the fancy tickled mightily
His misty German brain,
That, by jumping in another bush,
He got them back again.
 
 
So he called it "homo-hop-athy".
And soon it came about,
That a curious crowd among the thorns
Was hopping in and out.
Yet, disguise it by the longest name
They may, it is no use;
For the world knows the discovery
Was made by Mother Goose!
 
 
And not alone in medicine
Doth the theory hold good;
In Life and in Philosophy,
The maxim still hath stood:
A morsel more of anything,
When one has got enough,
And Nature's energy disowns
The whole unkindly stuff.
 
 
A second negative affirms;
And two magnetic poles
Of charge identical, repel,—
As sameness sunders souls.
Touched with a first, fresh suffering,
All solace is despised;
But gathered sorrows grow serene,
And grief is neutralized.
 
 
And he who, in the world's mêlée,
Hath chanced the worse to catch,
May mend the matter, if he come
Back, boldly, to the scratch;
Minding the lesson he received
In boyhood, from his mother.
Whose cheery word, for many a bump,
Was, Up and take another!
 

HOBBY-HORSES

 
"I had a little pony,
His name was Dapple Gray:
I lent him to a lady
To ride a mile away.
She whipped him,
She lashed him,
She rode him through the mire;
I would n't lend my pony now,
For all the lady's hire."
 
 
Our hobbies, of whatever sort
They be, mine honest friend,
Of fancy, enterprise, or thought,
'T is hardly wise to lend.
 
 
Some fair imagination, shrined
In form poetic, maybe,
You fondly trusted to the World,—
That most capricious Lady.
 
 
Or a high, romantic theory,
Magnificently planned,
In flush of eager confidence
You bade her take in hand.
 
 
But she whipped it, and she lashed it,
And bespattered it with mire,
Till your very soul felt stained within,
And scourged with stripes of fire.
 
 
Yet take this thought, and hold it fast,
Ye Martyrs of To-day!
That same great World, with all its scorn,
You 've lifted on its way!
 

MISSIONS

 
"Hogs in the garden,—
Catch 'em, Towser!
Cows in the cornfield,—
Run, boys, run!
Fire on the mountains,—
Run, boys, run boys!
Cats in the cream-pot,—
Run, girls, run!"
 
 
I don't stand up for Woman's Right
Not I,—no, no!
The real lionesses fight,—
I let it go.
 
 
Yet, somehow, as I catch the call
Of the world's voice,
That speaks a summons unto all
Its girls and boys;
 
 
In such strange contrast still it rings
As church-bells' bome
To the pert sound of tinkling things
One hears at home;
 
 
And wakes an impulse, not germane
Perhaps, to woman,
Yet with a thrill that makes it plain
'T is truly human;—
 
 
A sudden tingle at the springs
Of noble feeling,
The spirit-power for valiant things
Clearly revealing.
 
 
But Eden's curse doth daily deal
Its certain dole,—
And the old grasp upon the heel
Holds back the soul!
 
 
So, when some rousing deed's to do,
To save a nation,
Or, on the mountains, to subdue
A conflagration,
Woman! the work is not for you;
Mind your vocation!
Out from the cream-pot comes a mew
Of tribulation!
 
 
Meekly the world's great exploits leave
Unto your betters;
So bear the punishment of Eve,
Spirit in fetters!
 
 
Only, the hidden fires will glow,
And, now and then,
A beacon blazeth out below
That startles men!
 
 
Some Joan, through battle-field to stake,
Danger embracing;
Some Florence, for sweet mercy's sake
Pestilence facing;
Whose holy valor vindicates
The royal birth
That, for its crowning, only waits
The end of earth;
And, haply, when we all stand freed,
In strength immortal,
Such virgin-lamps the host shall lead
Through heaven's portal!
 

GOING BACK TO OUR MUTTONS

 
"There was an old man of Tobago,
Who lived on rice, gruel, and sago,
Till, much to his bliss,
His physician said this:
To a leg, sir, of mutton, you may go.
He set a monkey to baste the mutton,
And ten pounds of butter he put on."
 
 
Chain up a child, and away he will go";
I have heard of the proverb interpreted so;
The spendthrift is son to the miser,—and
still,
 
 
When the Devil would work his most piti-
less will,
He sends forth the seven, for such embas-
sies kept,
To the house that is empty and garnished
and swept:
For poor human nature a pendulum seems.,
That must constantly vibrate between two
extremes.
 
 
The closer the arrow is drawn to the
bow,
Once slipped from the string, all the further
't will go:
Let a panic arise in the world of finance,
And the mad flight of Fashion be checked
by the chance,
It certainly seems a most wonderful thing,
When the ropes are let go again, how it
will swing!
 
 
And even the decent observance of Lent,
Stirs sometimes a doubt how the time has
been spent,
When Easter brings out the new bonnets
and gowns,
And a flood of gay colors o'erflows in the
towns.
 
 
So in all things the feast doth still follow
the fast,
And the force of the contrast gives zest to
the last;
And until he is tried, no frail mortal can
tell,
The inch being offered, he won't take the
ell.
We are righteously shocked at the follies
of fashion;
Nay, standing outside, may get quite in a
passion
At the prodigal flourishes other folks put
on:
But many good people this side of Tobago,
If respited once from their diet of sago,
Would outdo the monkey in basting the
mutton!
 

GOING TO DOVER

 
"Leg over leg
As the dog went to Dover;
When he came to a stile,
Jump he went over."
 
 
Perhaps you would n't see it here,
But, to my fancy, 't is quite clear
That Mother Goose just meant to show
How the dog Patience on doth go:
 
 
With steadfast nozzle, pointing low,—
Leg over leg, however slow,—
And labored breath, but naught complaining,
Still, at each footstep, somewhat gaining,—
Quietly plodding, mile on mile,
And gathering for a nervous bound
At every interposing stile,—
So traversing the tedious ground,
Till all at length, he measures over,
And walks, a victor, into Dover.
 
 
And, verily, no other way
Doth human progress win the day;
Step after step,—and o'er and o'er,—
Each seeming like the one before,
So that't is only once a while,—
When sudden Genius springs the stile
That marks a section of the plain,
Beyond whose bound fresh fields again
Their widening stretch untrodden sweep,—
The world looks round to see the leap.
 
 
Pale Science, in her laboratory,
Works on with crucible and wire
Unnoticed, till an instant glory
Crowns some high issue, as with fire,
And men, with wondering eyes awide,
Gauge great Invention's giant stride.
 
 
No age, no race, no single soul,
By lofty tumbling gains the goal.
The steady pace it keeps between,—
The little points it makes unseen,—
By these, achieved in gathering might,
It moveth on, and out of sight,
And wins, through all that's overpast,
The city of its hopes at last.
 

RAGS AND ROBES

 
"Hark, hark!
The dogs do bark;
Beggars are coming to town:
Some in rags,
Some in tags,"
And some in velvet gowns!"
 
 
Coming, coming always!
Crowding into earth;
Seizing on this human life,
Beggars from the birth.
 
 
Some in patent penury;
Some, alas! in shame;
And some in fading velvet
Of hereditary fame;
 
 
But all in deep, appeaseless want,
As mendicants to live;
And go beseeching through the world,
For what the world may give.
 
 
Beggars, beggars, all of us!
Expectants from "our youth:
With hands outstretched, and asking alms
Of Hope and Love and Truth.
 
 
Nor, verily, doth he escape
Who, wrapt in cold contempt,
Denies alike to give or take,
And dreams himself exempt;
 
 
Who never, in appeal to man,
Nor in a prayer to Heaven,
Will own that aught he doth desire,
Or ask that aught be given.
 
 
Whose human heart a stoic pride
Folds as a velvet pall;
Yet hides an eagreness within,
Worse beggary than all!
 
 
Coming, coming always!
And the bluff Apostle waits
As the throng pours upward from the earth
To Heaven's eternal gates.
 
 
In shreds of torn affection,
In passion-rended rags;
While scarcely at the portal
The great procession flags;
 
 
For the pillared doors of glory
On their hinges hang awide;
Where each asking soul may enter,
And at last be satisfied!
 
 
But a cold, calm shade arriveth,
In self-complacent trim,—
And Peter riseth up to see
Especially to him.
 
 
"Good morrow, saint! I'm going in
To take a stroll, you know;
Not that I want for anything,—
But just to see the show!"
 
 
"Hold!" thunders out the warden,
"Be pleased to pause a bit!
For seats celestial, let me say,
You 're not apparelled fit:
Yonder 's the brazen door that leads
Spectators to the pit!
 
 
Whatever may be thought on earth,
We've other rules in heaven;
And only poverty confessed
Finds free admittance given!"
 

BLACKBIRDS

 
"Sing a song o' sixpence, a pocket full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie:
When the pie was opened, they all began to sing,
And was n't this a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting-house, counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey;
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes,
And along came a blackbird, and nipt off her nose!"
 
 
It doesn't take a conjurer to see
The sort of curious pasty this might be;
A flock of flying rumors, caught alive,
And housed, like swarming bees within a
hive,—
Instead of what were far more wisely
done,
Having their worthless necks wrung, every
one;—
And so a dish of dainty gossip making,
Smooth covered with a show of secrecy,
That one but takes the pleasant pains of
breaking,
And out the wide-mouthed knaves pop,
eagerly.
 
 
Blackbirds, indeed! Each chattering on-
dit
Comes forth, full feathered, black as black
can be;
With quivering throats, all tremulous to
sing,
And please, forsooth, some little social
king;
Whose reign may last as long as he is able
To call his court around a dinner-table.
 
 
But, mark the sequel! When the laugh is
over,
Think not to get the varlets under cover:
The crust once broken, you may seek in vain
To catch the birds, or coax them in again;
Mrs. Pandora's famous box, I wis,
Was nothing worse than such a pie as this:
And so, some pleasant morning,—when,
down town,
The king is busy with his bags of money,
Leaving at home the queenly Mrs. Brown
Safe at her breakfast of fair bread and
honey,—
Some quiet, harmless soul, who never
knows
Of any matters, save the plain pursuing
Her daily round,—the hanging out of
clothes
Or other lawful work she may be doing,—
Finds, by the sudden nipping of her nose,
What sort of mischief is about her brew-
ing!
 
 
Not that, indeed, there's anything to hinder
The thieves from flying though the parlor
window;
For never yet could sentinel or warden
Keep scandals wholly to the kitchen gar-
den.
 
 
When, therefore, as not seldom it may be,
Even in the soberest community,
Strange revelations somehow get about,—
Like a mysterious cholera breaking out
Sudden, as Egypt's blains 'neath Aaron's rod,
Contagious by a whisper or a nod,—
When daily papers teem with many a hint
That daubs them darker even than their
print;
When it would seem, in short, the very D–,
Had let his little imps out on a spree;
Conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt,
Although, perhaps, you fail to trace it out,
Such plagues spring not unbidden from the
ground,
And, if the thing were sifted, 't would be
found
Somebody 's sown a pocket full of rye,
Or been regaling on a blackbird pie!