Cobwebs from a Library Corner, John Kendrick Bangs [autobiographies to read txt] 📗

died on her breast.



THE COUNTRY IN JULY


WHERE glistening in the softness of the night
The vagrant will-o’-wisps do greet the sight;
Where fragrance baffling permeates the breeze
That gently flouts the grasses and the trees;
Where every flying thing doth seem to be
Instinct with sweetly sensuous melody;
Where hills and dales assume their warmest phase,
With here and there a scarf of opal haze
To soften their luxuriant attire;
Where one can almost hear the elfin choir
Across the meadow-land, down in the wood,
In songs of gladness—there are all things good.
Ah! ye who seek the spot where joys abide,
Awake! Awake! Seek out the country-side,
And through the blue-gray July haze see life
All free from care, from sorrow, and from strife.



MAY 30, 1893


IT seemed to be but chance, yet who shall say
That ’twas not part of Nature’s own sweet way,

That on the field where once the cannon’s breath
Lay many a hero cold and stark in death,

Some little children, in the after-years,
Had come to play among the grassy spears,

And, all unheeding, when their romp was done,
Had left a wreath of wild flowers over one

Who fought to save his country, and whose lot
It was to die unknown and rest forgot?



THE CURSE OF WEALTH


“WHAT shall I put my dollars in?” he asked, in wild dismay.
“I’ve fifty thousand of ’em, and I’d like to keep ’em too.
I’d like to put them by to serve some future rainy day,
But in these times of queer finance what can a fellow do?

“A railway bond is picturesque, and the supply is great,
But strangely like a novel that upon occasion drags,
Of which the critics of the time in hackneyed phrases state,
‘The work has certain value, but the int’rest often flags!’

“The same is true of railway shares, ’tis safer to invest
In ploughshares, so it seems to me, in this unhappy time.
Some think great wealth a blessing, but it cannot stand the test;
He’s happier by far than I who’s but a single dime.

“He does not lie awake at night and fret and fume, to think
Of bank officials on a spree with what he’s toiled to get.
He is not driven by his woe quite to the verge of drink
By wondering if his balance in the bank remains there yet.

“He does not pick the paper up in terror every night
To see if V.B.G. is up, or P.D.Q. is down;
It does not fill his anxious soul with nerve-destroying fright
To hear the Wall Street rumors that are flying ’bout the town.

“Ah, better had I ta’en that cash that I have skimped to save,
And spent it on my living and my pleasures day by day!
I would not now be goaded nigh unto my waiting grave,
By wondering how the deuce to keep those dollars mine for aye.

“I’d not be bankrupt in my nerves and prematurely old,
These golden shackles must be burst; I must again be free.
What Ho without! My ducats—to the winds with all my gold,
That I may once again enjoy the rest of poverty.”



THE RHYME OF THE ANCIENT POPULIST


IT was an ancient populist,
His beard was long and gray,
And punctuated by his fist,
He had his little say:
“This is the age of gold,” he said,
“’Tis gold for butter, gold for bread,
Gold for bonds and gold for fun;
Gold for all things ’neath the sun.”
Then with a smile
He shook his head.
“Just wait awhile,”
He slyly said.
“When we get in and run the State
We’ll tackle gold, we’ll legislate.
We’ll pass an act
And make a fact
By which these gold-bugs will be whacked
Till they’re as cold
As is their gold.
We’re going to make a statute law by which ’twill be decreed
That standards are abolished, for a standard favors greed.
This is the country of the free, and free this land shall be
As soon as we the ‘people’ have our opportunity,
And he who has to pay a bill
Can pay in whate’er suits his will.
The tailor? Let him take his coats
And pay his notes;
Or if perchance
He’s long on pants,
Let trousers be
His _£. s. d._
The baker! Let his landlord take
His rent in cake,
Or anything the man can bake.
And if a plumber wants a crumb,
He may unto the baker come
And plumb.
A joker needing hats or cloaks
Can go and pay for them with jokes,
And so on: what a fellow’s got
Shall pay for things that he has not.
If beggars’ rags were cash, you’d see
No longer any beggary;
In short, there’d be no poverty.”
“A splendid scheme,” quoth I; “but stay!
What of the nation’s credit, pray?”
“Ha-ha! ho-ho!” he loudly roared.
“We’ll leave that problem to the Lord.
And if He fails to keep us straight
Once more we’ll have to legislate,
And so create,
Confounding greed,
As much of credit as we need.”



ONE OF THE NAMELESS GREAT


I KNEW a man who died in days of yore,
To whom no monument is like to rise;
And yet there never lived a mortal more
Deserving of a shaft to pierce the skies.

His chiefest wish strong friendships was to make;
He cared but little for this poor world’s pelf;
He shared his joys with every one who’d take,
And kept his sorrows strictly to himself.



IN FEBRUARY DAYS


FAIR Nature, like the mother of a wayward child
Who needs must chide the offspring of her heart,
Disguiseth for a season all the sweet and mild
Maternal softness for an austere part.

And ’neath her frown the errant earth in winter seems
Prostrate to lie, and petulant of mood;
Restrained in icy fetters all the babbling streams,
Like naughty babes who’re learning to be good.

Then, in this second month, most motherlike again,
The frown assumed gives now and then a place
To soft indulgent glances, lessening the pain,
And hints of spring and pardon light her face.



A CHANGE OF AMBITION


HORATIUS at the bridge, and he
Who fought at old Thermopylæ;

Great Samson and his potent bone
By which the Philistines were slone;

Small David with his wondrous aim
That did for him of giant frame;

J. Cæsar in his Gallic scraps
That made him lord of other chaps;

Sweet William, called the Conqueror,
Who made the Briton sick of war;

King Hal the Fifth, who nobly fought
And thrashed the foe at Agincourt;

Old Bonaparte, and Washington,
And Frederick, and Wellington,

Decatur, Nelson, Fighting Joe,
And Farragut, and Grant, and, oh,

A thousand other heroes I
Have wished I were in days gone by—

Can take their laurels from my door,
For I don’t want ’em any more.

The truth will out; it can’t be hid;
The doughty deed that Dewey did,

In that far distant Spanish sea,
Is really good enough for me.

The grammar’s bad, but, O my son,
I wish I’d did what Dewey done!



MESSAGE FROM MAHATMAS

ONSET BAY, MASSACHUSETTS, _May 24, 18—._—Theosophists and others at Onset Bay Camp Grounds have been greatly excited of late by a message which has been received from the Mahatmas, Koot Hoomi, and his partner, who are summering in the desert of Gobi. The message is of considerable length, and contains much that is purely personal.—_Daily Newspaper_.


SOUND the timbrel, beat the drum!
Word from the Mahatma’s come.
Straight from Hoomi Koot & Co.
Comes the note to us below,
Full of joy and gossiping.
Hoomi Koot is summering
In the desert waste of Gobi,
In a cottage of adobe.
All the little Koots are well.
Tommy Koot has learned to spell.
Mrs. Koot is busy on
Papers on “The Great Anon,”
Which by special cable soon,
From her workshop in the moon,
Will be sent to us below
By grand Hoomi Koot & Co.

We are told that Maggie Koot
Looks well in her golfing suit;
And her brand-new Astral Bike
Is the best they’ve seen this cike—
Cike is slang for cycle, so
I have learned from Koot & Co.
Soon she’s going to take a run
Out from Gobi to the sun,
After which she thinks to race
For the Championship of Space,
And a trophy given by
The Grand High Pasupati.

Baby