"Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest; Let his hands be meekly folded; lay the cross upon his breast: Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said: To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid.”
Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away; But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,
She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt.
With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head;
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead:
But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain;
And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.
Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand, and faintly smiled: Was that pitying face his mother's? did she watch beside her child? All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied: With her kiss upon his forehead, "Mother!" murmured he, and died.
"A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth From some gentle sad-eyed mother, weeping lonely in the North!" Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead, And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled.
"Look forth once more, Ximena!' "Like a cloud before the wind Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind. Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive: Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of God, forgive!”
Sink, O Night! among thy mountains; let the cool shadows fall ; Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all! Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled : In its sheath the saber rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold.
But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued:
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint, and lacking food,
Over weak and suffering brothers with a tender care they hung; And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue.
Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward through its blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer; And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air.
THE BAREFOOT BOY.
BLESSINGS on thee, little man, Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan; With thy turned-up pantaloons, And thy merry whistled tunes; With thy red lip, redder still Kissed by strawberries on the hill; With the sunshine on thy face Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace! From my heart I give thee joy: I was once a barefoot boy.
Prince thou art: the grown-up man Only is republican.
Let the million-dollared ride: Barefoot, trudging at his side, Thou hast more than he can buy In the reach of ear and eye,- Outward sunshine, inward joy. Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's painless play, Sleep that wakes in laughing day, Health that mocks the doctor's rules, Knowledge never learned of schools, Of the wild bee's morning chase; Of the wild-flower's time and place; Flight of fowl, and habitude Of the tenants of the wood; How the tortoise bears his shell; How the woodchuck digs his cell; And the ground-mole sinks his well; How the robin feeds her young; How the oriole's nest is hung; Where the whitest lilies blow; Where the freshest berries grow; Where the groundnut trails its vine; Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; Of the black wasp's cunning way, Mason of his walls of clay;
And the architectural plans
gray hornet artisans !
For, eschewing books and tasks, Nature answers all he asks.
Hand in hand with her he walks, Face to face with her he talks, Part and parcel of her joy: Blessings on the barefoot boy!
Oh for boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon, When all things I heard or saw, Me, their master, waited for!
I was rich in flowers and trees, Humming-birds and honey-bees; For my sport the squirrel played, Plied the snouted mole his spade; For my taste the blackberry-cone Purpled over hedge and stone; Laughed the brook for my delight Through the day and through the night, Whispering at the garden-wall, Talked with me from fall to fall; Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel-pond; Mine the walnut-slopes beyond; Mine, on bending orchard-trees, Apples of Hesperides! Still, as my horizon grew, Larger grew my riches too: All the world I saw or knew Seemed a complex Chinese toy, Fashioned for a barefoot boy.
Oh for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread, (Pewter spoon, and bowl of wood,) On the door-stone gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra, And to light the noisy choir Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch: pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy.
Cheerily, then, my little man, Live and laugh, as boyhood can. Though the flinty slopes be hard, Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, Every morn shall lead thee through Fresh baptisms of the dew; Every evening, from thy feet Shall the cool wind kiss the heat: All too soon these feet must hide In the prison-cells of pride; Lose the freedom of the sod; Like a colt's, for work be shod; Made to tread the mills of toil, Up and down in ceaseless moil. Happy if their track be found Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. Ah that thou couldst know thy joy Ere it passes, barefoot boy!
THE sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon. Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy, A portent seeming less than threat, It sank from sight before it set. A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff, could quite shut out, A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, - Brought in the wood from out of doors; Littered the stalls, and from the mows Raked down the herds-grass for the cows; Heard the horse whinnying for his corn; And, sharply clashing horn on horn, Impatient down the stanchion rows The cattle shake their walnut-bows; While, peering from his early perch Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, The cock his crested helmet bent, And down his querulous challenge sent.
Unwarmed by any sunset light, The gray day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, As zigzag wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the winged snow; And, ere the early bedtime came, The white drift piled the window-frame; And through the glass the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.
So all night long the storm roared on : The morning broke without a sun. In tiny spherule traced with lines Of Nature's geometric signs, In starry flake and pellicle, All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament; No cloud above, no earth below, - A universe of sky and snow! The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvelous shapes; strange domes and towers Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed;
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat,
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendor seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle.
A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted: "Boys, a path! Well pleased, (for when did farmer-boy Count such a summons less than joy?) Our buskins on our feet we drew. With mittened hands, and caps drawn low To guard our necks and ears from snow, We cut the solid whiteness through; And, where the drift was deepest, made A tunnel walled and overlaid With dazzling crystal. We had read Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave; And to our own his name we gave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp's supernal powers. We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within. The old horse thrust his long head out, And, grave with wonder, gazed about; The cock his lusty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And mild reproach of hunger looked; The hornèd patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp of foot.
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