Pike County Ballads and Other Poems Part 4

The song had power on the grim old monks In the light of the rosy skies; And as they listened the years rolled back, And tears came into their eyes.

The years rolled back and they were young, With the hearts and hopes of men, They plucked the daisies and kissed the girls Of dear dead summers again.

III.

But the eldest monk soon broke the spell; "'Tis sin and shame," quoth he, "To be turned from talk of holy things By a bird's cry from a tree.

"Perchance the Enemy of Souls Hath come to tempt us so.

Let us try by the power of the Awful Word If it be he, or no!"

To Heaven the three monks raised their hands; "We charge thee, speak!" they said, "By His dread Name who shall one day come To judge the quick and the dead,--

"Who art thou? Speak!" The bird laughed loud.

"I am the Devil," he said.

The monks on their faces fell, the bird Away through the twilight sped.

A horror fell on those holy men (The faithful legends say), And one by one from the face of the earth They pined and vanished away.

IV.

So goes the tale of the monkish books, The moral who runs may read,-- He has no ears for Nature's voice Whose soul is the slave of creed.

Not all in vain with beauty and love Has G.o.d the world adorned; And he who Nature scorns and mocks, By Nature is mocked and scorned.

THE ENCHANTED SHIRT.

Fytte the First: wherein it shall be shown how the Truth is too mighty a Drug for such as be of feeble temper.

The King was sick. His cheek was red And his eye was clear and bright; He ate and drank with a kingly zest, And peacefully snored at night.

But he said he was sick, and a king should know, And doctors came by the score.

They did not cure him. He cut off their heads And sent to the schools for more.

At last two famous doctors came, And one was as poor as a rat,-- He had pa.s.sed his life in studious toil, And never found time to grow fat.

The other had never looked in a book; His patients gave him no trouble-- If they recovered they paid him well, If they died their heirs paid double.

Together they looked at the royal tongue, As the King on his couch reclined; In succession they thumped his august chest, But no trace of disease could find.

The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."

"Hang him up!" roared the King in a gale,-- In a ten-knot gale of royal rage; The other leech grew a shade pale;

But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose, And thus his prescription ran,-- The King will be well, if he sleeps one night In the Shirt of a Happy Man.

Fytte the Second: tells of the search for the Shirt, and how it was nigh found, but was not, for reasons which are said or sung.

Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode, And fast their horses ran, And many they saw, and to many they spoke, But they found no Happy Man.

They found poor men who would fain be rich And rich who thought they were poor; And men who twisted their waists in stays, And women that shorthose wore.

They saw two men by the roadside sit, And both bemoaned their lot; For one had buried his wife, he said, And the other one had not.

At last they came to a village gate, A beggar lay whistling there; He whistled and sang and laughed and rolled On the gra.s.s in the soft June air.

The weary couriers paused and looked At the scamp so blithe and gay; And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend!

You seem to be happy to-day."

"O yes, fair sirs!" the rascal laughed, And his voice rang free and glad, "An idle man has so much to do That he never has time to be sad."

"This is our man," the courier said "Our luck has led us aright.

I will give you a hundred ducats, friend, For the loan of your shirt to-night."

The merry blackguard lay back on the gra.s.s, And laughed till his face was black; "I would do it, G.o.d wot," and he roared with the fun, "But I haven't a shirt to my back."

Fytte the Third: shewing how His Majesty the King came at last to sleep in a Happy Man his Shirt.

Each day to the King the reports came in Of his unsuccessful spies, And the sad panorama of human woes Pa.s.sed daily under his eyes.

And he grew ashamed of his useless life, And his maladies hatched in gloom; He opened his windows and let the air Of the free heaven into his room.

And out he went in the world and toiled In his own appointed way; And the people blessed him, the land was glad, And the King was well and gay.

A WOMAN'S LOVE.

A sentinel angel sitting high in glory Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory: "Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

"I loved,--and, blind with pa.s.sionate love, I fell.

Love brought me down to death, and death to h.e.l.l.

For G.o.d is just, and death for sin is well.

"I do not rage against His high decree, Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be; But for my love on earth who mourns for me.

"Great Spirit! let me see my love again And comfort him one hour, and I were fain To pay a thousand years of fire and pain."

Then said the pitying angel, "Nay, repent That wild vow! Look, the dial-finger's bent Down to the last hour of thy punishment!"

But still she wailed, "I pray thee, let me go!

I cannot rise to peace and leave him so.

Oh, let me soothe him in his bitter woe!"

The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar, And upward, joyous, like a rising star, She rose and vanished in the ether far.