Homespun

I’VE seen a good deal in my life. My own story was over you see Pretty young— But I’ve danced an’ I’ve sung In my day with the best. I’ve been blest With the love of a fine brave man, An’ a babe at my breast. But now that’s all past, An’ I’ve got a good home that’ll last (An annuity too) Till old Mr. Drayton an’ I Get through! What d’ye say? Hmmm— It’s funny you like to hear me talk, An’ drop in like this on your afternoon walk. Now you want to know—don’t you?— Yes yes— — This last queer thing that’s happened! I guess You’ll like it because you like cats! Well—last night With the fire burnin’ bright I was sittin’ an’ knittin’ An’ watchin’ the kitten An’ the old mother cat. I sat Here; an’ there by the table a-readin’ As usual—a-readin’ as if he was feedin’ His stomach an’ soul, Sat old Mr. Drayton—as droll An’ dried up an old sinner As ever took dinner With his book by his plate, Readin’ early an’ late, With his shinin’ bald head an’ its mole. But he does love a kitten— An’ likes me here knittin’— Poor soul! Well all of a sudden the bell rang. I went just as spry as I could But I thought die I should When I opened the door An’ I saw standin’ there In the hall lamp’s red glare Another old Drayton—as like as two peas— The one at the table behind me a-readin’ An’ here on the step number Two stood—a-kneadin’ His long pointed chin With his skinny old hand. But he says very bland— A-stickin’ his eye glass up tight in his eye, With the black ribbon danglin’ “My good woman—I Am your master’s twin brother. Mr. Drayton is in?” An’ all I could say like a booby was “Twin? Twin brother—twin brother— Oh Luddy! Twin? Twin!” Then my Drayton spoke An’ I almost jumped out of my skin— With his dry old voice Just like an echo— “I’m in. Twin.” Then he says “Mrs. Beaton! Stay here!” I tell you I felt queer. There they sat by the fire With the table between, Just eyein’ each other— Twin brother—twin brother— Both babes of one mother. The old cat humped an’ spit on my knees An’ run off with a sneeze. Then said he—the new Drayton— “Well Richard she’s dead! Kittie’s dead— And the last words she said Were ‘Now Rob you make up with him Dear.’ So Richard—I’m here.” But my Drayton sat quiet— Poor, shrivelled, dear soul With his mole. An’ I noticed the other was lackin’ the mole But otherwise—My! They are certainly twins! “Yes” said Drayton, “You’re in My house, Twin. So she thought Bitter Past Can be sweetened at last! Pretty thin!” An’ the light on his mole Seemed to shrivel his soul. You’d have heard it if I’d dropped a pin. Then they sat an’ they sat an’ they sat. I could see it was flat That somethin’ would have to be done Or there’d nothin’ be won For either. I felt as if maybe we’d sit Till Eternity come Or till I had a fit! For with chins like theirs set— I was in a cold sweat I can tell you. I took up my knittin’ To just die there—sittin’ When sudden that kitten She just took a glance An’ made one funny prance Up that table at Drayton— The new one—She put up her paw An’ she patted his danglin’ black ribbon. Oh Law—an’ he had to hold tight To his eyeglass to fix it safe into his eye. Then if she didn’t try To get at it again An’ she sat up an’ blinked In his face for a minute—the man never winked. Then she played with her tail Right under his chin— Just a gray ball of fur With two eyes an’ a purr. An’ the light that was caught In his great signet ring, She saw that an’ patted it—cute little thing— An’ she licked all his hand with her little pink tongue, An’ then back to my Drayton As if she’d been stung! A-curlin’ right up on his shoulder an’ purrin’ The only live thing in the room that was stirrin’. Oh I tell you that kitten was more than just—cat! Love was usin’ that kitten, I felt sure of that. Back an’ forth she went playin’ Between those old twins An’ the room still so quiet you might have heard pins A-droppin’. I burst right out. “Luddy” I said “You two men! Why that kitten’s Possessed of the dead! If you could just see yourselves sittin’ up there Like two graven images—each on a chair— An’ that little kitten a-tryin’ to play With you both—I’m clean crazy! I will go away!” I just shrieked it out an’ they both spoke at once— “Now now my good woman— Come don’t be a dunce!” An’ I said “Well I’m neither a dunce nor—a twin! But if there’s names goin’ why I’ll just begin An’ I’ll say you’re twin dunces!” Then sudden I saw Them both smile—at the kitten! It felt like a thaw After ice—up in Greenland. Oh yes—they’re both well. An’ the comfort they’re takin’ I’ve no words to tell.

“BOB Cooning the giant’s come home to die”— So the village folk say To-day. They shake their heads and they peer and spy, And they draw in their breaths— “Dear—Dear!” they sigh; And they cook him dainties And wonder why The Lord ever made, under His kind sky, Bob Cooning! Bob Cooning the giant was only a boy, Like Harry or Tom or Jim or Dick, But one that the other boys couldn’t lick. Never a clean fair fight for Bob As boy to boy. “That’s a dirty trick— To hit a fellow just half your size!” I’ve seen the tears in Bob’s big blue eyes. “Give me a man to fight!” he’d say, And they’d jeer—“You’ll keep till another day!” Poor Bob would turn and slouch from the place And lie face down in tall “Queen Anne’s lace” And sob and sob to the cool brown earth, Far off from the sound of his playmates’ mirth— Poor Bob Cooning! And he could not learn to cipher or read, And he felt himself of a different breed. He ate so much, and his clothes cost more Than any one else, till his father swore. He slouched and stooped through the highest door. His poor little mother wailed and cried— But his wise old Granny only sighed “It’s the good God made him an’ He’ll provide.” How Bob Cooning cried when his Granny died! Then one night when the village was racked and thrilled With the circus tents, and the beast cries shrilled From the hot green meadow, Bob Cooning went With a sharp-faced man to a certain tent. Tom, Harry and Dick saw the last gay train Pull out, but they never saw Bob again Until, one day, through our old church door, At the morning service, strode Bob once more With his head thrown back, and a smile as bland As the great glass ring on his vast pink hand. How the people young and old did grin As the handsome giant came walking in With his sporty suit of a fine light check, And the great starched collar about his neck! How he dwarfed our poor little house of God! Dr. Smitters was preaching on Aaron’s rod, And how it budded in miracle bloom. “Say! With Bob in a church there ain’t hardly room For us and the minister both!” So Jim The wag, so dapper and keen and slim Whispered to Pollie—but Pollie just sighed. “Oh my, but Bob’s splendid!” Pollie replied. That winter Bob Cooning was just like a king! His father boasted “A darn fine thing For us, that our son went away that day! I tell you he’s made the show business pay. He’s heaps of cash an’ he says he’ll stay Here a while—but he may go any day.” When the glamour wore off the wise heads said “He’s stupid as ever, with wits like lead.” And more than one mother wished he’d go— “So handsome—he does turn the girls’ heads so!” And finally, all in the sweet green May, He went off again on a “Circus Day.” And when he came back for the second time— This isn’t a story to put in rhyme— Now is it?—And yet if the Lord saw fit To make a giant and jest a bit Right out here in our country-side With every one seeing him far and wide— Well it seems to me that a rhyme goes fine For this pitiful, circus-like tale of mine— Of giant Bob and his coming home Never again with his shows to roam. “He’s fadin’ out like a wisp o’ hay” Said his poor little mother to me to-day. “He smiles at me an’ says ‘Ma—I’m small! An’ I always thought I was awful tall!’ An’ he’s just as happy as he can be When he thinks he’s a wee boy—deary me!” And I said “Mrs. Cooning—now don’t you fret. I guess God will know how to handle him yet.” And she said “Well—he has been a famous man In them shows!”—So—we all do the best we can. He’s a terrible problem to bathe and lift, But we’ve got it arranged, in a “double shift.” Bob Cooning, the giant, has come home to die. And the God that made him— He must know why!

THAT ugly pumpkin-coloured house That I saw from the train— I have wondered about the minds of the people inside But I wonder in vain. Did they choose that paint? Or perhaps it was brought them to buy— Oh I hope now they’ve got it all done that they like it— And don’t just have to try. Oh I hope that it shines there for them In their sunny green fields Like a lantern at night— And I hope that on dull rainy days they both say to each other “Don’t it look nice and bright?” Oh I think I shall never forget them In their new-painted house!

MY apple trees have blossomed in a night, And pale green moonlight bathes their rose and white With a strange wine that makes the pulses throb. A sleepy robin now mistakes the light, And his soft doubting note sounds like a sob Voicing the thought that draws my heart-strings tight. (2) What Life could give you is not yours to take Nor mine to give—and yet to-night I wake Remembering your giving. But the note Of that moon-haunted robin must not shake My calm belief that you—austere, remote— Need nothing I can ever mar or make.

THEY—the good people—heard her song From out of the wood that grows thick in the valley. She had climbed to the hill-top that rises, blue, Out of the wood as one comes through. Grass on the hill-top waving long, And a smooth gray stone where she kept her tally Of the years and the days in the wild singing wood. She lived her life as a virgin should Till the people heard her song. They climbed the hill and they frowned and said “We liked your songs that we heard in the valley. We don’t like that one you are singing to-day! It’s mad and it’s bad and it’s much too gay! But we’ve brought you some meat and bread.” Then they saw on the stone her tally, And they shook their heads ... “Look here! Look here! Oh it’s very very plain she is queer ... mad queer!” And they took her away on that self-same day, Though she fought till she lay half-dead. Now all she had written on the smooth gray stone Were the strange magic things (O the deep blue wings!) That happen in a wild, singing wood. But they said “She hasn’t lived as a virgin should ... When she dies she shall lie on the hill for good.” And they laid her there, with her soft black hair Strained back from her dead white brow. “We will set at her head for a tombstone now This stone where she kept mad tally!” But she laughed as she sped from that hill-top bed And roamed through the wood and the valley ... “Oh wild blue wings I am free” (sang she) “Now I own the singing wood and the wood owns me, Oh the hill-top too and the valley! They gave back my stone and they’ve left me alone ... I am free! I am free! I am free!”

THERE is something very wonderful In the posting of a letter— So few acts have the clarity of this. A clear-cut, forceful and far-reaching act Of pain or bliss, So it may be: Irrevocable in the subtlest way— To-day— You see? The post box flashes red A sign and seal of dominating law Through April green, or hard and glittering white Of winter snow. One may have vacillated day and night, Longing to end the turmoil, stress and strain, Questioning what is best or wise or right— And then post box gleams red! Cutting clean through the world of indecision Like a shout Of triumph! Then a soft flat thud— Like tiny echo floating out From a beyond of peace. The letter falls— Decisive act, prisoned in four red walls.

DEW ... Delicate lanterns, star-kindled anew, And a sword of silver Brave, shining and still ... With roses—deep roses of crimson— And, sheathing the blade, Greek hyacinths blue. Ah ... the treasures, the symbols, we laid In the deep cold mould on the hill With the body of you!... But over the mould there flew Something wingéd that earth could not hold— You!...

BELOVED Friend, I write this verse to you As if it were a letter I could send. It seems to me sometimes my heart slips through The purple barriers between us two, And finds again your fire, your sacred bread: Their warmth and wholesome sweetness ... Fire and Bread! Beloved, these symbols nourish Life anew ... You are not dead!

BLUE moth!... Tiny, pulsating thing ... You and I met upon a rocky hill. I paused ... You paused, and poised Blue, Blue on a dark stone: And all the vibrant sunshine in the world Was caught for the sparkle On your tiny wings ... Blue moth!