Some Of Farmer Stebbin's Opinions
No, Parson, 'tain't been in my style,
(Nor none ov my relations)
Tew dig about the gnarly roots
Ov prophetic spekkleations,
Tew see what Malachai meant;
Or Solomon was hintin';
Or reound what jog o' Futur's road
Isaiah was a-squintin'.
I've lost my rest a-keepin' out
The hogs from our cowcumbers;
But never lost a wink, you bet,
By wrastlin' over Numbers.
I never took no comfort when
The year was bald with losses,
A-spekkleatin' on them chaps
That rode them varus hosses.
It never gave my soul a boost
When grief an' it was matin',
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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A Hungry Day
I MIND him well, he was a quare ould chap,
Come like meself from swate ould Erin's sod;
He hired me wanst to help his harvest in-
The crops was fine that summer, praised be God!
He found us, Rosie, Mickie, an' meself,
Just landed in the emigration shed;
Meself was tyin' on their bits of clothes;
Their mother-rest her tender sowl!-was dead.
It's not meself can say of what she died:
But 'twas the year the praties felt the rain,
An' rotted in the soil; an' just to dhraw
The breath of life was one long hungry pain.
If we wor haythens in a furrin land,
Not in a country grand in Christian pride,
Faith, then a man might have the face to say
'Twas of stharvation me poor Sheila died.
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Between The Wind And Rain
'The storm is in the air,' she said, and held
Her soft palm to the breeze; and looking up,
Swift sunbeams brush'd the crystal of her eyes,
As swallows leave the skies to skim the brown,
Bright woodland lakes. 'The rain is in the air.
'O Prophet Wind, what hast thou told the rose,
'That suddenly she loosens her red heart,
'And sends long, perfum'd sighs about the place?
'O Prophet Wind, what hast thou told the Swift,
'That from the airy eave, she, shadow-grey,
'Smites the blue pond, and speeds her glancing wing
'Close to the daffodils? What hast thou told small bells,
'And tender buds, that--all unlike the rose--
'They draw green leaves close, close about their breasts
'And shrink to sudden slumber? The sycamores
'In ev'ry leaf are eloquent with thee;
'The poplars busy all their silver tongues
'With answ'ring thee, and the round chestnut stirs
'Vastly but softly, at thy prophecies.
'The vines grow dusky with a deeper green--
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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La Bouquetiere
Buy my roses, citizens,--
Here are roses golden white,
Like the stars that lovers watch
On a purple summer night.
Here are roses ruddy red,
Here are roses Cupid's pink;
Here are roses like his cheeks--
Deeper--like his lips, I think.
Vogue la galere! what if they die,
Roses will bloom again--so, buy!
Here is one--it should be white;
As tho' in a playful mind,
Flora stole the winter snow
From the sleeping north'rn wind
And lest he should wake and rage,
Breath'd a spell of ardent pow'r
On the flake, and flung it down
To the earth, a snow-white flow'r.
Vogue la galere! 'tis stain'd with red?
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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The Ghosts Of The Trees
The silver fangs of the mighty axe,
Bit to the blood of our giant boles;
It smote our breasts and smote our backs,
Thunder'd the front-cleared leaves--
As sped in fire,
The whirl and flame of scarlet leaves
With strong desire
Leaped to the air our captive souls.
While down our corpses thunder'd,
The air at our strong souls gazed and wondered
And cried to us, 'Ye
Are full of all mystery to me!
I saw but thy plumes of leaves,
Thy strong, brown greaves;
The sinewy roots and lusty branches,
And fond and anxious,
I laid my ear and my restless breast
By each pride-high crest;
And softly stole
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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The White Bull
Ev'ry dusk eye in Madrid,
Flash'd blue 'neath its lid;
As the cry and the clamour ran round,
'The king has been crown'd!
And the brow of his bride has been bound
With the crown of a queen!'
And between
Te Deum and salvo, the roar
Of the crowd in the square,
Shook tower and bastion and door,
And the marble of altar and floor;
And high in the air,
The wreaths of the incense were driven
To and fro, as are riven
The leaves of a lily, and cast
By the jubilant shout of the blast
To and fro, to and fro,
And they fell in the chancel and nave,
As the lily falls back on the wave,
And trembl'd and faded and died,
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Curtius
How spake the Oracle, my Curtius, how?
Methought, while on the shadowed terraces
I walked and looked toward Rome, an echo came
Of legion wails, blent into one deep cry.
'O Jove!' I thought, 'the Oracles have said,
And, saying, touched some swiftly answering chord
General to every soul.' And then my heart
(I being here alone) beat strangely loud,
Responsive to the cry, and my still soul
Informed me thus: 'Not such a harmony
Could spring from aught within the souls of men,
But that which is most common to all souls.
Lo! that is sorrow!'
Nay, Curtius, I could smile
To tell thee, as I listened to the cry,
How on the silver flax which blew about
The ivory distaff in my languid hand
I found large tears; such big and rounded drops
And gather thro' dark nights on cypress boughs.
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Malcolm's Katie: A Love Story - Part I.
Max plac'd a ring on little Katie's hand,
A silver ring that he had beaten out
From that same sacred coin--first well-priz'd wage
For boyish labour, kept thro' many years.
'See, Kate,' he said, 'I had no skill to shape
Two hearts fast bound together, so I grav'd
Just K. and M., for Katie and for Max.'
'But, look; you've run the lines in such a way,
That M. is part of K., and K. of M.,'
Said Katie, smiling. 'Did you mean it thus?
I like it better than the double hearts.'
'Well, well,' he said, 'but womankind is wise!
Yet tell me, dear, will such a prophecy
Not hurt you sometimes, when I am away?
Will you not seek, keen ey'd, for some small break
In those deep lines, to part the K. and M.
For you? Nay, Kate, look down amid the globes
Of those large lilies that our light canoe
Divides, and see within the polish'd pool
That small, rose face of yours,--so dear, so fair,--
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Malcolm's Katie: A Love Story - Part V.
Said the high hill, in the morning: 'Look on me--
'Behold, sweet earth, sweet sister sky, behold
'The red flames on my peaks, and how my pines
'Are cressets of pure gold; my quarried scars
'Of black crevase and shadow-fill'd canon,
'Are trac'd in silver mist. How on my breast
'Hang the soft purple fringes of the night;
'Close to my shoulder droops the weary moon,
'Dove-pale, into the crimson surf the sun
'Drives up before his prow; and blackly stands
'On my slim, loftiest peak, an eagle, with
'His angry eyes set sunward, while his cry
'Falls fiercely back from all my ruddy heights;
'And his bald eaglets, in their bare, broad nest,
'Shrill pipe their angry echoes: ''Sun, arise,
''And show me that pale dove, beside her nest,
''Which I shall strike with piercing beak and tear
''With iron talons for my hungry young.''
And that mild dove, secure for yet a space,
Half waken'd, turns her ring'd and glossy neck
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Malcolm's Katie: A Love Story - Part VI.
'Who curseth Sorrow knows her not at all.
Dark matrix she, from which the human soul
Has its last birth; whence, with its misty thews,
Close-knitted in her blackness, issues out;
Strong for immortal toil up such great heights,
As crown o'er crown rise through Eternity,
Without the loud, deep clamour of her wail,
The iron of her hands; the biting brine
Of her black tears; the Soul but lightly built
of indeterminate spirit, like a mist
Would lapse to Chaos in soft, gilded dreams,
As mists fade in the gazing of the sun.
Sorrow, dark mother of the soul, arise!
Be crown'd with spheres where thy bless'd children dwell,
Who, but for thee, were not. No lesser seat
Be thine, thou Helper of the Universe,
Than planet on planet pil'd!--thou instrument,
Close-clasp'd within the great Creative Hand!'
* * * * *
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poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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