My grandmother told me of Old Peter Cartwright Who preached hell-fire And the worm that never dies. And here’s a young preacher at the New Hope Meeting house, And every one allows, he has old Peter’s brows, And flaming of the eyes, And the very same way, they say. Last night he stuck his finger right down in my direction, And said: “God doesn’t care For your woman’s hair. Jesus wants to know if your soul is fair As your woman’s complexion.” And then I thought he knew-- O what shall I do? Greenberry Atterberry, weeping and unsteady Had left his seat already. He stood at the mourner’s bench in great tribulation And told the congregation: That fiddling and dancing and tobacco chewin’ Led up to whisky and to woman’s ruin-- And I thought he looked at me. Well, you can stop dancing, and you can stop drinking And you can leave the quarter-horses at the crooked races. But a woman, a woman, the people will be thinking Forever of a woman who confesses her behavior. And then I couldn’t look in the people’s faces, All weeping and singing, O gentle Saviour! Then the devil said: You wench You’d cut a pretty figure at the mourner’s bench, Go out and look for Charley, Go out and look for Charley, He’s down at Leese’s Grove. He has found a fresh love Go win him back again. He is dancing on the platform to the Speckled Hen. O Saviour, Saviour, how can I join the mourners, Face all the scorners? But how can I hunt Charley at Leese’s Grove? How can I stand the staring, the whispering of things Down at Revis Springs? How can I stand the mocking of the fiddle strings? Charley! Charley! So it’s knowing what’s best to do, Saviour! Saviour! Its knowing what’s best to do! THE BAY-WINDOW She sat at a bay-window where she saw First open carriages and buggies pass! And then Victorias with horses docked And bits and buckles, chains of shining brass. And then the horseless carriage, till at last The swallow-gleam of varnished limousines Silent as shadows took her lifted eye, Uplifted from a book. She always sat In her bay-window with a book, And with a tinted fan in summer-time. But first she was a bride Before the war. Springing from honest blood, her place Passed over lightly as her grandeur grew: She was of seed too vital to decay Wholly in any soil, the sort that grows and blooms Where never gardener comes. And this bay-window! An aging man of gold Had plucked her up, and here she rests and breathes The free air of Chicago’s reclamation. And then she is A wonder-bride for her brown hair, And gray-blue eyes, and laughter, sunny wit, And naturally patrician ways and speech, (Acquiring French now that the chance has come), And she is eighteen and is born to rule.