Abram Rutledge died, ere the great war Ruined the land. His well-loved son was struck on fields afar By a brother’s hand. Then brought they him, O pioneer, on his bier To the hill and the tree, Back home and laid him, son of Trenton, here Your own grave near. Of all unuttered griefs, of vaguest woes, None equals this: Forgotten hands, and work that no one knows Whose work it is; Good gifts bequeathed, but never earned, or spurned In hate or pride; And the boon of an age destroyed, ere a cycle turned O’er you inurned. Abram Rutledge lies in a sunken grave, Dust and no more, Let Freedom fail, it is naught to him, who was brave, Who stood to the fore. The oaks and elms he knew, greenly renew Their leaves each spring, But gone his dream with that last hour which drew His world from view. TO A SPIROCHAETA If through the microscope We peer and stare You look like marceled shreds of rope, Or maiden hair, With eyeless hunger swift to grope Out of your lair. To feed and to fulfill your fate You dive and swim Forward and backward flagellate Amid the dim Ichor of women where you mate, Delicate, slim. Why are you screw-shaped, in a spiral? And why your form Like a crooked hand upon a dial? You are the norm For all hell sealed up in a vial To break in storm. Your whips are sharper far than sickles, Or cricket bristle; With finer points than rose-leaf prickles, Or drifting thistle; You feed yourself till the blood trickles Through flesh and gristle. When a man knows he is your diet A solemn thrill Shows in great eyes and spirit quiet For fears that kill; He is a maelstrom running riot, At the center still. Well, Robert Burns: You saw a louse On a lady crawling. But one can keep to his own house Without forestalling This demon on his death carouse Breeding and sprawling. But, Robert Burns, this does not tent Our pride or tease us; It is not heaven’s message sent That virtue frees us. It shows us hard or penitent As Nature sees us! CATO BRADEN I went to Winston Prairie to attend The funeral of Cato Braden. He Had died at fifty-one and I had known him Since he was twenty-four, but for fifteen Years or more I had not seen him, nor Exchanged with him more than a telegraphic Note about some trivial thing. Indeed I had not been in Winston Prairie during These fifteen years.