The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose SketchesRiley, James Whitcomb
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The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose Sketches
Riley, James Whitcomb
American poetry; American wit and humor
In the heart of June, love,
You and I together,
On from dawn till noon, love,
Laughing with the weather;
Blending both our souls, love,
In the selfsame tune,
Drinking all life holds, love,
In the heart of June.
In the heart of June, love,
With its golden weather,
Underneath the moon, love,
You and I together.
Ah! how sweet to seem, love,
Drugged and half aswoon
With this luscious dream, love,
In the heart of June.
DREAMS
"Do I sleep, do I dream,
Do I wonder and doubt--
Are things what they seem
Or is visions about?"
There has always been an inclination, or desire, rather, on my part to
believe in the mystic--even as far back as stretches the gum-elastic
remembrance of my first "taffy-pullin'" given in honor of my fifth
birthday; and the ghost-stories, served by way of ghastly dessert, by
our hired girl. In fancy I again live over all the scenes of that
eventful night:--
The dingy kitchen, with its haunting odors of a thousand feasts and
wash-days; the old bench-legged stove, with its happy family of
skillets, stewpans and round-bellied kettles crooning and blubbering
about it. And how we children clustered round the genial hearth, with
the warm smiles dying from our faces just as the embers dimmed and
died out in the open grate, as with bated breath we listened to how
some one's grandmother had said that her first man went through a
graveyard once, one stormy night, "jest to show the neighbors that he
wasn't afeard o' nothin'," and how when he was just passing the grave
of his first wife "something kind o' big and white-like, with great
big eyes like fire, raised up from behind the headboard, and kind o'
re'ched out for him"; and how he turned and fled, "with that air white
thing after him as tight as it could jump, and a hollerin'
'wough-yough-yough!' till you could hear it furder'n you could a
bullgine," and how, at last, just as the brave and daring intruder was
clearing two graves and the fence at one despairing leap, the "white
thing," had made a grab at him with its iron claws, and had nicked him
so close his second wife was occasioned the onerous duty of affixing
another patch in his pantaloons. And in conclusion, our hired girl
went on to state that this blood-curdling incident had so wrought upon
the feelings of "the man that wasn't afeard o' nothin'," and had given
him such a distaste for that particular graveyard, that he never
visited it again, and even entered a clause in his will to the effect
that he would ever remain an unhappy corpse should his remains be
interred in said graveyard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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