They were all doctors of renown, The great men of a famous town, With deep brows, wrinkled, broad and wise, The wisdom of the East was theirs, And honor crowned their silver hairs; The man they jeered and laughed to scorn But he knew better far than they, What came to him that Sabbath day; He knew, and not the Sanhedrim. JIM BLUDSO, OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE. Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives, Of livin' like you and me. Whar have you been for the last three year How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks He were n't no saint,-them engineers JIM BLUDSO, OF THE PRAIRIE Belle. 313 And this was all the religion he had, To treat his engine well; Never be passed on the river, To mind the pilot's bell; And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire, A thousand times he swore, He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank All boats has their day on the Mississip, And her day come at last,— The Movastar was a better boat, But the Belle she would n't be passed. With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine. The fire bust out as she clared the bar, And quick as a flash she turned, and made For that willer-bank on the right. There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out, Over all the infernal roar, "I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot's ashore." Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat Jim Bludso's voice was heard, And they all had trust in his cussedness, And knowed he would keep his word. And Bludso's ghost went up alone In the smoke of the Prairie Belle. He were n't no saint-but at jedgment I'd run my chance with Jim, 'Longside of some pious gentlemen That would n't shook hands with him. He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,— And went for it thar and then; And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard On a man that died for men. Paullt Itayne AN ANNIVERSARY. O Love, it is our wedding day! This morn,-how swift the seasons flee ! A virgin morn of cloudless May, You gave your loyal hand to me, Your dainty hand, clasped sweet and sure As Love's sweet self, forevermore! O Love, it is our wedding day; The very rustling of your dress, The trembling of your arm that lay On mine, with timorous happiness, Your fluttered breath and faint footfall,— O Love, it is our wedding day, And backward Time's strange current rolls, Till life's and love's auspicious May Once more is blooming in our souls, And larklike, swell the songs of hope, Your blissful bridal horoscope. O Love, it is our wedding day,— Yet say, did those fair hopes but sing, O Love, it is our wedding day, And none of those glad hopes of Youth, Thrilled to its height, outpoured a lay To match our future's simple truth: Though deep the joy of vow and shrine, Our wedded calm is more divine! O Love, it is our wedding day! Life's summer, with slow-waning beam, Tints the near autumn's cloud-land gray To softness of a fairy dream, Whence peace by musing pathos kissed, Smiles through a veil of golden mist. O Love, it is our wedding day; The conscious winds are whispering low Those passionate secrets of the May Fraught with your kisses long ago; When memories of our years remote Are trembling in the mock-bird's throat. O Love, it is our wedding day, And not a thrush in woodland bowers, And not a rivulet's silvery lay, Nor tiny bee-song 'mid the flowers, Nor any voice of land or sea, But deepens love to ecstasy! Our wedding day! The soul's noontide! |