Mother Goose for Grown Folks

ROSES AND DIAMONDS

 
"Little girl, little girl, where have you been?
Gathering roses to give to the queen.
Little girl, little girl, what gave she you?
She gave me a diamond as big as my shoe."
 
 
If the old could share with the young
again,—
If worn could borrow of new,—
If faces could wear their roses again.
And hearts be sweetened with dew,—
If a child might bring the joy of a child,
And give it to us to-day,—
What glory of gem, or what weight of gold
Would we think too precious to pay?
 

JACK HORNER

 
"Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Eating a Christmas Pie:
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a great boy am I!"
 
 
Ah, the world hath many a Horner,
Who, seated in his corner,
Finds a Christmas Pie provided for his
thumb:
And cries out with exultation,
"When successful exploration
Doth discover the predestinated plum!
 
 
Little Jack outgrows his tier,
And becometh John, Esquire;
And he finds a monstrous pasty ready made,
Stuffed with stocks and bonds and bales,
Gold, currencies and sales,
And all the mixed ingredients of Trade.
 
 
And again it is his luck
To be just in time to pluck,
By a clever "operation," from the pie
An unexpected." plum";
So he glorifies his thumb,
And says, proudly, "What a mighty man
am I!"
 
 
Or perchance, to Science turning,
And with weary labor learning
All the formulas and phrases that oppress
her,—
For the fruit of others' baking
So a fresh diploma taking,
Comes he forth, a full accredited Profes-
sor!
 
 
Or he's not too nice to mix
In the dish of politics;
And the dignity of office he puts on;
And he feels as big again
As a dozen nobler men,
While he writes himself the Honorable
John!
 
 
Ah, me, for the poor nation!
In her hour of desperation
Her worst foe is that unsparing Horner-
Thumb!
To which War, and Death, and Hate,
Right, Policy, and State,
Are but pies wherefrom his greed may
grasp a plum!
 
 
Oh, the work was fair and true,
But't is riddled through and through.
And plundered of its glories everywhere;
And before men's cheated eyes
Doth the robber triumph rise
And magnify itself in all the air.
 
 
"Why, if even a good man dies,
And is welcomed to the skies
In the glorious resurrection of the just,
They must ruffle it below
"With some vain and wretched show,
To make each his little mud-pie of the dust!
 
 
Shall we hint at Lady-Horners,
Who in their exclusive corners
Think the world is only made of upper-
crust?
Who in the queer mince-pie
That we call Society,
Do their dainty fingers delicately thrust;
Till, if it come to pass,
In the spiced and sugared mass,
One should compass,—do n't they call it
so?—a catch,
By the gratulation given
It would seem the very heaven
Had outdone itself in making such a
match!
 
 
Or the "Woman-Horner, now,
Who is raising such a row
To prove that Jack's no bigger boy than
Jill;
And that she wo n't sit by
With her little saucer pie,
While he from the Great Pasty picks his
fill.
 
 
Jealous-wild to be a sharer
In the fruit she thinks the fairer,
Flings by all for the swift gaining of her
wish;
Not discerning in her blindness,
How a tender Loving-Kindness
Hid the best things in her own rejected
dish!
 
 
O, the world keeps Christmas Day
In a queer, perpetual way;
Shouting always, w What a great big boy
am I!"
Yet how many of the crowd
Thus vociferating loud,
And their honors or pretensions lifting
high,
Have really, more than Jack,
With their boldness or their knack,
Had a finger in the making of the Pie?
 

INTY, MINTY

 
"Inty, minty,
Cutey, corn!
Apple-seed,
Apple-thorn!
Wire, brier,
Limber lock;
Seven geese
In a flock,
Sit and sing, by the spring;
O-u-t, out, and in again."
 
 
Inklings and meanings,
Sprinklings and gleanings,
Shimmers and glints.
That's how the light comes
Down from the sides;
That's how the beauty
Is born to our eyes.
The seed is within,
And the thorn is without:
Nature's sweet secret
Is guarded about.
Yet briers are slender,
Locks are but slight,
To touch of a genius
That searches with light.
 
 
White by the fountain
Sit the calm seven;
Unto their joyance
Its music is given.
 
 
The world looketh on,
And still wonders in vain,
As they go out and in,
And find pasture again.
 

DOUBLES AND BUBBLES

 
"Hey, rub-a-dub!
Three maids in a tub!
And who do you think was there?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick-maker,
And all of them gone to the fair."
 
 
Strong hands are in the washing-tubs;
Gay heads, the labor scorning,
Make holiday between the rubs,
And sport of Monday morning.
 
 
Three maids? That's your arithmetic.
The child that met the poet
Would still to her own counting stick:
"We 're seven; I surely know it!"
 
 
The boatman ferried over three
Across the haunted river;
And only guessed it by his fee,
And wondered at the giver.
 
 
And Betsey, Jane, and Mary Ann,—
If more your sense discovers?
Well, rub your insight if you can,
And reckon up the lovers!
 
 
Count Jane with her stout cleaver knight,
And Betsey with the baker;
And Mary Ann in dreamy light
Beside the candle-maker.
 
 
Yet of the six no soul is there,
For all your wakened vision!
In the charmed circle of the Fair
They walk their Fields Elysian!
 
 
The work goes on by board and bench,—
Hard tax of human sinning,—
But hearts thro' labor-chinks still wrench
Some joy of their beginning.
 
 
In the close limit that confines
Our getting and our giving,
Unless we read between the lines,
What should we do with living?
 

FUNERAL HOLIDAY

 
"Ding, dong, bell,
The cat's in the well!
Who put her in? Little John Green.
Who pulled her out? Great John Stout!"-
 
 
There was never a drama of sorrow
<>But good folks might be found, I'm afraid,
Who a queer satisfaction could borrow
From the parts of importance they played.
 
 
There is war for four years in the nation:
There are havoc and panic abroad:
Comes a tempest; a wild conflagration:
Great souls go up home to their God.
 
 
How the tall I's spring thick in the spell-
ing!—
I knew, or I saw, or I said!—
How the small ones turn out to the swelling
Each splendor of final parade!
 
 
How many are left, we may wonder,
Heart-mournful for that which befell?
How many would wish back the blunder
"When the Cat has got into the Well!
 
 
Nay, more; if with infinite bother
And peril, poor Puss is got out,
Somehow, one boy seems famous as t' other,
John Green is as big as John Stout!
 
 
See, now! let me tell you a story
Of something which happened in sooth;
That shows with how fearless a glory
The children and simple speak truth.
 
 
Biddy came to her mistress refulgent;
A whole sunrise of smiles on her face;
'With w M'am, could ye be so indulgent
Jist to shpare me the day, if ye plase?
 
 
"It 's me cousin that 's dead,—Kate
M'Gawtherin,—
Was married to Barnaby Roach;
An' I 'd want,—but I hates to be both-
erin',—
Three shillings to pay for the coach!"
 
 
And so we were minus our dinners;
And all that deplorable day
We fasted, like penitent sinners,
While Biddy the cook was away.
 
 
But she came when the sunset was gleam-
ing;
And her story she gleefully told;
Disdaining all dolorous seeming,
In a way that was good to behold.
 
 
Each loving and sad recollection
Of the late Mrs. Barnaby Roach
Quite absorbed in the single reflection
That she "wint wid himsel' in the coach!"
 
 
"For he thrated me, faith, like a lady,
An' he paid me me fare, an' ahl;
An' he tould me that I, Bridget Brady,
Was the charm of the funeral!"
 

DISROBED

 
"There was a little woman, as I've heard tell,
She went to market her eggs for to sell:
She went to market all on a market day,
And she fell asleep on the king's highway.
 
 
"There came a little peddler, his name was Stout;
He cut off her petticoats round about:
He cut off her petticoats up to her knees,
And the poor little woman began for to freeze.
 
 
"She began to shiver, and she began to cry,
Lawk-a-mercy on me! sure it is n't I!
But if it be I, as I think it ought to be,
I 've got a little dog at home, and he knows me!"
 
 
I think of a poor, tired Soul,
That has trodden, up and down,
The tradeways of this busy life,
To and from its market town,
Till, traffic and toil all past,
At the silent close of the day,
She lies down, weary and worn, at last,
On the king's highway;—
 
 
The highway that brings all home,
Never a one left out;—
And in her sleep doth a Stranger come
Who cuts her garments about.
Cuts the life-tatters away,
All the old rags and the stain;
And leaves the Soul 'twixt her night and
day,
To waken again.
 
 
Slowly she wakens, and strange;
Strange and scared she doth seem;
Marvelling at the mystical change
Come over her in her dream.
 
 
"Where is my life?" she cries,
"That which I knew me by?
Something is here in an unknown guise:
Can it be I?
 
 
"I wonder if anything is:
Or if I am anything:
Did ever a Soul come bare as this
From its earthward marketing?
Let me think down into the past;
Bethink me hard in the cold;
Find me something to stand by fast;
Something to hold!"
 
 
She thinks away back to the morning,
To something she loved and knew;
And over her doubt comes dawning
Sense of the dear and true.
 
 
"I do n't know if it be I," she sighs;
"But if after all it be,
There 's a little heart at home in the skies,
And he 'll know me!"
 

JACK AND JILL

 
"Jack and Jill
Went up the hill,
To draw a pail of water:
Jack fell down
And broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after."
 
 
Jack and Jill went up the hill,
When the world was young, together.
Jack and Jill went up the hill,
In Eden ways and weather.
She to seek out blessed springs,
He to bear the burden:
Nature their sole choice of things,
Love their only guerdon.
That was all the simple creatures knew.
 
 
Jack and Jill come down the hill,
In the world's fall years, together.
Jack and Jill come down the hill,
And there is stormy weather.
'T is all about the pail, you see;
The sweet springs are behind them:
Empty-handed seemeth she
Who only helped to find them.
Jill would like to swing a bucket, too.
 
 
O'er the hillside coming down,
Eagerly and proudly,
Sparkling trophies to the town
To bear, she clamors loudly.
But, in face of all the town,
Challenging its laughter,
Many a Jack comes tumbling down.
Shall the Jills come after?
Is that what the women want to do?
 
 
Listen! When on heights of life
Hidden pools He planted,
God to Adam and his wife
Wise division granted.
Gave his son the pitcher broad
For wealth and weight of water;
But the quick divining-rod
Confided to his daughter.
Ah, if men and women only knew!
 

CASUS BELLI

 
Impromptu, July, 1870.
"The sow came in with the saddle;
The little pig rocked the cradle;
The dish jumped up on the table
To see the pot swallow the ladle;
The spit that stood behind the door
Threw the pudding-stick on the floor.
"Odsplut!" said the gridiron,
Can't you agree?
I'm the head constable,
Bring 'em to me.'"
 
 
Spain came in with an empty throne;
The little prince rocked his German cradle
"No, no," he said;
And he shook his head;
"I am well content to be let alone."
All the dishes on pantry-ledge
And shelf, and table, were up on edge,
To see how the Pot,
Simmering hot,
Would foam at the dip of the threatening
ladle.
 
 
Nothing befell for a minute or so,
(Nobody chose to be first, you know),
Till the royal spit, with an angry frown,
Threw a little pudding-stick down.
"Odsplut!" shouts Emperor Gridiron,
Hissing for a broil,
"Those folks that stand behind the door
Are getting up a coil!
I 've red Fire panting at my feet;
I thought how things would be!
I?m creation's constable,
Bring the world to me!"