Mother Goose for Grown Folks

THE DAYS THAT ARE LONG

 
"I'll sing you a song
Of the days that are long;
Of the woodcock and the sparrow;
Of the little dog
That burnt his tail,
And he shall be whipt to-morrow."
 
 
That is the song the world sings
Of the long bright days:
That is the way she evens things,
Portions, and pays.
 
 
The dog that let his tail burn,
Proving one pain,
Shall be whipt next day, that he may learn
Wisdom again.
 
 
That is the song the world sings
To sin and sorrow:
Over her limit her hard lash flings
Into God's morrow.
 
 
Measures His dear divine grace
In compass narrow:
Counts for nothing the infinite days;
Forgets the sparrow.
 
 
The world sings only a half song;
Leaves our hearts sore:
Heaven, in the time that is tender and long,
Will sing us more.
 

THREESCORE AND TEN

 
"How many miles to Babylon?
Threescore and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again."
 
 
How many miles of the weary way?
Threescore miles and ten.
Where shall I be at the end of the day?
Yon shall be back again.
 
 
You shall prove it all in the lifelong round;
The joy, and the pain and the sinning;
And at candle-light your soul shall be found
Back—at its new beginning.
 
 
Down in his grave the old man lies;
In from the earthward wild,
At the open door of Paradise
Enters a little child.
 

TWO LITTLE BLACKBIRDS

 
"Two little blackbirds sat upon a stone;
One flew away, and then there was one;
The other flew after and then there was none;
So the poor stone was left all alone."
One of these little birds back again flew;
The other came after, and then there were two;
Says one to the other, pray, how do you do?
Very well, thank you, and, pray, how are you?
 
 
A stone is the barest fact:
But living and wonderful things
Gather to earthly occasion and act
With folded or parting wings.
 
 
Birds of the air are they,—
Our knowledge, our thought, our love,—
And the ethers in which they win their way
Are breaths of the heaven above.
 
 
Some place and point of the hour,—
The same little fact for two,—
Who knoweth the lasting wonder and power
It holdeth for me and you;
 
 
Away in the long-past years,
With trifle of merest chance,
Keeping, through losing, and blinding, and
tears,
The key of its circumstance?
 
 
I, left to the narrowed earth,—
You into the great heaven gone,—
And things of our sharing,—our work, our
mirth,—
So lonely to brood upon!
 
 
Yet ever, when thought recurs,
With hardly a reckoning why,
To some old, small memory, straightway stirs
That sound of wings in the sky;
 
 
And like birds to a resting-place,—
No longer one, but the two,—
Alight the remembrances, face to face,
Alive between me and you;
 
 
And heaven grows real and dear,
And earth widens up to heaven;
And all that had vanished, and stayed so
near,
In one marvellous glimpse is given.
 
 
For memory is return:
Ourselves are what we have been:
And what we have been together, we learn
Our life doth continue in.
 
 
Spread, then, the angel wings!
I lose you not as you go;
Since heart finds heart in the uttermost
things
Two thoughts may revisit so!
 

TAFFY

 
'Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house
And stole a piece of beef:
I went to Taffy's house,
Taffy was n't at home;
Taffy came to my house
And stole a marrow bone:
I went to Taffy's house,
Taffy was in bed;
I took the marrow bone,
And beat about his head."
 
 
Old Time came unto my house of clay,
And pilfered its pride of flesh away:
I knocked at the doors of the years in vain
To ask for its goodliness again.
Old Time came unto me yet once more,
For crueller theft than he thieved before;
Stealing the very marrow and bone
That the strength of my life was builded on.
Old Time! At last thou shalt lie in thy bed,
And thy years and days be buried and
dead;
And the strength of the life to come shall
be
In the great revenge I will have of thee!
 

MARGERY DAW

 
"See, saw! Margery Daw
Sold her bed, and lay upon straw;
Sold her straw, and lay upon dirt;
Was n't she a good-for-naught?"
 
 
O Margery Daw! Mistress Margery Daw!
Not yours the sole lapse that the world ever
saw!
In precisely such willful gradation
I fear me religion and morals and law
Go down, step by step, to the dirt through
the straw,
In the church and the mart and the nation.
 
 
A yielding of that, and a dropping of this,—
("With straw fresh and plenty, pray what
is amiss?
The bed may be wider and cleaner;" )
Ah, that's as you make it, and shake it,
you 'll find;
And with slumber forgetful, and luxury
blind,
What you rest in grows meaner and
meaner.
 
 
"In righteousness walking," the Scripture
verse goes,—
"They rest in their beds," and find blessed
repose;
And the beautiful contrary diction
Is neither Isaiah's mistake, nor a word
At random declared, to be scoffingly heard,
But a truth in the freedom of fiction.
 
 
O Margery Daw! Mistress Margery Daw!
It shall always be gospel, what always was
law:
Some bed-making none may dispense
with,—
In dust of the earth, or in heart of the
heaven,—
And to soul of mankind shall no Sabbath be
given
Save that it lies down and contents with.
 

TROUBLED WITH RATS

 
"Pretty John Watts,
We are troubled with rats;
Will you drive them out of the house?
There are mice, too, in plenty,"
Who feast in the pantry;
But let them stay,
And nibble away;
What harm in a little brown mouse?"
 
 
A curious puzzle haunts
The brain of the commentator,
Whether John Watts, perchance,
Be preacher or legislator.
 
 
We 're troubled with rats, we cry:
And who shall drive out the vermin?
Let senate and pulpit try:
Urge edict, and scourge with sermon.
 
 
They steal, they riot, they slay:
They are noisy, they are noisome:
Mice in the pantry, you say?
Ah, those little things are toysome!
 
 
They only nibble, you see;
They only frolic and scamper:
What harm can it possibly be
A little brown mouse to pamper?
 
 
They 're not of the race, John Watts!
From them we need no protection;
They will never develop to rats,
By survival or selection.
 
 
And yet, John Watts! John Watts!
Whether in closet or highway,
I doubt me that mice and rats
Are akin, in some sort of sly way;
 
 
And as long as the world sins on,
That the odds will be but a quibble
Between the deeds that are done
By brutes that devour—or nibble!
 
 
"Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree;
Up went the pussy-cat, down came he:
Down came the pussy-cat, away Robin ran;
Says little Robin Redbreast, catch me if you can!
 
 
Little Robin Redbreast hopped upon a spade;
Pussy-cat jumped after him, and then he was afraid;
Little Robin chirped and sung, and what did pussy say?
Pussy said, Me-ow! Me-ow! and Robin flew away."
 
 
Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree,
Heartsome and glad;
The cheer of life, in the green of life, what-
ever so blithe may be?
Fol de roi, de rol, lad!
Up went the pussy-cat, and down came
he,—
Woe befall for the claws, lad!
The care of life, and the fear of life, it
creepeth so stealthily,—
So threatsome and sad!
And woe befall for the claws, lad!
 
 
Down came the pussy-cat, away Robin
ran,
In his scarlet clad;
There may be a day for running away, for
redcoated bird or man.
Fol de roi, de rol, lad!
Says little Robin Redbreast, Catch me if
you can!
Two merry legs to the four, lad!
 
 
A quick, bold pair, that scampers fair, is
part of the saving plan,
And a match for the pad
Aprowl on the pitiless four, lad!
 
 
Little Robin Redbreast hopped upon a
spade;
This is n't so bad!
All of leafy green, and for joy, I ween, the
world was never made.
Fol de roi, de rol, lad!
Pussy-cat jumped after him, and then he
was afraid;
Ah, what's the use of all, lad?
There 's death in our work, there's fear to
lurk in the places where we played.
What help 's to be had?
And what is the use of all, lad?
 
 
Little Robin chirped and sung, the same
brave roundelay;
There's room to be glad!
There's always a light behind the night;
there's never a will but a way;
Fol de roi, de rol, lad!
Little Robin chirped and sung, and what did
pussy say?
Creeping, and stretching the claws, lad?
Pussy said, O-w! P-shaw i Me-ow! for
Robin was off and away.
There's wings to be had!
And fol de rol for the claws, lad!
 
 
"When I was a bachelor, I lived by myself,
And all the bread and cheese I got I put upon a shelf.
The rats and the mice, they made such a strife,
I was forced to go to London to get me a wife.
The streets were so broad, and the lanes were so nar-
row
I was forced to bring my wife home in a wheelbarrow.
The wheelbarrow broke, and my wife had a fall,
Down came wheelbarrow, wife, and all."
 
 
Of course it did. Whatever could you pos-
sibly expect, sir?
You chose a quite peculiar style to cherish
and protect, sir!
Your resource in emergency commands my
admiration,
But I wonder was it want—or excess—of
calculation,
That the wheelbarrow broke?
 
 
The one-wheeled way gave out, you say?
Indeed, I should have guessed so,
From the very frank preamble of your pre-
cious manifesto!
When all the bread and cheese you got you
shut up in your closet,
Driving such single-blessed team, what
strange amazement was it
That your wheelbarrow broke?
 
 
You were managing quite finely till the rats
and mice got at it,
And forced you to the slow resolve, how-
e'er you might combat it
With other prompting, that a wife must be
your choice of crosses
In a world of moth and rust and thieves,
and all provoking losses?
Yes,—the wheelbarrow broke.
 
 
When the scramble and the screed began,
you fain would share your trouble,
But in no other sense, it seems, arrange for
going double;
The generous thoroughfares of life were too
wide for your barrow,
And the single footpath in the lane you
plodded was too narrow
For a couple in a yoke.
 
 
The old plan was a careful one; but it could
never carry
New needs; you should have thought of
that before you thought to marry;
And still you strove to push it through,
with many a frown and grumble,
Till the poor little wife and all had got a
dreadful tumble,
When the wheelbarrow broke.
 
 
Broke midway in the struggle: a providen-
tial mystery:
The usual meek accounting for of such mis-
handled history:
As if it were the method of the wisdom and
the glory
To run the earth on one wheel,—and each
small earthly story,—
Till the wheelbarrow broke!
 
 
Ah, friend! of God's mechanics you mistake
the grand solution;
On no weak, single centre runs the perfect
revolution;
But one circuit round the sun,—one self-
circling for the planet,—
And one divine consent of both,—so first
the power began it,
And creation was bespoke.
 
 
Be sure you must in everything waste hope
and love and labor,
Moving cheaply by yourself,—nowise
greatly with your neighbor.
Cease, then, with such ill-balance in the
ways of life to wraxle,
And put an equal-turning wheel on each
end of your axle,
Since your wheelbarrow 's broke!
 

THE FOOTPATH WAY

 
"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
And merrily jump the stile, O!
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad one tires in a mile, O!"
 
 
Who goes to-day by the footpath way,
When with ocean leagues the steamships
play,
And under mountains and over plains
Runs the level thunder of the trains?
 
 
Who goes to-day by the footpath way,
When the very babies despise great A,
And swallow, with supercilious smiles,
Whole sentences, like young crocodiles?
 
 
Who goes to-day by the footpath way,
Waiting for good things until he can pay,
When with mortgage and loan and instal-
ment plan,
Life is let furnished to every man?
 
 
Who goes to-day by the footpath way,
When Moses made awful mistakes, they
say,
And the story of all that began and is
Never happened according to Genesis?
 
 
Who goes to-day by the footpath way,
Alone and straitened, with care and de-
lay,
When the world, grown wiser by grace of
God,
Rolls assured toward heaven on the cause-
way broad?= .
When things are thus since they must be so,
And nobody stands by himself, you know,
And none may jog onward, and none may
fall
But by force that prevails in the general?
 
 
And what are the odds of tear or smile,
Or whether we merrily leap the stile
Or tumble helpless, since over we must,
And the end of all is the "dust to dust?"
 
 
Well,—take it so; yet the footpath way
Doth its line through every thoroughfare
lay;
The tramp of the legion may seem to efface,
But the single treading hath left its trace.
 
 
You may rush by steam with a seven-league
stride,
Yet the footpath way's in the railroad
ride;
Each goes his own gait, and clears his own
stiles,
And lives by inches, while driven by miles.
 
 
You may scorn your penny, and spend your
pound,
No less't will appear, when the day comes
round,
That farthing by farthing the score was
made,
And unto the uttermost shall be paid.
 
 
And Moses will stand when philosophies
drop,
And Huxley and Darwin have shut up
shop;
For whatever you jump, and however you
jog,
You can't get away from the decalogue.
Then with faith and fear in the footpath
way,
And with steadfast cheer, trudge on, we
say;
For if ever earth into the kingdom rolls,
'T will be by the saving of single souls!