Classic Poem

Fytte I

The farmer man! I see him sit
In his low porch, to muse a bit
The while I throw him in a — fytte.

What time the jasmines scent the air,
And drop their blossoms in his hair;

What time the evening echo tells
Of trampling herds and tinkling bells;

And all the echoes of the Ark
Salute the planter-patriarch!

So sitting with his collar spread,
And heels yleveled with his head;

A monarch in his mere content,
A king by general consent.

Fytte II

And framed between his heels he sees
A picture, which perchance may please:

The distant city, and more nigh
The river's twinkle, like an eye

Obscured at intervals by motes,
Which quite extract its beam with boats.

The purple hills where, swift or slow,
The cloudland shadows come and go;

While, dun as dormice, in their train
The little rail cars pant in vain,

With all the clatter that portends
The most prodigious dividends!

For oh! the wilderness that lies
Between the worlds of sound and size!

And oh! the leagues that sunder yet
The realms of dividend and debt!

And then the vassal valleys bring
Their tribute to the railway king;

The which he pockets with a roar
Expressive of a wish for " more! "

Then with a yell through yon deep cut
He dives, and — peace to Lilliput!

The cottages with curling smoke,
Significant of " colored folk, "

The first without a foe or care,
To breathe Millennium's morning air.

And in their midst a lonely mound
Most eloquent, without a sound,

Tells how the parting years have sped
With the black savage and the red.

The yellow cornfields and the brown,
Where Southern snows have melted down,

And borne its all-abundant lint
To drown the mills and drain the mint.

The woods whose autumn glories cheer
The solemn sunset of the year,

With oval openings, which enring
Such views as we are picturing,

And hint how much the traveler sees
Who stays at home and studies trees,

And thanks the telescope, tho' dim,
That keeps its smallest eye on him,

And nearer home all shape and sheen
Of Nature's endless evergreen,

Through which a winding walk doth glide
To orchards, jubilant and wide,

Restrained within an emerald edge,
Of fair, tho' somewhat thorny hedge,

An archway entrance, and o'erhead
This little legend to be read:

" Partake of all the fruit, nor grieve
For Eden's morn or Eden's Eve! "

Fytte III

But what of him, the farmer man,
His way of life and being's plan?

Why, simply (be it so with many!)
That " Now's as good a time as any. "

Yet he can tell you of a morn
Ere yonder valley sang with corn,

Or yonder hill-top bared its brow,
Submissive to the sun and plow.

And long before yon proud white spires
Crushed out the low red council fires.

With not a " turn out " toe to press
The dim walks of the wilderness.

Of many a season come and flown,
With strokes of fortune and his own;

Till waves of varied memory
Shall leave him stranded as we see;

With time's old foam-marks in the lines,
Now starry with the jessamines.

Fytte IV

His politics I might rehearse
In limits lesser than my verse.

Should any fool my State invade,
Then mention me as strict " State aid, "

Till then I mind my own affairs,
And trust my friends to manage theirs.

His science? such as thou may'st hit
By plowing deep in search of it.

His wit? the shortest link that girds
A Saxon thought to Saxon words.

His credit? shall the world forget
The Atlas who upheld her debt?

His creed? in reverence of the " past "
Old faith and feeling holds he fast.

And so my muse's stenograph
Anticipates his epitaph —

" He read the papers, loved his wife,
And hated humbug all his life. "

And, happily, to round my " pome, "
" Loved God, his neighbor, and his home. "