To My Wife

          This book is affectionately dedicated

  Where leap the long Atlantic swells
    In foam-streaked stretch of hill and dale,
  Where shrill the north-wind demon yells,
    And flings the spindrift down the gale;
  Where, beaten 'gainst the bending mast,
    The frozen raindrop clings and cleaves,
  With steadfast front for calm or blast
    His battered schooner rocks and heaves.

  To same the gain, to some the loss,
    To each the chance, the risk, the fight:
  For men must die that men may live—
    Lord, may we steer our course aright..

  The dripping deck beneath him reels,
    The flooded scuppers spout the brine;
  He heeds them not, he only feels
    The tugging of a tightened line.

  The grim white sea-fog o'er him throws
    Its clammy curtain, damp and cold;
  He minds it not—his work he knows,
    'T is but to fill an empty hold.

  Oft, driven through the night's blind wrack,
    He feels the dread berg's ghastly breath,
  Or hears draw nigh through walls of black
    A throbbing engine chanting death;
  But with a calm, unwrinkled brow
    He fronts them, grim and undismayed,
  For storm and ice and liner's bow—
    These are but chances of the trade.

  Yet well he knows—where'er it be,
    On low Cape Cod or bluff Cape Ann—
  With straining eyes that search the sea
    A watching woman waits her man:
  He knows it, and his love is deep,
    But work is work, and bread is bread,
  And though men drown and women weep
    The hungry thousands must be fed.

  To some the gain, to some the loss,
    To each his chance, the game with Fate:
  For men must die that men may live—
    Dear Lord, be kind to those who wait.

    Oh, the song of the Sea—
    The wonderful song of the Sea!
  Like the far-off hum of a throbbing drum
    It steals through the night to me:
    And my fancy wanders free
    To a little seaport town,
  And a spot I knew, where the roses grew
    By a cottage small and brown;
    And a child strayed up and down
    O'er hillock and beach and lea,
  And crept at dark to his bed, to hark
    To the wonderful song of the Sea.

    Oh, the song of the Sea—
    The mystical song of the Sea!
  What strains of joy to a dreaming boy
    That music was wont to be!
    And the night-wind through the tree
    Was a perfumed breath that told
  Of the spicy gales that filled the sails
    Where the tropic billows rolled
    And the rovers hid their gold
    By the lone palm on the key,—
  But the whispering wave their secret gave
    In the mystical song of the Sea.

    Oh, the song of the Sea—
    The beautiful song of the Sea!
  The mighty note from the ocean's throat,
    The laugh of the wind in glee!
    And swift as the ripples flee
    With the surges down the shore,
  It bears me back, o'er life's long track,
    To home and its love once more.
    I stand at the open door,
    Dear mother, again with thee,
  And hear afar on the booming bar
    The beautiful song of the Sea.

    Oh, the wild November wind,
      How it blew!
  How the dead leaves rasped and rustled,
  Soared and sank and buzzed and bustled
      As they flew;
  While above the empty square,
  Seeming skeletons in air,
  Battered branches, brown and bare,
      Gauntly grinned;
  And the frightened dust-clouds, flying.
  Heard the calling and the crying
      Of the wind,—
    The wild November wind.

    Oh, the wild November wind,
      How it screamed!
  How it moaned and mocked and muttered
  At the cottage window, shuttered,
      Whence there streamed
  Fitful flecks of firelight mild:
  And within, a mother smiled,
  Singing softly to her child
      As there dinned
  Round the gabled roof and rafter
  Long and loud the shout and laughter
      Of the wind,—
    The wild November wind.

    Oh, the wild November wind,
      How it rang
  Through the rigging of a vessel
  Rocking where the great waves wrestle!
      And it sang,
  Light and low, that mother's song;
  And the master, staunch and strong,
  Heard the sweet strain drift along—
      Softened, thinned,—
  Heard the tightened cordage ringing
  Till it seemed a loved voice singing
      In the wind,—
    The wild November wind.

  (Dedicated to the Men in the United States Life-saving Service.)

  When the Lord breathes his wrath above the bosom of the waters,
    When the rollers are a-poundin' on the shore,
  When the mariner's a-thinkin' of his wife and sons and daughters,
    And the little home he'll, maybe, see no more;
  When the bars are white and yeasty and the shoals are all a-frothin',
    When the wild no'theaster's cuttin' like a knife;
  Through the seethin' roar and screech he's patrollin' on the beach,—
    The Gov'ment's hired man fer savin' life.

  He's strugglin' with the gusts that strike and bruise him like a hammer,
    He's fightin' sand that stings like swarmin' bees,
  He's list'nin' through the whirlwind and the thunder and the clamor—
    A-list'nin' fer the signal from the seas;
  He's breakin' ribs and muscles launchin' life-boats in the surges,
    He's drippin' wet and chilled in every bone,
  He's bringin' men from death back ter flesh and blood and breath,
    And he never stops ter think about his own;

  He's a-pullin' at an oar that is freezin' to his fingers,
    He's a-clingin' in the riggin' of a wreck,
  He knows destruction's nearer every minute that he lingers,
    But it do'n't appear ter worry him a speck:
  He's draggin' draggled corpses from the clutches of the combers—
    The kind of job a common chap would shirk—
  But he takes 'em from the wave and he fits 'em fer the grave,
    And he thinks it's all included in his work.

  He is rigger, rower, swimmer, sailor, doctor, undertaker,
    And he's good at every one of 'em the same:
  And he risks his life fer others in the quicksand and the breaker,
    And a thousand wives and mothers bless his name.
  He's an angel dressed in oilskins, he's a saint in a "sou'wester",
    He's as plucky as they make, or ever can;
  He's a hero born and bred, but it hasn't swelled his head,
    And he's jest the U.S. Gov'ment's hired man.

  When the hot summer daylight is dyin',
    And the mist through the valley has rolled,
  And the soft velvet clouds ter the west'ard
    Are purple with trimmings of gold,—
  Then, down in the medder-grass, dusky,
    The crickets chirp out from each nook,
  And the frogs with their voices so husky
    Jine in from the marsh and the brook.

  The chorus grows louder and deeper,
    An owl sends a hoot from the hill,
  The leaves on the elm-trees are rustling
    A whippoorwill calls by the mill.
  Where swamp honeysuckles are bloomin'
    The breeze scatters sweets on the night,
  Like incense the evenin' perfumin',
    With fireflies fer candles alight.

  And the noise of the frogs and the crickets
    And the birds and the breeze are ter me
  Lots better than high-toned supraners,
    Although they don't get to "high C";
  And the church, with its grand painted skylight,
    Seems cramped and forbiddin' and grim
  'Side of my old front porch in the twilight
    When God's choir sings its "Evenin' Hymn."

  Just a simple little picture of a sunny country road
    Leading down beside the ocean's pebbly shore,
  Where a pair of patient oxen slowly drag their heavy load,
    And a barefoot urchin trudges on before:
  Yet I'm dreaming o'er it, smiling, and my thoughts are far away
    'Mid the glorious summer sunshine long ago,
  And once more a happy, careless boy, in memory I stray
    Down a little country road I used to know.

  I hear the voice of "Father" as he drives the lumbering steers,
    And the pigeons coo and flutter on the shed,
  While all the simple, homelike sounds come whispering to my ears,
    And the cloudless sky of June is overhead;
  And again the yoke is creaking as the oxen swing and sway,
    The old cart rattles loudly as it jars,
  Then we pass beneath the elm trees where the robin's song is gay,
    And go out beyond the garden through the bars;

  Down the lane, behind the orchard where the wild rose blushes sweet,
    Through the pasture, past the spring beside the brook
  Where the clover blossoms press their dewy kisses on my feet
    And the honeysuckle scents each shady nook;
  By the meadow and the bushes, where the blackbirds build their nests,
    Up the hill, beneath the shadow of the pine,
  Till the breath of Ocean meets us, dancing o'er his sparkling crests,
    And our faces feel the tingling of the brine.

  And my heart leaps gayly upward, like the foam upon the sea,
    As I watch the breakers tumbling with a roar,
  And the ships that dot the azure seem to wave a hail to me,
    And to beckon to a wondrous, far-off shore.

  Just a simple little picture, yet its charm is o'er me still,
    And again my boyish spirit seems to glow,
  And once more a barefoot urchin am I wandering at will
    Down that little country road I used to know.

    When the toil of day is over
    And the dew is on the clover,
  And the night-hawk whirls in circles overhead;
    When the cow-bells melt and mingle
    In a softened, silver jingle,
  And the old hen calls the chickens in to bed;
    When the marshy meadows glimmer
    With a misty, purple shimmer,
  And the twilight flush is changing into shade;
    When the firefly lamps are burning
    And the dusk to dark is turning,—
  Then the bullfrogs chant their evening serenade:

  "Deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep!
  Better go 'round! Better go 'round! Better go 'round,"

    First the little chaps begin it,
    Raise their high-pitched voices in it,
  And the shrill soprano piping sets the pace;
    Then the others join the singing
    Till the echoes soon are ringing
  With the big green-coated leader's double-bass.
    All the lilies are a-quiver,
    And the grasses by the river
  Feel the mighty chorus shaking every blade,
    While the dewy rushes glisten
    As they bend their heads to listen
  To the bullfrogs' summer evening serenade:

  "Deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep!
  Better go 'round! Better go 'round! Better go 'round!"
    And the melody they're tuning
    Has the sweet and sleepy crooning
  That the mother hums the baby at her breast,
    Till the world forgets its sorrow
    And the cares that haunt the morrow,
  And is sinking, hushed and happy, to its rest
    Sometimes bubbling o'er with gladness,
    Sometimes soft and fall of sadness,
  Through my dreaming rings the music they have played,
    And my memory's dearest treasures
    Have been fitted to the measures
  Of the bullfrogs' summer evening serenade:

  "Deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep!
  Better go 'round! Better go 'round! Better go 'round!"

  From the window of the chapel softly sounds an organ's note,
  Through the wintry Sabbath gloaming drifting shreds of music float,
  And the quiet and the firelight and the sweetly solemn tunes
  Bear me, dreaming, back to boyhood and its Sunday afternoons:

  When we gathered in the parlor, in the parlor stiff and grand,
  Where the haircloth chairs and sofas stood arrayed, a gloomy band,
  Where each queer oil portrait watched us with a countenance of wood,
  And the shells upon the what-not in a dustless splendor stood.

  Then the quaint old parlor organ with the quaver in its tongue,
  Seemed to tremble in its fervor as the sacred songs were sung,
  As we sang the homely anthems, sang the glad revival hymns
  Of the glory of the story and the light no sorrow dims.

  While the dusk grew ever deeper and the evening settled down,
  And the lamp-lit windows twinkled in the drowsy little town,
  Old and young we sang the chorus and the echoes told it o'er
  In the dear familiar voices, hushed or scattered evermore.

  From the window of the chapel faint and low the music dies,
  And the picture in the firelight fades before my tear-dimmed eyes,
  But my wistful fancy, listening, hears the night-wind hum the tunes
  That we sang there in the parlor on those Sunday afternoons.

  Up in the attic I found them, locked in the cedar chest,
  Where the flowered gowns lie folded, which once were brave as the best;
  And like the queer old jackets and the waistcoats gay with stripes,
  They tell of a worn-out fashion—these old daguerreotypes.
  Quaint little folding cases fastened with tiny hook,
  Seemingly made to tempt one to lift up the latch and look;
  Linings of purple velvet, odd little frames of gold,
  Circling the faded faces brought from the days of old.

  Grandpa and grandma, taken ever so long ago,
  Grandma's bonnet a marvel, grandpa's collar a show,
  Mother, a tiny toddler, with rings on her baby hands
  Painted—lest none should notice—in glittering, gilded bands.

  Aunts and uncles and cousins, a starchy and stiff array,
  Lovers and brides, then blooming,—now so wrinkled and gray:
  Out through the misty glasses they gaze at me, sitting here
  Opening the quaint old cases with a smile that is half a tear.

  I will smile no more, little pictures, for heartless it was, in truth,
  To drag to the cruel daylight these ghosts of a vanished youth;
  Go back to your cedar chamber, your gowns and your lavender,
  And dream, 'mid their bygone graces, of the wonderful days that were.

  I remember, when a youngster, all the happy hours I spent
  When to visit Uncle Hiram in the country oft I went;
  And the pleasant recollection still in memory has a charm
  Of my boyish romps and rambles round the dear old-fashioned farm.
  But at night all joyous fancies from my youthful bosom crept,
  For I knew they'd surely put me where the "comp'ny" always slept,
  And my spirit sank within me, as upon it fell the gloom
  And the vast and lonely grandeur of the best spare room.

  Ah, the weary waste of pillow where I laid my lonely head!
  Sinking, like a shipwrecked sailor, in a patchwork sea of bed,
  While the moonlight through the casement cast a grim and ghastly glare
  O'er the stiff and stately presence of each dismal haircloth chair;
  And it touched the mantel's splendor, where the wax fruit used to be,
  And the alabaster image Uncle Josh brought home from sea;
  While the breeze that shook the curtains spread a musty, faint perfume
  And a subtle scent of camphor through the best spare room.

  Round the walls were hung the pictures of the dear ones passed away,
  "Uncle Si and A'nt Lurany," taken on their wedding day;
  Cousin Ruth, who died at twenty, in the corner had a place
  Near the wreath from Eben's coffin, dipped in wax and in a case;
  Grandpa Wilkins, done in color by some artist of the town,
  Ears askew and somewhat cross-eyed, but with fixed and awful frown,
  Seeming somehow to be waiting to enjoy the dreadful doom
  Of the frightened little sleeper in the best spare room.

  Every rustle of the corn-husks in the mattress underneath
  Was to me a ghostly whisper muttered through a phantom's teeth,
  And the mice behind the wainscot, as they scampered round about,
  Filled my soul with speechless horror when I'd put the candle out.
  So I'm deeply sympathetic when some story I have read
  Of a victim buried living by his friends who thought him dead;
  And I think I know his feelings in the cold and silent tomb,
  For I've slept at Uncle Hiram's in the best spare room.

  It's alone in the dark of the old wagon-shed,
  Where the spider-webs swing from the beams overhead,
  And the sun, siftin' in through the dirt and the mold
  Of the winder's dim pane, specks it over with gold.
  Its curtains are tattered, its cushions are worn,
  It's a kind of a ghost of a carriage, forlorn,
  And the dust from the roof settles down like a pall
  On the sorrowin' shape of the old carryall.

  It was built long ago, when the world seemed ter be
  A heaven, jest made up for Mary and me,
  And my mind wanders back to that first happy ride
  When she sat beside me,—my beauty and bride.
  Ah, them were the days when the village was new
  And folks took time to live, as God meant 'em ter do;
  And there's many a huskin' and quiltin' and ball
  That we drove to and back in the old carryall.

  And here in the paint are the marks of the feet
  Where a little form climbed ter the high-fashioned seat,
  And soft baby fingers them curtains have swung,
  And a curly head's nestled the cushions among;
  And then come the gloom of that black, bitter day
  When "Thy will be done" looked so wicked ter say
  As we drove to the grave, while the rain seemed to fall
  Like the tears of the sky on the old carryall.

  And so it has served us through sunshine and cloud,
  Through fun'rals and weddin's, from bride-wreath ter shroud;
  It's old and it's rusty, it's shaky and lame,
  But I love every j'int of its rickety frame.
  And it's restin' at last, for its race has been run,
  It's lived out its life and its work has been done,
  And I hope, in my soul, at the last trumpet call
  I'll have done mine as well as the old carryall.

  O you boys grown gray and bearded, you that used ter chum with me
  In that lazy little village down beside the tumblin' sea,
  When yer sniff the burnin' powder, when yer see the banners fly,
  Don't yer thoughts, like mine, go driftin' back to Fourths long since
      gone by?
  And, amongst them days of gladness, ain't there one that stands alone,
  When yer had yer first fire-crackers—jest one bunch, but all yer own?

  Don't yer 'member how yer envied bigger chaps their fuss and noise,
  'Cause yer Ma had said that crackers wasn't good fer little boys?
  Do yer 'member how yer teased her, morn and eve and noon and night,
  And how all the world yelled "Glory!" when at last she said yer might?

  Do yer 'member how yer bought 'em, weeks and weeks ahead of time,
  After savin' all yer pennies till they footed up a dime?
  Do yer 'member what they looked like? I can see 'em plain as plain,
  With a dragon on the package, grinnin' through a fiery rain.

  Do yer 'member how yer fired 'em, slow and careful, one by one?
  Do'n't it seem like each was louder than the grandest sort of gun?
  Can't yer see the big, red flashes, if yer only shut yer eyes,
  And jest smell the burnin' powder, sweeter'n breaths from paradise?

  O you boys, gray-haired and bearded. O you youngsters grown ter men,
  We can't buy them kind of crackers now, nor never shall again!
  Fer the joys thet used ter glitter through the fizz and puff and crash,
  Has, ter most of us, been deadened by the grindin' chink of cash;
  But I'd like ter ask yer, fellers, how much of yer hoarded gold
  Would yer give if it could buy yer one glad Fourth like them of old?
  How much would yer spend ter gain it—that light-hearted, joyous glow
  That come with yer fust fire-crackers, when yer bought 'em long ago?