THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF O. HENRY - O. Henry

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Don José Calderon.

       For the slight thing we did

       Killing thy grandfather.

       What boots it if we killed

       Only one greaser,

       Don José Calderon?

       This is your deep revenge,

       You have greased all of us,

       Greased a whole nation

       With your Tamales,

       Don José Calderon.

       Santos Esperiton,

       Vincente Camillo,

       Quitana de Rios,

       De Rosa y Ribera.

      The Lullaby Boy

       Table of Contents

      The lullaby boy to the same old tune

       Who abandons his drum and toys

       For the purpose of dying in early June

       Is the kind the public enjoys.

       But, just for a change, please sing us a song,

       Of the sore-toed boy that’s fly,

       And freckled and mean, and ugly, and bad,

       And positively will not die.

      The Murderer

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      “I push my boat among the reeds;

       I sit and stare about;

       Queer slimy things crawl through the weeds,

       Put to a sullen rout.

       I paddle under cypress trees;

       All fearfully I peer

       Through oozy channels when the breeze

       Comes rustling at my ear.

       “The long moss hangs perpetually;

       Gray scalps of buried years;

       Blue crabs steal out and stare at me,

       And seem to gauge my fears;

       I start to hear the eel swim by;

       I shudder when the crane

       Strikes at his prey; I turn to fly,

       At drops of sudden rain.

       “In every little cry of bird

       I hear a tracking shout;

       From every sodden leaf that’s stirred

       I see a face frown out;

       My soul shakes when the water rat

       Cowed by the blue snake flies;

       Black knots from tree holes glimmer at

       Me with accusive eyes.

       “Through all the murky silence rings

       A cry not born of earth;

       An endless, deep, unechoing thing

       That owns not human birth.

       I see no colors in the sky

       Save red, as blood is red;

       I pray to God to still that cry

       From pallid lips and dead.

       “One spot in all that stagnant waste

       I shun as moles shun light,

       And turn my prow to make all haste

       To fly before the night.

       A poisonous mound hid from the sun,

       Where crabs hold revelry;

       Where eels and fishes feed upon

       The Thing that once was He.

       “At night I steal along the shore;

       Within my hut I creep;

       But awful stars blink through the door,

       To hold me from my sleep.

       The river gurgles like his throat,

       In little choking coves,

       And loudly dins that phantom note

       From out the awful groves.

       “I shout with laughter through the night:

       I rage in greatest glee;

       My fears all vanish with the light

       Oh! splendid nights they be!

       I see her weep; she calls his name;

       He answers not, nor will;

       My soul with joy is all aflame;

       I laugh, and laugh, and thrill.

       “I count her teardrops as they fall;

       I flout my daytime fears;

       I mumble thanks to God for all

       These gibes and happy jeers.

       But, when the warning dawn awakes,

       Begins my wandering;

       With stealthy strokes through tangled brakes,

       A wasted, frightened thing.”

      The Old Farm

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      Just now when the whitening blossoms flare

       On the apple trees and the growing grass

       Creeps forth, and a balm is in the air;

       With my lighted pipe and well-filled glass

       Of the old farm I am dreaming,

       And softly smiling, seeming

       To see the bright sun beaming

       Upon the old home farm.

       And when I think how we milked the cows,

       And hauled the hay from the meadows low;

       And walked the furrows behind the plows,

       And chopped the cotton to make it grow

       I’d much rather be here dreaming

       And smiling, only seeming

       To see the hot sun gleaming

       Upon the old home farm.

      The Pewee

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      In the hush of the drowsy afternoon,

       When the very wind on the breast of June

       Lies settled, and hot white tracery

       Of the shattered sunlight filters free

       Through the unstinted leaves to the pied cool sward;

       On a dead tree branch sings the saddest bard

       Of the birds that be;

       ’Tis the lone Pewee.

       Its note is a sob, and its note is pitched

       In a single key, like a soul bewitched

       To a mournful minstrelsy.

       “Pewee, Pewee,” doth it ever cry;

       A sad, sweet minor threnody

      

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