Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse - Joseph Crosby Lincoln

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      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.

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      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!"

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      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.

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      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;

      

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