POEMS

LIFE AND SONG

IF life were caught by a clarionet,

And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed,
Should thrill its joy and trill its fret,
And utter its heart in every deed,

Then would this breathing clarionet
Type what the poet fain would be;
For none o' the singers ever yet

Has wholly lived his minstrelsy,

Or clearly sung his true, true thought,
Or utterly bodied forth his life,
Or out of life and song has wrought

The perfect one of man and wife;

Or lived and sung, that Life and Song
Might each express the other's all,
Careless if life or art were long

Since both were one, to stand or fall:

So that the wonder struck the crowd,
Who shouted it about the land:
His song was only living aloud,
His work, a singing with his hand!

I

II

I

II

21

JONES'S PRIVATE ARGYMENT

THAT air same Jones, which lived in Jones,
He had this pint about him:

He'd swear with a hundred sighs and groans,
That farmers must stop gittin' loans,

And git along without 'em:

That bankers, warehousemen, and sich
Was fatt'nin' on the planter,

And Tennessy was rotten-rich
A-raisin' meat and corn, all which
Draw'd money to Atlanta :

And the only thing (says Jones) to do
Is, eat no meat that's boughten:

But tear up every I, O, U,

And plant all corn and swear for true
To quit a-raisin' cotton!

Thus spouted Jones (whar folks could hear,
-At Court and other gatherin's),

And thus kep' spoutin' many a year,
Proclaimin' loudly far and near

Sich fiddlesticks and blatherin's.

But, one all-fired sweatin' day,

It happened I was hoein'

My lower corn-field, which it lay
'Longside the road that runs my way
Whar I can see what 's goin'.

And a'ter twelve o'clock had come

I felt a kinder faggin',

And laid myself un'neath a plum

To let my dinner settle sum,

When 'long come Jones's waggin,

And Jones was settin' in it, so :

A-readin' of a paper.

His mules was goin' powerful slow,
Fur he had tied the lines onto

The staple of the scraper.

The mules they stopped about a rod
From me, and went to feedin'
'Longside the road, upon the sod,
But Jones (which he had tuck a tod)
Not knowin', kept a-readin'.

And presently says he: "Hit's true;
That Clisby's head is level.
Thar's one thing farmers all must do,
To keep themselves from goin' tew
Bankruptcy and the devil!

"More corn! more corn! must plant less ground, And mustn't eat what 's boughten!

Next year they 'll do it: reasonin's sound:
(And, cotton will fetch 'bout a dollar a pound),
Tharfore, I'll plant all cotton!"

MACON, GA., 1870.

31

41