Sarvent, marster! Yes, sah, dat ’s me—
Ole Unc’ Gabe ’s my name;
I thankee, Marster, I ’m ’bout, yo’ see.
“An’ de ole ’ooman?” She ’s much de same,
Po’ly an’ ’plainin’, thank de Lord!
But de Marster ’s gwine ter come back from ’broad.
“Fine ole place?” Yes, sah, ’t is so;
An’ mighty fine people my white folks war—
But you...
Well, yes, sir, dat am a comical name—
It are so, for a fac’—
But I knowed one, down in Ferginyer,
Could ’a’ toted dat on its back.
“What was it?” I ’m gwine to tell you—
’T was mons’us long ago:
’T was “Ashcake,” sah; an’ all on us
Use’ ter call ’im jes’ “Ashcake,” so.
You see, sir, my ole Marster, he
Was a...
When she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble—yes;
And touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart’s sweet distress.
Then silence: and the perfume of her dress:
The room will sway a little,...
Old man never had much to say—
’Ceptin’ to Jim,—
And Jim was the wildest boy he had,
And the old man jes’ wrapped up in him!
Never heerd him speak but once
Er twice in my life,—and first time was
When the army broke out, and Jim he went,
The old man backin’ him, fer three months;
And all ’at I heerd the old man say
Was...
There! little girl, don’t cry!
They have broken your doll, I know;
And your tea-set blue,
And your play-house, too,
Are things of the long ago;
But childish troubles will soon pass by.—
There! little girl, don’t cry!
There! little girl, don’t cry!
They have broken your slate, I know;...
And this is the way the baby woke:
As when in deepest drops of dew
The shine and shadows sink and soak,
The sweet eyes glimmered through and through;
And eddyings and dimples broke
About the lips, and no one knew
Or could divine the words they spoke,—
And this is the way the baby woke.
This is the way the baby slept:
A mist of tresses backward thrown
By quavering sighs where kisses crept
With yearnings she had never known:
The little hands were closely kept
About a lily newly blown—
And God was with her. And we wept.—
And this is the way the baby slept.
Let me come in where you sit weeping,—ay,
Let me, who have not any child to die,
Weep with you for the little one whose love
I have known nothing of.
The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed
Their pressure round your neck; the hands you used
To kiss.—Such arms—such hands I never knew.
May I not weep with you?
I crave, dear Lord,
No boundless hoard
Of gold and gear,
Nor jewels fine,
Nor lands, nor kine,
Nor treasure-heaps of anything.—
Let but a little hut be mine
Where at the hearthstone I may hear
The cricket sing,
And have the shine
Of one glad woman’s eyes to make,
For my poor sake,...
“little haly! Little Haly!” cheeps the robin in the tree;
“Little Haly!” sighs the clover, “Little Haly!” moans the bee;
“Little Haly! Little Haly!” calls the kill-deer at twilight;
And the katydids and crickets hollers “Haly!” all the night.
The sunflowers and the hollyhawks droops over the garden fence;
The old path down the garden-walks still holds...
