For not in all the teeming years
Of thy long glory hast thou known
A being framed of smiles and tears,
Humor and force, so like thine own!

And never did thy asters gleam,

Or through thy pines the night-wind roll,
To soothe, in death's transcendent dream,
A sweeter or a nobler soul!

193.

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

Change1

1837-1920

SOMETIMES, when after spirited debate
Of letters or affairs, in thought I go
Smiling unto myself, and all aglow
With some immediate purpose, and elate
As if my little, trivial scheme were great,
And what I would so were already so:
Suddenly I think of her that died, and know,
Whatever friendly or unfriendly fate.
Befall me in my hope or in my pride,
It is all nothing but a mockery,
And nothing can be what it used to be,
When I could bid my happy life abide,

And build on earth for perpetuity,

Then, in the deathless days before she died.

1 Copyright 1895 by Harper & Brothers, Copyright 1923 by Mildred Howells and J. M. Howells.

YES, death is at the bottom of the cup,

And every one that lives must drink it up;
And yet between the sparkle at the top

And the black lees where lurks that bitter drop,
There swims enough good liquor, Heaven knows,
To ease our hearts of all their other woes.

The bubbles rise in sunshine at the brim;

That drop below is very far and dim;

The quick fumes spread, and shape us such bright dreams
That in the glad delirium it seems

As though by some deft sleight, if so we willed,
That drop untasted might be somehow spilled.

195.

Hope

1

WE sailed and sailed uopn the desert sea

WE

Where for whole days we alone seemed to be.

At last we saw a dim, vague line arise

Between the empty billows and the skies,

That grew and grew until it wore the shape
Of cove and inlet, promontory and cape;

Then hills and valleys, rivers, fields, and woods,
Steeples and roofs, and village neighborhoods.
And then I thought, "Sometime I shall embark
Upon a sea more desert and more dark
Than ever this was, and between the skies
And empty billows I shall see arise

Another world out of that waste and lapse,

Like yonder land. Perhaps - perhaps perhaps!

1 Copyright 1895 by Harper & Brothers, Copyright 1923

by Mildred Howells and J. M. Howells.

All boats has their day on the Mississip,
And her day come at last,

The Movastar was a better boat,

But the Belle she wouldn't be passed. And so she come tearin' along that night – The oldest craft on the line

With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,

And quick as a flash she turned, and made

For that willer-bank on the right.

There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out,

Over all the infernal roar,

"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank

Till the last galoot's ashore."

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat
Jim Bludso's voice was heard,

And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knowed he would keep his word.
And, sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell, -

And Bludso's ghost went up alone

In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

I'd run my chance with Jim,

'Longside of some pious gentlemen

That wouldn't shook hands with him.

He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,-
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a goin' to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

198.

Little Breeches

I DON'T go much on religion,
I never ain't had no show;

But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,
On the handful o' things I know.
I don't pan out on the prophets

And free-will and that sort of thing, -
But I b'lieve in God and the angels,
Ever sence one night last spring.

I come into town with some turnips,
And my little Gabe come along, ·
No four-year-old in the county

Could beat him for pretty and strong,Peart and chipper and sassy,

Always ready to swear and fight, -
And I'd larnt him to chaw terbacker
Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.

The snow come down like a blanket
As I passed by Taggart's store;
I went in for a jug of molasses
And left the team at the door.
They scared at something and started,-
I heard one little squall,

And hell-to-split over the prairie

Went team, Little Breeches, and all.

Hell-to-split over the prairie!
I was almost froze with skeer;
But we rousted up some torches,

And sarched for 'em far and near.
At last we struck hosses and wagon,
Snowed under a soft white mound,
Upsot, dead beat, but of little Gabe
No hide nor hair was found.

And here all hope soured on me
Of my fellow-critter's aid;

I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones,
Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed.

By this, the torches was played out,
And me and Isrul Parr

Went off for some wood to a sheepfold
That he said was somewhar thar.

We found it at last, and a little shed
Where they shut up the lambs at night.
We looked in and seen them huddled thar,
So warm and sleepy and white;

And thar sot Little Breeches and chirped,
As peart as ever you see,

"I want a chaw of terbacker,

And that's what's the matter of me."

How did he git thar? Angels.

He could never have walked in that storm:

They jest scooped down and toted him

To whar it was safe and warm.