Idyls And Lyrics Of The Ohio Valley

IDYLS AND LYRICS OF THE OHIO VALLEY - 1881 - PREFACE - THE follosving pieces, designed to express somewhat of life, character and sentiment in the region indicated by the title, or to describe Western landscape, have been so Kindly received by critics and readers both at hon e and abroad, on their appearance in the authors previous volumes, that he has been encouraged to hope their presentation in one body might prove acceptable.. The poems have been revised for this volume, and a few corrections have been made. -- CONTENTS -- . lDYLS AND LYRICS. Etc . PAGE . THE P IONEER C S H IMNEY .. ...................................... g PAGE . THE LOST FARM ...................................................... 75 FARTHE . R .. ............................................................ 92 Two HARVEST .. S .. .................................................. 93 OTHER POEMS . THEG OLDENH AND .. ............................................. I I I A ROSESJ OURNE . Y .. ................................................ 128 A MANSV OTE .. ....................................................... 129 CONFI. AGRATI . O .. N .. . . ................................................ 131 THEN EIV HOUSE .. ................................................... 134 Two WATCHER .. S .. .................................................. 138 IDYLS AND LYRICS OF THE OHIO VALLEY. THE PIONEERS CHIMNEY. . E leave the highway here a little space- So much of life is near so much of death - The chimney of a dwelling still is seen, A little mound of ruin, overgrown With lithe, long grasses and domestic weeds, Among the apple-trees the ancestors . Of yonder orchard fruited from their boughs - The apple-trees that, when theplace was rough With the wild forests, and the land was new, He planted one, departed long ago, 9 But still a presence unforgotten . here, Who blessed me in my boyhood, with his hands That seemed like ones anointed. Gentle, strong And warmed with sunny. goodness, warming all, I Was he, familiar by the reverent name Of Uncle Gardner in our neighborhood His love had grown to common property By those quick ties that Nature subtly knits, And so at last had claimed the bond of blood. He was an elder in the land, and held His first proprietary right, it seemed, From Natures self for, in an earlier day, He came, with others who of old had reached Their neighbor hands across New England farms, Over t5e mountains to this Western Land, - A journey long and slow and perilous, With many hardships and the homesick look Of wife and children backward chose his farm, Builded his house, and cleared, by hard degrees, Acres that soon were meadows deep and broad, Or wheat-fields rocking in the summer heat. His children grew, and so11 and daughter passed Into the world that grew around, and some Into that world which, evermore unseen, Is still about us and the graveyard . where Their bodies slept a few half-sinking stones, -A strangers eyes would hardly see them, -show Seventy rods yonder in the higher ground Gave still a tenderer title, year by year, To the dear places earned by earlier toil. Meanwhile the years that made these woody vales, An eager commonwealth of crowding men Passed, one by one, and every thing was changed