94
STREET-CRIES.
"Young Trade is dead,
And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fern
And folds his arms that find no bread to earn,
And bows his head.
And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fern
And folds his arms that find no bread to earn,
And bows his head.
"Spring-germs, spring-germs,
Albeit the towns have left you place to play,
I charge you, sport not. Winter owns to-day,
Stay: feed the worms."
Albeit the towns have left you place to play,
I charge you, sport not. Winter owns to-day,
Stay: feed the worms."
Pratville, Alabama, 1868.
V.
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,
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,
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 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:
Might each express the other's all,
Careless if life or art were long
Since both were one, to stand or fall:
