spot
To shape his house of mud.

In a warm crevice of the bark
A basking scorpion clung,
With bright blue tail and red-rimmed eyes
And yellow, twinkling tongue.

A lunging trout flashed in the sun,
To do some petty slaughter,
And set the spiders all a-run
On little stilts of water.

Toward noon upon the swamp there stole
A deep, cathedral hush,
Save where, from sun-splocht bough and bole,
Sweet thrush replied to thrush.

An angler came to cast his fly
Beneath a baffling tree.
I smiled, when I had caught his eye,
And he smiled back at me.

When stretched beside a shady elm
I watched the dozy heat,
Nature was moving in her realm,
For I could hear her feet.

Home Songs

The little loves and sorrows are my song:
The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;
The little cares and carols that belong
To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres,
And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires
Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.

If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep,
And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes;
Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep
Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies,
More worth than legions in the dust of strife,
Time, looking back at last, should count my life.

M. W. Ransom

(Died October 8, 1904)

For him, who in a hundred battles stood
Scorning the cannon's mouth,
Grimy with flame and red with foeman's blood,
For thy sweet sake, O South;

Who, wise as brave, yielded his conquered sword
At a vain war's surcease,
And spoke, thy champion still, the statesman's word
In the calm halls of peace;

Who pressed the ruddy wine to thy faint lips,
Where thy torn body lay,
And saw afar time's white in-sailing ships
Bringing a happier day:

Oh, mourn for him, dear land that gave him birth!
Bow low thy sorrowing head!
Let thy seared leaves fall silent on the earth
Whereunder he lies dead!

In field and hall, in valor and in grace,
In wisdom's livery,
Gentle and brave, he moved with knightly pace,
A worthy son of thee!

Pro