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FREEDOM

From The Ode to Liberty

Who cometh over the hills?
Her garments with morning sweet,
The dance of a thousand rills
Making music before her feet?
Her presence freshens the air;
Sunshine steals light from her face;
The leaden footstep of Care
Leaps to the tune of her pace.
Fairness of all that is fair,
Grace at the heart of all grace,
Sweetener of hut and of hall,
Bringer of life out of naught,
FREEDOM, O fairest of all

The daughters of Time and of thought!

THE COURTIN'

God makes sech nights, all white an' still
Fur'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown

An' peeked in thru the winder,

An' there sot Huldy all alone,

'ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in

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There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted

The ole queen's-arm thet gran❜ther Young
Fetched back f'om Concord busted.

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The very room, coz she was in,

Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin',

An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.

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'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur;
A dogrose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A 1,
Clear grit an' human natur';
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,

He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv' em, Fust this one, an' then thet, by spellsAll is, he couldn't love 'em,

But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple;
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;

My! when he made Old Hunderd ring
She knowed the Lord was nigher.

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upun it.

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!
She seemed to 've gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper,-

All ways to once her feelin's flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle;
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk

Ez though she wished him furder,
An' on her apples kep' to work,

Parin' away like murder.