Robert Kirkland Kernighan
The Song of the Thaw
MY sandalled feet are firm and fleet,
My chariot wheels are splendid;
I rush and run before the sun
With balmy breezes blended;
O’er forest dry, past mountains high,
O’er snowy valleys hollow,
I sweep along with muffled song
And robin red-breasts follow.
Before my blade the snow wreaths fade,
The frosty blast I cripple;
The frozen stream wakes from its dream,
And straight begins to ripple;
I hush the wail along my trail
Past hamlet, home and hollow,
While on I go with noiseless flow
And robin red-breasts follow.
And like a psalm, benign and calm,
I blight the brow of winter;
I snap the chains that hold the reins—
The fields of ice I splinter;
And like the tide I run and ride,
The bated winds I swallow;
Triumphant still past rock and rill,
And robin red-breasts follow.
A wing of light from night to night
My perfumed chariot passes,
And I can hear in meadows clear
The whispering of the grasses;
With joyous face I onward race
Past hopeless height and hollow,
While swift and strong with simple song
My robin red-breasts follow.
The north wind bleeds—the rustling reeds
The happy news is telling,
And I can hear in forests near
The juicy leaf-buds swelling;
I onward rush without the thrush,
The red bird or the swallow,
You needn’t mind, for close behind
My robin red-breasts follow.
Peepy Is Not Dead
“IF Peepy had lived,” the mother sighed,
“He’d be of age to-day.”
She bowed her head as she softly cried—
The head that was turning gray.
Now, one would think that Peepy was dead,
Underneath the snow:
One would think that Peepy was dead
Since seventeen years ago.
’Tis true they hid poor Peepy away,
Down in the churchyard green,
And ever since that pitiful day
Peepy’s never been seen.
No one has seen his curly head
Or heard his laughter flow;
But it doesn’t follow that Peepy’s been dead
Since seventeen years ago!
They laid his toddling feet to rest;
They folded his fingers small,
Around the lily upon his breast;
Then laid him away—that’s all.
They curtained his vacant trundle bed
In his little room of woe;
They really thought that Peepy was dead
Seventeen years ago.
But it wasn’t Peepy they put to stay
Under the churchyard sod—
He’s young and gay and strong to-day
Up in the realms of God.
He walks in the light by the Saviour’s side,
The Saviour that loved him so.
So it’s folly to think that Peepy died
Seventeen years ago.
His form returned to its mother mould,
But his soul began to grow—
This is the story an angel told,
And I’m sure these things are so.
Creeds and churches bother my head,
But this one thing I know—
It isn’t true that Peepy’s been dead
Since seventeen years ago!