Mountain Interval/Brown's Descent, or the Willy-nilly Slide

BROWN lived at such a lofty farm
 * That everyone for miles could see

His lantern when he did his chores
 * In winter after half-past three.

And many must have seen him make
 * His wild descent from there one night,

’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything,
 * Describing rings of lantern light.

Between the house and barn the gale
 * Got him by something he had on

And blew him out on the icy crust
 * That cased the world, and he was gone!

Walls were all buried, trees were few:
 * He saw no stay unless he stove

A hole in somewhere with his heel.
 * But though repeatedly he strove

And stamped and said things to himself,
 * And sometimes something seemed to yield,

He gained no foothold, but pursued
 * His journey down from field to field.

Sometimes he came with arms outspread
 * Like wings, revolving in the scene

Upon his longer axis, and
 * With no small dignity of mien.

Faster or slower as he chanced,
 * Sitting or standing as he chose,

According as he feared to risk
 * His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,

He never let the lantern drop.
 * And some exclaimed who saw afar

The figures he described with it,
 * ”I wonder what those signals are

Brown makes at such an hour of night!
 * He’s celebrating something strange.

I wonder if he’s sold his farm,
 * Or been made Master of the Grange.”

He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;
 * He fell and made the lantern rattle

(But saved the light from going out.)
 * So half-way down he fought the battle

Incredulous of his own bad luck.
 * And then becoming reconciled

To everything, he gave it up
 * And came down like a coasting child.

“Well—I—be—” that was all he said,
 * As standing in the river road,

He looked back up the slippery slope
 * (Two miles it was) to his abode.

Sometimes as an authority
 * On motor-cars, I’m asked if I

Should say our stock was petered out,
 * And this is my sincere reply:

Yankees are what they always were.
 * Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope

Of getting home again because
 * He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;

Or even thought of standing there
 * Until the January thaw

Should take the polish off the crust.
 * He bowed with grace to natural law,

And then went round it on his feet,
 * After the manner of our stock;

Not much concerned for those to whom,
 * At that particular time o’clock,

It must have looked as if the course
 * He steered was really straight away

From that which he was headed for—
 * Not much concerned for them, I say:

No more so than became a man—
 * And politician at odd seasons.

I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold
 * While I invested him with reasons;

But now he snapped his eyes three times;
 * Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s

’Bout out!” and took the long way home
 * By road, a matter of several miles.