Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 19.djvu/29

1867.&#93; You have one story-teller worth a score

Of dead Boccaccios, nay, add twenty more,

A hawthorn asking spring's most southern breath,

And him you 're freezing pretty well to death.

However, since you say so, I will tease

My memory to a story by degrees,

Though you will cry, 'Enough!' I 'm wellnigh sure,

Ere I have dreamed through half my overture.

Stories were good for men who had no books,

(Fortunate race!) and built their nests like rooks

In lonely towers, to which the Jongleur brought

His pedler's-box of cheap and tawdry thought,

With here and there a fancy fit to see

Wrought to quaint grace in golden filagree;

The morning newspaper has spoilt his trade,

(For better or for worse, I leave unsaid,)

And stories now, to suit a public nice,

Must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.

"All tourists know Shebagog County; there

The summer idlers take their yearly stare,

Dress to see Nature in a well-bred way,

As 't were Italian opera, or play,

Encore the sunrise (if they 're out of bed),

And pat the Mighty Mother on the head:

These have I seen,—all things are good to see,—

And wondered much at their complacency;

This world's great show, that took in getting up

Millions of years, they finish ere they sup;

Sights that God gleams through with soul-tingling force

They glance approvingly as things of course,

Say, 'That 's a grand rock,' 'This a pretty fall,'

Not thinking, 'Are we worthy?' What if all

The scornful landscape should turn round and say,

'This is a fool, and that a popinjay'?

I often wonder what the Mountain thinks

Of French boots creaking o'er his breathless brinks.

Or how the Sun would scare the chattering crowd.

If some fine day he chanced to think aloud.

"I, who love Nature much as sinners can.

Love her where she most grandeur shows,—in man;

Here find I mountain, forest, cloud, and sun,

River and sea, and glows when day is done;

Nay, where she makes grotesques, and moulds in jest

The clown's cheap clay, I find unfading zest.

The natural instincts year by year retire,

As deer shrink northward from the settler's fire.

And he who loves the wild game-flavor more

Than city-feasts, where every man 's a bore

To every other man, must seek it where

The steamer's throb and railway's iron blare

Have not yet startled with their punctual stir