Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/51

ALICE OF MONMOUTH Proud, in sooth, was the master: the youngster, he oft and roundly swore,

Was fit for the life of a gentleman led in the lusty days of yore!

And he took the boy wherever he drove,—to a county fair or race;

Gave him the reins and watched him guide the span at a spanking pace;

Taught him the sportsman's keen delight: to swallow the air of morn,

And start the whistling quail that hides and feeds in the dewy corn;

Or in clear November underwoods to bag the squirrels, and flush

The brown-winged, mottled partridge a-whir from her nest in the tangled brush;

Taught him the golden harvest laws, and the signs of sun and shower,

And the thousand beautiful secret ways of graft and fruit and flower;

Set him straight in his saddle, and cheered him galloping over the sand;

Sailed with him to the fishing-shoals and placed the helm in his hand.

Often the yacht, with all sail spread, was steered by the fearless twain

Around the beacon of Sandy Hook, and out in the open main;

Till the great sea-surges rolling in, as south-by-east they wore,

Lifted the bows of the dancing craft, and the buoyant hearts she bore.

But in dreamy hours, which young men know, Hugh loved with the tide to float

Far up the deep, dark-channeled creeks, alone in his two-oared boat; 21