Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete






ABRAM MORRISON.

     'Midst the men and things which will
     Haunt an old man's memory still,
     Drollest, quaintest of them all,
     With a boy's laugh I recall
     Good old Abram Morrison.

     When the Grist and Rolling Mill
     Ground and rumbled by Po Hill,
     And the old red school-house stood
     Midway in the Powow's flood,
     Here dwelt Abram Morrison.

     From the Beach to far beyond
     Bear-Hill, Lion's Mouth and Pond,
     Marvellous to our tough old stock,
     Chips o' the Anglo-Saxon block,
     Seemed the Celtic Morrison.

     Mudknock, Balmawhistle, all
     Only knew the Yankee drawl,
     Never brogue was heard till when,
     Foremost of his countrymen,
     Hither came Friend Morrison;

     Yankee born, of alien blood,
     Kin of his had well withstood
     Pope and King with pike and ball
     Under Derry's leaguered wall,
     As became the Morrisons.

     Wandering down from Nutfield woods
     With his household and his goods,
     Never was it clearly told
     How within our quiet fold
     Came to be a Morrison.

     Once a soldier, blame him not
     That the Quaker he forgot,
     When, to think of battles won,
     And the red-coats on the run,
     Laughed aloud Friend Morrison.

     From gray Lewis over sea
     Bore his sires their family tree,
     On the rugged boughs of it
     Grafting Irish mirth and wit,
     And the brogue of Morrison.

     Half a genius, quick to plan,
     Blundering like an Irishman,
     But with canny shrewdness lent
     By his far-off Scotch descent,
     Such was Abram Morrison.

     Back and forth to daily meals,
     Rode his cherished pig on wheels,
     And to all who came to see
     "Aisier for the pig an' me,
     Sure it is," said Morrison.

     Simple-hearted, boy o'er-grown,
     With a humor quite his own,
     Of our sober-stepping ways,
     Speech and look and cautious phrase,
     Slow to learn was Morrison.

     Much we loved his stories told
     Of a country strange and old,
     Where the fairies danced till dawn,
     And the goblin Leprecaun
     Looked, we thought, like Morrison.

     Or wild tales of feud and fight,
     Witch and troll and second sight
     Whispered still where Stornoway
     Looks across its stormy bay,
     Once the home of Morrisons.

     First was he to sing the praise
     Of the Powow's winding ways;
     And our straggling village took
     City grandeur to the look
     Of its poet Morrison.

     All his words have perished. Shame
     On the saddle-bags of Fame,
     That they bring not to our time
     One poor couplet of the rhyme
     Made by Abram Morrison!

     When, on calm and fair First Days,
     Rattled down our one-horse chaise,
     Through the blossomed apple-boughs
     To the old, brown meeting-house,
     There was Abram Morrison.

     Underneath his hat's broad brim
     Peered the queer old face of him;
     And with Irish jauntiness
     Swung the coat-tails of the dress
     Worn by Abram Morrison.

     Still, in memory, on his feet,
     Leaning o'er the elders' seat,
     Mingling with a solemn drone,
     Celtic accents all his own,
     Rises Abram Morrison.

     "Don't," he's pleading, "don't ye go,
     Dear young friends, to sight and show,
     Don't run after elephants,
     Learned pigs and presidents
     And the likes!" said Morrison.

     On his well-worn theme intent,
     Simple, child-like, innocent,
     Heaven forgive the half-checked smile
     Of our careless boyhood, while
     Listening to Friend Morrison!

     We have learned in later days
     Truth may speak in simplest phrase;
     That the man is not the less
     For quaint ways and home-spun dress,
     Thanks to Abram Morrison!

     Not to pander nor to please
     Come the needed homilies,
     With no lofty argument
     Is the fitting message sent,
     Through such lips as Morrison's.

     Dead and gone! But while its track
     Powow keeps to Merrimac,
     While Po Hill is still on guard,
     Looking land and ocean ward,
     They shall tell of Morrison!

     After half a century's lapse,
     We are wiser now, perhaps,
     But we miss our streets amid
     Something which the past has hid,
     Lost with Abram Morrison.

     Gone forever with the queer
     Characters of that old year
     Now the many are as one;
     Broken is the mould that run
     Men like Abram Morrison.

     1884.

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