Saint Abe and His Seven Wives

Robert Buchanan

Robert Buchanan

Saint Abe and His Seven Wives / A Tale of Salt Lake City, With A Bibliographical Note

TO OLD DAN CHAUCER

Maypole dance and Whitsun ale,

Sports of peasants in the dale,

Harvest mirth and junketting,

Fireside play and kiss-in-ring,

Ancient fun and wit and ease, —

Gone are one and all of these;

All the pleasant pastime planned

In the green old Mother-land:

Gone are these and gone the time

Of the breezy English rhyme,

Sung to make men glad and wise

By great Bards with twinkling eyes:

Gone the tale and gone the song

Sound as nut-brown ale and strong,

Freshening the sultry sense

Out of idle impotence,

Sowing features dull or bright

With deep dimples of delight!

Thro' the Motherland I went

Seeking these, half indolent:

Up and down, saw them not:

Only found them, half forgot.

Buried in long-darken'd nooks

With thy barrels of old books,

Where the light and love and mirth

Of the morning days of earth

Sleeps, like light of sunken suns

Brooding deep in cob-webb'd tuns!

Everywhere I found instead,

Hanging her dejected head,

Barbing shafts of bitter wit,

The pale Modern Spirit sit —

While her shadow, great as Gog's

Cast upon the island fogs,

In the midst of all things dim

Loom'd, gigantically grim.

Honest Chaucer, thee I greet

In a verse with blithesomefeet.

And ino' modern bards may stare,

Crack a passing joke with Care!

Take a merry song and true

Fraught with inner meanings too!

Goodman Dull may croak and scowl: —

Leave him hooting to the owl!

Tight-laced Prudery may turn

Angry back with eyes that burn,

Reading on from page to page

Scrofulous novels of the age!

Fools may frown and humbugs rail,

Not for them I tell the Tale;

Not for them,, but souls like thee.

Wise old English Jollity!

В В В В Newport, October, 1872

ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES

Art thou unto a helpmate bound?

Then stick to her, my brother!

But hast thou laid her in the ground?

Don't go to seek another!

Thou hast not sin'd, if thou hast wed,

Like many of our number,

But thou hast spread a thorny bed,

And there alas! must slumber!

St. Paul, Cor. I., 7, 27-28.

O let thy fount of love be blest

And let thy wife rejoice,

Contented rest upon her breast

And listen to her voice;

Yea, be not ravish'd from her side

Whom thou at first has chosen,

Nor having tried one earthly bride

Go sighing for a Dozen!

Sol. Prov. V., 18-20.

APPROACHING UTAH. – THE BOSS'S TALE

I – PASSING THE HANCHE

"Grrr!" shrieked the boss, with teeth clench'd

tight,

Just as the lone ranche hove in sight,

And with a face of ghastly hue

He flogg'd the horses till they flew,

As if the devil were at their back,

Along the wild and stony track.

From side to side the waggon swung,

While to the quaking seat I clung.

Dogs bark'd; on each side of the pass

The cattle grazing on the grass

Raised heads and stared; and with a cry

Out the men rush'd as we roll'd by.

"Grrr!" shriek'd the boss; and o'er and o'er

He flogg'd the foaming steeds and swore;

Harder and harder grew his face

As by the rançhe we swept apace,

And faced the hill, and past the pond,

And gallop'd up the height beyond,

Nor tighten'd rein till field and farm

Were hidden by the mountain's arm

A mile behind; when, hot and spent,

The horses paused on the ascent,

And mopping from his brow the sweat.

The boy glanced round with teeth still set,

And panting, with his eyes on me,

Smil'd with a look of savage glee.

Joe Wilson is the boss's name,

A Western boy well known to fame.

He goes about the dangerous land

His life for ever in his hand;

Has lost three fingers in a fray,

Has scalp'd his Indian too they say;

Between the white man and the red

Four times he hath been left for dead;

Can drink, and swear, and laugh, and brawl,

And keeps his big heart thro' it all

Tender for babes a