God makes sech nights, all white an’ still
Fur ‘z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an’ snow on field an’ hill,
All silence an’ all glisten.
–
Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown
An’ peeked in thru’ the winder,
An’ there sot Huldy all alone,
‘Ith no one nigh to hender.
–
A fireplace filled the room’s one side
With half a cord o’ wood in—
There warn’t no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin’.
–
The wa’nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An’ leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
–
Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
An’ in amongst ’em rusted
The ole queen’s arm thet gran’ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.
–
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin’,
An’ she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin’.
–
‘Twas kin’ o’ kingdom-come to look
On seek a blessed cretur,
A dogrose blushin’ to a brook
Ain’t modester nor sweeter.
–
He was six foot o’ man, A 1,
Clean grit an’ human natur’;
None couldn’t quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.
–
He’d sparked it with full twenty gals,
He’d squired ’em, danced ’em, druv ’em,
Fust this one, an’ then thet, by spells—
All is, he couldn’t love ’em.
–
But long o’ her his veins ‘ould run
All crinkly like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o’ sun
Ez a south slope in Ap’il.
–
She thought no v’ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.
–
An’ she’d blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin’-bunnet
Felt somehow thru’ its crown a pair
O’ blue eyes sot upun it.
–
Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!
She seemed to ‘ve gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he’d come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.
–
She heered a foot, an’ knowed it tu;
A-raspin’ on the scraper,—
All ways to once her feelin’s flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
–
He kin’ o’ l’itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o’ the sekle,
His heart kep’ goin’ pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
–
An’ yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An’ on her apples kep’ to work,
Parin’ away like murder.
–
‘You want to see my Pa, I s’pose?’
‘Wal…no…I come dasignin”—
‘To see my Ma? She’s sprinklin’ clo’es
Agin to-morrer’s i’nin’.’
–
To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don’t, ‘ould be presumin’;
Mebby to mean yes an’ say no
Comes nateral to women.
–
He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t’other,
An’ on which one he felt the wust
He couldn’t ha’ told ye nuther.
–
Says he, ‘I’d better call agin;’
Says she, ‘Think likely, Mister;’
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An’… Wal, he up an’ kist her.
–
When Ma bimeby upon ’em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin’ o’ smily roun’ the lips
An’ teary roun’ the lashes.
–
For she was jes’ the quiet kind
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snowhid in Jenooary.
–
The blood clost roun’ her heart felt glued
Too tight for all expressin’,
Tell mother see how metters stood,
And gin ’em both her blessin’.
–
Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o’ Fundy,
An’ all I know is they was cried
In meetin’ come nex’ Sunday.
– James Russell Lowell