Little Breeches.

I don't go much on religion,
    I never ain't had no show;
But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir,
    On the handful o' things I know.
I don't pan out on the prophets
    And free-will, and that sort of thing, -
But I b'lieve in God and the angels,
    Ever sence one night last spring.

I come into town with some turnips,
    And my little Gabe come along, -
No four-year-old in the county
    Could beat him for pretty and strong,
Peart and chipper and sassy,
    Always ready to swear and fight, -
And I'd larnt him to chaw terbacker
    Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.

The snow come down like a blanket
    As I passed by Taggart's store;
I went in for a jug of molasses
    And left the team at the door.
They scared at something and started, -
    I heard one little squall,
And hell-to-split over the prairie
    Went team, Little Breeches and all.

Hell-to-split over the prairie!
    I was almost froze with skeer;
But we rousted up some torches,
    And searched for 'em far and near.
At last we struck hosses and wagon,
    Snowed under a soft white mound,
Upsot, dead beat, - but of little Gabe
    No hide nor hair was found.

And here all hope soured on me,
    Of my fellow-critters' aid, -
I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones,
    Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed.

    .    .    .    .

By this, the torches was played out,
    And me and Isrul Parr
Went off for some wood to a sheepfold
    That he said was somewhar thar.

We found it at last, and a little shed
    Where they shut up the lambs at night.
We looked in and seen them huddled thar,
    So warm and sleepy and white;
And thar sot Little Breeches and chirped,
    As peart as ever you see,
"I want a chaw of terbacker,
    And that's what's the matter of me."

How did he git thar?    Angels.
    He could never have walked in that storm;
They jest scooped down and toted him
    To whar it was safe and warm.
And I think that saving a little child,
    And fotching him to his own,
Is a derned sight better business
    Than loafing around The Throne.

John Hay

John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose government career stretched over almost half a century. He began as a private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, eventually becoming Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Aside from his political career, Hay was also a poet and writer, remembered for his influence on American literature and foreign policy.

John Hay

The Crows At Washington.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

How It Happened.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Esse Quam Videri.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Blondine.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Golyer.

Ef the way a man lights out of this world
    Helps fix his heft for the other sp'ere,
I reckon my old friend Golyer's Ben
Will lay over lots of likelier men
    For one thing he done down here.

You didn't know Ben?    He driv a stage
    On the line they called the Old Sou'-west;
He wa'n't the best man that ever you seen,
And he wa'n't so ungodly pizen mean, -
    No better nor worse than the rest.

He was hard on women and rough on his friends;
    And he didn't have many, I'll let you know;
He hated a dog and disgusted a cat,
But he'd run off his legs for a motherless brat,
    And I guess there's many jess so.

I've seed my sheer of the run of things,
    I've hoofed it a many and many a miled,
But I never seed nothing that could or ca...

John Hay

The Pledge At Spunky Point.

A Tale Of Earnest Effort And Human Perfidy.

It's all very well for preachin',
    But preachin' and practice don't gee:
I've give the thing a fair trial,
    And you can't ring it in on me.
So toddle along with your pledge, Squire,
    Ef that's what you want me to sign;
Betwixt me and you, I've been thar,
    And I'll not take any in mine.

A year ago last Fo'th July
    A lot of the boys was here.
We all got corned and signed the pledge
    For to drink no more that year.
There was Tilmon Joy and Sheriff McPhail
    And me and Abner Fry,
And Shelby's boy Leviticus,
    And the Golyers, Luke and Cy.

And we anteed up a hundred
    In the hands of Deacon Kedge
For to be divided the follerin' Fo'th
    'Mongst the boys...

John Hay

Courtin', The

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 that Gran'ther Young
    Fetched back f'om Concord busted.

The very room, c...

James Russell Lowell

Who Cares?

Down in a cellar cottage
In a dark and lonely street,
Was sat a widow and her boy,
With nothing left to eat.

The night was wild and stormy,
The wind howl'd round the door,
And heavy rain drops from above
Kept dripping to the floor.

They had no candle burning,
The fire was long since dead,
A wretched heap of straw was all
They had to call a bed.

They nestled close together,
On the cold and dampy ground,
And as the storm rush'd past them,
They trembled at the sound.

"Mother," the poor boy whispered,
"May I not go again?
I do not heed the wind, mother,
I'm not afraid of rain.

"May I not go and beg, mother,
For you are very ill;
Some one will give me something,
Mother, I'm sure they will?

...

John Hartley

The Ballad of Pious Pete

"The North has got him." - Yukonism.


I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;
I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail;
I plotted and planned for his good.
By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold,
With precept and prayer, with hope and despair, in hunger and hardship and cold.
I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit;
In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul,
I strove with the powers of the Pit.
I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town;
I dragged him from dissolute brawls;
But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity ...

Robert William Service

The Ideal Preacher.

It was back in Renfrew County, near the Opeongo line,
Where the land's all hills and hollows and the hills are clothed with pine,
And in the wooded valleys little lakes shine here and there
Like jewels in the masses of a lovely woman's hair;
Where the York branch, by a channel ripped through rugged rocks and sand,
Sweeps to join the Madawaska, speeding downward to the Grand;
Where the landscape glows with beauty, like a halo shed abroad,
And the face of nature mirrors back the unseen face of God.

I was weary with my journey, and with difficulty strove
To keep myself awake at first, as, sitting by the stove
In old William Rankin's shanty, I attended as I might
To the pioneer backwoodsman's tales far on into the night;
But William talked until the need of sleep one quite forg...

W. M. MacKeracher