Only A Box.

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

[Only A Box.]


        Only a box, secure and strong,
        Rough, and wooden, and six feet long,
        Lying here in the drizzling rain,
        Waiting to take the up-bound train.



        Only its owner, just inside,
        Cold, and livid, and glassy-eyed;
        Little to him if the train be late!
        Nothing has he to do but wait.

        Only an open grave, somewhere,
        Heady to close when he gets there;
        Turfs and grasses and flowerets sweet,
        Ready to press him 'neath their feet.

        Only a band of friends at home,
        Waiting to see the traveller come;
        Naught he will tell of distant lands;
        He cannot even press their hands.

        He has no stories weird and bright,
        He has no gifts for a child's delight;
        He did not come with anything;
        He had not even himself to bring.

        Yet they will softly him await,
        And he will move about in state;
        They will give him, when he appears,
        Love, and pity, and tender tears.

        Only a box, secure and strong,
        Rough and wooden, and six feet long;
        Angels guide that soulless breast
        Into a long and peaceful rest!

William McKendree Carleton

William McKendree Carleton, commonly known as Will Carleton, was an American poet from Michigan. He gained significant recognition for his work that depicted rural life, with some of his most famous pieces including 'Over the Hill to the Poorhouse' and 'Betsy and I Are Out'. His writings often focused on social issues and the hardships faced by ordinary people. Carleton's style was straightforward, and he was well-known for his ability to capture the essence of American rural life in the 19th century.

William McKendree Carleton

Farmer Stebbins On The Bowery.

William McKendree Carleton, Simple Poetry

Home.

William McKendree Carleton, Simple Poetry

Goin' Home To-Day.

William McKendree Carleton, Simple Poetry

Death-Doomed.

William McKendree Carleton, Simple Poetry

English

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Thoughts At A Railway Station.

'Tis but a box, of modest deal;
Directed to no matter where:
Yet down my cheek the teardrops steal -
Yes, I am blubbering like a seal;
For on it is this mute appeal,
"With care."

I am a stern cold man, and range
Apart: but those vague words "With care"
Wake yearnings in me sweet as strange:
Drawn from my moral Moated Grange,
I feel I rather like the change
Of air.

Hast thou ne'er seen rough pointsmen spy
Some simple English phrase - "With care"
Or "This side uppermost" - and cry
Like children? No? No more have I.
Yet deem not him whose eyes are dry
A bear.

But ah! what treasure hides beneath
That lid so much the worse for wear?
A ring perhaps - a rosy wreath -
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Water.

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]


APRIL 25, 18 - .

        RAIN - rain - rain - for three good solid fluid weeks -
        Till the air swims, and all creation leaks!
        And street-cars furnish still less room to spare,
        And hackmen several times have earned their fare.
        The omnibuses lumber through the din,
        And carry clay outside as well as in;
        The elevated trains, with jerky care,
        Haul half-way comfort through the dripping air;
        The gutters gallop past the liquid scene,
        As brisk as meadow brooks, though not so clean;
        What trees the city keeps for comfort's sake,
        Are shedding tears as if their hearts would break;
        And water tries to get, by storming steady,

William McKendree Carleton

In A Waiting-Room

On a morning sick as the day of doom
With the drizzling gray
Of an English May,
There were few in the railway waiting-room.
About its walls were framed and varnished
Pictures of liners, fly-blown, tarnished.
The table bore a Testament
For travellers' reading, if suchwise bent.

I read it on and on,
And, thronging the Gospel of Saint John,
Were figures - additions, multiplications -
By some one scrawled, with sundry emendations;
Not scoffingly designed,
But with an absent mind, -
Plainly a bagman's counts of cost,
What he had profited, what lost;
And whilst I wondered if there could have been
Any particle of a soul
In that poor man at all,

To cypher rates of wage
Upon that printed page,
There joined in the charmless scene

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Incognita.

Just for a space that I met her--
Just for a day in the train!
It began when she feared it would wet her,
That tiniest spurtle of rain:
So we tucked a great rug in the sashes,
And carefully padded the pane;
And I sorrow in sackcloth and ashes,
Longing to do it again!

Then it grew when she begged me to reach her
A dressing-case under the seat;
She was "really so tiny a creature,
That she needed a stool for her feet!"
Which was promptly arranged to her order
With a care that was even minute,
And a glimpse--of an open-work border,
And a glance--of the fairyest boot.

Then it drooped, and revived at some hovels--
"Were they houses for men or for pigs?"
Then it shifted to muscular novels,
With a little digression on prigs:
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The Musical Box

Lifelong to be
Seemed the fair colour of the time;
That there was standing shadowed near
A spirit who sang to the gentle chime
Of the self-struck notes, I did not hear,
I did not see.

Thus did it sing
To the mindless lyre that played indoors
As she came to listen for me without:
"O value what the nonce outpours -
This best of life - that shines about
Your welcoming!"

I had slowed along
After the torrid hours were done,
Though still the posts and walls and road
Flung back their sense of the hot-faced sun,
And had walked by Stourside Mill, where broad
Stream-lilies throng.

And I descried
The dusky house that stood apart,
And her, white-muslined, waiting there
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The Box-Tree's Love

Long time beside the squatter's gate
A great grey Box-Tree, early, late,
Or shine or rain, in silence there
Had stood and watched the seasons fare:
Had seen the wind upon the plain
Caress the amber ears of grain;
The river burst its banks and come
Far past its belt of mighty gum:
Had seen the scarlet months of drought
Scourging the land with fiery knout;
And seasons ill and seasons good
Had alternated as they would.
The years were born, had grown and gone,
While suns had set and suns had shone;
Fierce flames had swept; chill waters drenched;
That sturdy yeoman never blenched.

The Tree had watched the station grow,
The buildings rising row on row;
And from that point of vantage green,
Peering athwart its leafy screen,
The wondering sol...

Barcroft Boake