The Ballad of William Sycamore

MY FATHER, he was a mountaineer,
His fist was a knotty hammer;
He was quick on his feet as a running deer,
And he spoke with a Yankee stammer.

My mother, she was merry and brave,
And so she came to her labor,
With a tall green fir for her doctor grave
And a stream for her comforting neighbor.

And some are wrapped in the linen fine,
And some like a godling's scion;
But I was cradled on twigs of pine
In the skin of a mountain lion.

And some remember a white, starched lap
And a ewer with silver handles;
But I remember a coonskin cap
And the smell of bayberry candles.

The cabin logs, with the bark still rough,
And my mother who laughed at trifles,
And the tall, lank visitors, brown as snuff,
With their long, straight squirrel-rifles.

I can hear them dance, like a foggy song,
Through the deepest one of my slumbers,
The fiddle squeaking the boots along
And my father calling the numbers.

The quick feet shaking the puncheon-floor,
And the fiddle squealing and squealing,
Till the dried herbs rattled above the door
And the dust went up to the ceiling.

There are children lucky from dawn till dusk,
But never a child so lucky!
For I cut my teeth on "Money Musk"
In the Bloody Ground of Kentucky!

When I grew as tall as the Indian corn,
My father had little to lend me,
But he gave me his great, old powder-horn
And his woodsman's skill to befriend me.

With a leather shirt to cover my back,
And a redskin nose to unravel
Each forest sign, I carried my pack
As far as a scout could travel.

Till I lost my boyhood and found my wife,
A girl like a Salem clipper!
A woman straight as a hunting-knife
With eyes as bright as the Dipper!

We cleared our camp where the buffalo feed,
Unheard-of streams were our flagons;
And I sowed my sons like the apple-seed
On the trail of the Western wagons.

They were right, tight boys, never sulky or slow,
A fruitful, a goodly muster.
The eldest died at the Alamo.
The youngest fell with Custer.

The letter that told it burned my hand.
Yet we smiled and said, "So be it!"
But I could not live when they fenced the land,
For it broke my heart to see it.

I saddled a red, unbroken colt
And rode him into the day there;
And he threw me down like a thunderbolt
And rolled on my as I lay there.

The hunter's whistle hummed in my ear
As the city-men tried to move me,
And I died in my boots like a pioneer
With the whole wide sky above me.

Now I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil,
Like the seed of the prairie-thistle;
It has washed my bones with honey and oil
And picked them clean as a whistle.

And my youth returns, like the rains of Spring,
And my sons, like the wild-geese flying;
And I lie and hear the meadow-lark sing
And have much content in my dying.

Go play with the towns you have built of blocks,
The towns where you would have bound me!
I sleep in my earth like a tired fox,
And my buffalo have found me.

...
А мне?., стара я для наряда,
И.ничего самой не надо!" -
И вынет дочери портрет,
В живых которой больше нет,
И смотрит с грустною отрадой,
И смотрит долго, и потом
Утрет слезу свою тайком.



4

И вот еще, близ церкви белой,
На снежном холме, при луне,
Я вижу - крест осиротелый
Стоит в печальной тишине
Над безыменною могилой...
И мужа, дышащего силой,
Опять на память мне пришло
И величавое чело,
И ум, наукою развитый,
И дух насмешки ядовитой
Над всем, что подло и смешно.
Он был когда-то мне одно,
Одно отрадное явленье
В глуши печальных деревень,--
Где торжествующая лень
На ум наводит усыпленье
И ни один еще вопрос
Людей глубоко не потрёс.
Но мимо, мимо! сердцу больно!
Не вызывай теней из тьмы!
Зачем давать слезе невольной
Остыть на холоде зимы?.



5

И дале в путь! Встречают взоры
Равнины, горки, косогоры,
И вдоль пути ряд глупых вех,
И всюду неподвижный снег.
Вот здесь пустырь. Была недавно
Деревня. Жили в ней исправно;
Но от нее теперь одни
Торчат обугленные пни.
В субботу в ночь оно случилось:
Проснулась баба хлебы печь
И затопила - как водилось -
Давно надтреснутую печь.
На крыше вспыхнула coлома,
И, подхватив, пошла вьюга
Носить огонь от дома к дому
С остервенением врага;
И кровли, пламенем объяты,
Треща, обрушилися в хаты.
Со сна вскочили мужики,
Стремглав пустились бабы в страхе
На улицу в одной рубахе,
За ними дети, старики...
Пожар! пожар! скорей! спешите!
Багры давайте, топоры!
Ломать!.. Да где ж их взять - багры?
Воды! вези воды! тушите!..
Крик, беготня, и вопль, и шум;
В беде исчез последний ум;
Хватились бабы за пожитки -
Спасать холсты, корыта, нитки...