Saint Abe and His Seven Wives

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!

    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