FullReads

And Little Lizzie loved him, as a bee
Loves a great ripe red apple–utterly.
For Noey’s ruddy morning-face she drew
The window-blind, and tapped the window, too;
Afar she hailed his coming, as she heard
His tuneless whistling–sweet as any bird
It seemed to her, the one lame bar or so
Of old “Wait for the Wagon”–hoarse and low
The sound was,–so that, all about the place,
Folks joked and said that Noey “whistled bass”–
The light remark originally made
By Cousin Rufus, who knew notes, and played
The flute with nimble skill, and taste as wall,
And, critical as he was musical,
Regarded Noey’s constant whistling thus
“Phenominally unmelodious.”
Likewise when Uncle Mart, who shared the love
Of jest with Cousin Rufus hand-in-glove,
Said “Noey couldn’t whistle ‘Bonny Doon‘
Even! and, he’d bet, couldn’t carry a tune
If it had handles to it!”

–But forgive
The deviations here so fugitive,
And turn again to Little Lizzie, whose
High estimate of Noey we shall choose
Above all others.–And to her he was
Particularly lovable because
He laid the woodland’s harvest at her feet.–
He brought her wild strawberries, honey-sweet
And dewy-cool, in mats of greenest moss
And leaves, all woven over and across
With tender, biting “tongue-grass,” and “sheep-sour,”
And twin-leaved beach-mast, prankt with bud and flower
Of every gypsy-blossom of the wild,
Dark, tangled forest, dear to any child.–
All these in season. Nor could barren, drear,
White and stark-featured Winter interfere
With Noey’s rare resources: Still the same
He blithely whistled through the snow and came
Beneath the window with a Fairy sled;
And Little Lizzie, bundled heels-and-head,
He took on such excursions of delight
As even “Old Santy” with his reindeer might
Have envied her! And, later, when the snow
Was softening toward Springtime and the glow
Of steady sunshine smote upon it,–then
Came the magician Noey yet again–
While all the children were away a day
Or two at Grandma’s!–and behold when they
Got home once more;–there, towering taller than
The doorway–stood a mighty, old Snow-Man!

A thing of peerless art–a masterpiece
Doubtless unmatched by even classic Greece
In heyday of Praxiteles.–Alone
It loomed in lordly grandeur all its own.
And steadfast, too, for weeks and weeks it stood,
The admiration of the neighborhood
As well as of the children Noey sought
Only to honor in the work he wrought.
The traveler paid it tribute, as he passed
Along the highway–paused and, turning, cast
A lingering, last look–as though to take
A vivid print of it, for memory’s sake,
To lighten all the empty, aching miles
Beyond with brighter fancies, hopes and smiles.
The cynic put aside his biting wit
And tacitly declared in praise of it;
And even the apprentice-poet of the town
Rose to impassioned heights, and then sat down
And penned a panegyric scroll of rhyme
That made the Snow-Man famous for all time.

And though, as now, the ever warmer sun
Of summer had so melted and undone
The perishable figure that–alas!–
Not even in dwindled white against the grass–
Was left its latest and minutest ghost,
The children yet–materially, almost–
Beheld it–circled ’round it hand-in-hand–
(Or rather ’round the place it used to stand)–
With “Ring-a-round-a-rosy! Bottle full
O’ posey!” and, with shriek and laugh, would pull
From seeming contact with it–just as when
It was the real-est of old Snow-Men.