Ballad of the “Melancholy Days”

                                              By Joe Cone

Who says these days are melancholy, saddest uv the year?

Expectin’ souls who love the soil to drop an idle tear?

Whoever thinks a thought like thet hez never seen, I guess,

The hills an’ dales of Gungawamp rigged out in autumn dress.

The artist’s brush with master hand ne’er painted such a scene,

The poet’s song ne’er told uv half her loveliness, I mean;

No season uv the year compares with autumn, seems to me,

When Gungawamp is bathed in red an’ golden finery.

The hillsides ev’rywhere around are jest like big bouquets,

All fadin’ to a purple bank till lost within the haze,

An’ where they meet ol’ “Lizzard Crick” along the headlands bold,

The mirrored woods look like a pot uv molten red an’ gold.

Talk not to me uv “saddest days” amid sech scenes as these.

When paradise is spread abroad on all the hills an’ trees;

When red an’ green an’ brown an’ gold upon the slopin’ hills,

Make rainbows ev’rywhere an’ jest fill ev’ry breast with thrills.

The farmer with his team afield feels nothin’ uv remorse;

Becuz uv “melancholy days” he feels not any loss.

His barns are filled with hay an’ grain, his cellar is well filled

With veg’tables an’ canned preserves from off the land he’s tilled.

He works an’ sings his mid-day song while seedin’ down his ground,

An’ looks upon his well-kept stock with happerness profound;

Let winter winds blow fierce an’ cold, let snow come fast an’ deep

He’s got his stock provided for, he’s got his fire an’ keep.

Down in the holler jest beyond snug into Miller’s hill,

Is slowly grinin’ ev’ryday ol’ Gungy’s cider mill;

Here is an air uv sweet repose, an’ uv sweet cider, too,

No thoughts uv “melancholy days” are anywhere in view.

The ol’ hoss walkin’ round an’ round, the grindin’ cogs that squeeze,

An’ down below encased in straw the golden drippin’ cheese!

A pile uv apples near the mill high as a schoolboy’s head;

No hint of “saddest days” are here, they’re happy days instead.

The youngsters to an’ from the school, with straws in either hand,

Around the foamin’ tub compose a very happy band;

With pockets bulgin’ out they leave the golden apple pile;

No hint uv “saddest days” are seen in that extended smile.

An’ so it is through Gungawamp this blessed time o’ year

When ev’rything on ev’ry side suggests a world uv cheer;

I wish that melancholy bard could see the same ez me,

Ol’ Gungawamp an’ Lizzard Crick” in autumn finery!

Sept. 16, ‘09

The Death of the Flowers

 William Cullen Bryant. (1794–1878)

THE MELANCHOLY days have come, the saddest of the year,         

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere;             

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;    

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread;                 

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,     

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.                

                                                   

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood  

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?                 

Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers              

Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours.           

The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain          

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.              

                                                   

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,  

And the brier-rose and the orchids died amid the summer glow;     

But on the hill the goldenrod, and the aster in the wood,               

And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,      

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,        

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.   

                                                   

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,         

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;           

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,      

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,          

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,         

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.     

                                                   

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,   

The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.              

In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,  

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:              

Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,          

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.