Jim Beers - The “Lizzard Crick” Poems

Jim Beers he worked fur Uncle Dick,

An’ helped him hayin’ on the crick;

An’ he could pitch a cock uv hay, –

Wall, I don’ know how much ‘twould weigh,

But uncle of’n said ez how

‘Twuz more than seven men could mow.

An’ Jim could cut a swath ez wide

Ez uncle Dick, an’ one beside;

Thet is, pervidin’ he could note

A jug uv cider nigh his coat;

An' ef there warn’t no cider there

Jim warn’t no good, an’ didn’t care.

He mus’ hev cider, full an’ free;

It was his prop an’ energy.

Sweetened water, an’ ginger pop,

He said it warn’t no good tur prop.

Jim lived erlone, way up the crick,

Way up where lonesomeness wuz thick;

An’ winter times he’d set his traps

An’ git a few skunk skins, per’aps,

An’ mebbe git a coon or tew,

Enough tur kiner pull him through

The col’ weather; then in the spring,

Wall, he wouldn’t do anything.

All fall he’d squeeze out apple juice,

An’ lay it up fur winter use.

But in the summer time, thet is,

Pervidin’ he’d no finances,

He felt obleeged tur hay it some,

Tur patch out ‘till the winter come.

An’ thet wuz all Jim liked, I guess,

Hard cider, traps an’ lazerness.

Jim Beer was called a vaggerbond,

But he would in no way respond;

He kep’ aloof frum other chaps

Becuz they wished him tew, per’aps.

But uncle Dick stood up fur Jim,

An’ saw a streak uv good in him;

But he nur auntie could induce

Jim tew fursake his apple juice.

An’ so he died ez he wuz born,

The target fur the village scorn.

The church long ceased to ask him in,

An' lef’ him tew his awful sin.

But when they lef’ him undergroun’,

An’ settled his affairs they foun’

Thet ol’ Jim Beers, out uv his trash,

He’d lef’ the church six hun’red cash.

April 28, ‘96

Pub. in Boston

Courier, Dec. 6,

                                          ‘96

The Old Songs

They sing about the old songs that people like to hear

They’re crying for the old songs each day and month and year,

There’s nothing in the old songs, as I can prove to you,

They do not want to hear them, altho’ they say they do.

Now Patti has been touring, ‘twas not a grand success;

Instead of making money they’re out a bit, we guess.

Now Patt sang the old songs, and no one cared to go,

They do not want the old songs, for Patti proved it so.

April 28, 1904

Adelina Patti (10 February 1843 – 27 September 1919) was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914. Along with her near contemporaries Jenny Lindand Thérèse Tietjens, Patti remains one of the most famous sopranos in history, owing to the purity and beauty of her lyrical voice and the unmatched quality of her bel canto technique.

The composer Giuseppe Verdi, writing in 1877, described her as being perhaps the finest singer who had ever lived and a "stupendous artist". Verdi's admiration for Patti's talent was shared by numerous music critics and social commentators of her era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelina_Patti

From Birch Bark To Steel

I close my eyes from the sun’s bright ray,

     And gaze on the distant past;

When the red man trod the unturned sod,

     When forest was deep and vast.

When the smoke curled up from the wigwam crude

     To the waste of the blue-domed sky,

And the only note was the sound remote

     Of the dance or the war-whoop cry.

And I see on the shore of the wooded slope

     ‘Neath the branch of the low-hung tree,

An Indian maid with her long black braid

     And her eyes of mystery.

As she waits to cross o’er the limpid stream

     With her brave in his light canoe;

I see them afloat in their birch-bark boat,

     The lover and maiden true.

And the years pass on and I see the white

     Who has come from a distant land;

Who has pushed the red from his native bed

     And taken the ruling hand.

He has felled the tree with his good, strong arm,

     And fashioned a boat and oar;

He has crossed the stream with his goods and team,

     And the birch bark is no more.

And the years pass on and I see the sail

     With the old-time steering oar;

And the wind is caught – and the sails draw taut,

     And they ferry from shore to shore.

But they do not stop as the years roll on,

     Comes later the age of steam;

And the whistle shrill wakes valley and hill,

     As they ferry across the stream.

But birch-bark has gone, and the wooden skiff,

     And the sail is a thing of the past;

And the red is no more on the verdant shore

     And silent the ferry blast.

The Indian maid is a vague, vague dream,

     The campfire has died away;

The electric light has banished the night,

     And our shores are tied to stay.

And the years pass on! The depths of the earth

     Have given us ribs of steel;

We are tied for aye with a bond of gray,

     Place to place, for woe or for weal.

All hail the wondrous works of the Lord!

     Hail the skill of the men who build;

We are proud today of the bond of gray,

     All hail, our dream is fulfilled!

April 28, 1913

 NOTE – I’ve left what are often inappropriate or even racial terms and or descriptions as written. They are rare, and probably weren’t seen as objectionable within even New England society at the time. More importantly, they exist, and editing them out would be dishonest. Things were what they were. Still, including them, as I have done, remains awkward for obvious reasons, including personal taste and the harmfulness of their use. Hopefully, doing so will at least present an accurate picture of how ingrained some prejudices, or at least callousness to them, still were at the time, even among some of the more progressive people of the era.

The Pops

We were asked, not by the prop’s,

Could we poetize the pops.

One can see if he but stops

To think while his brow he mops,

That in all the rhyming shops

Words are scarce that rhyme with pops.

Even with the aid of cops,

Or the literary tops,

It would give a bard the drops,

Keep him from his beer and chops,

Keep him from the festive hops

Make him do some awful flops,

Did he poetize the pops.

So we had to tell the prop’s

Even if the failure lops

Off our golden weekly crops

We can’t poetize the pops.

April 28, ‘10

Coming!

O, we don’t know, or we don’t care

     Where summer breezes stray,

Or where the flies go when they go,

Or whence they come, so long’s we know

     The circus’s on the way!

c. April 28, ‘ 10

An Appeal to Bossie

Bossie, bossie, how can you++

Make us feel so awful blue?

How can you us milk deny

When we are so very dry?

Though we long to take a drink

From your milk we have to shrink,

And we cannot come to terms

With your scarlet fever germs.

Bossie, bossie, do not eat

Anything that is un-neat;

Don’t partake of flannel red,

Or of the geranium bed.

Shun all scarlet tinted things,

Butterflies with painted wings,

Don’t be feverish or hot,

Or ill-tempered in the lot.

Bossie, bossie, how we long

For the milk so white and strong,

For the glass that cheers our face

But don’t put us off our base.

Bossie, bossie, come to terms,

give the hook to all those germs;

Give down milk from microbes free,

Or we’ll kick the bucket, see?

April 28, ‘10

http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/ResourceMetadata/VCBBBF

“An unusually extensive milk-borne outbreak of scarlet fever occurred in Boston during April and May, 1910. A total of 842 cases were reported from Boston and the surrounding towns of Chelsea, Winthrop, Cambridge, Somerville, Malden, and Everett. Investigation showed the most of the cases occurred on the route of a large milk contractor… The cases appeared suddenly April 25th, and the outbreak ceased May 7th. The epidemic reached its highest mark on April 29th, when 128 cases were reported… The source of the infection could not be traced, although it probably consisted of a ‘missed’ case on one of the 250 dairy farms from which the dealer obtained this particular supply of milk" Rosenau, M. J., Whipple, G. C., Trask, J. W., & Salmon, T. W. (1921). Preventive medicine and hygiene. New York and London: D. Appleton

http://gslis.simmons.edu/daisie/exhibits/show/aboutdaisie/historyevents/scarlet-fever

           

                               

The Man

There’s the man with a slouch

And the man with a grouch,

     And the man who has nothing but bitter and scorning

But the man who’s worthwhile

Is the man with a smile,

     The man who comes in with a cheery “good morning”.

There’s the man who’s tied down

With the weight of the town,

     Whose countenance care is forever adorning,

But the man who is prime

Is the man who has time,

     To distribute about him a cheery “good morning”.

O, the work of the day,

Seems a bit more like play,

     And the words of prophet seem less like a warning,

When the persons we meet

In the office or street

     Give us just a wee smile and a cheery “good morning”.

April 28,, ‘10

Looking Backward

If you try to force the weather

     Now my good, fault-finding friend,

You will find yourself quite sorry

     When you reach the other end.

When you’re sweating out in August,

     Wringing wet and hopping mad,

You will think, without a question,

     April wasn’t half so bad.

April 28, ‘09

The Scapegoat

Come, Omar, why didst Thou write thy Book?

Thou didst divert me frum the Fishing hook.

     I sat me ‘neath the Bough thy lines to Read

And plum forgot there was eke Trout or Brook!

And when I wandered home, devoid of Game,

She asked me where I’d been in Heaven’s name,

     That I no Fish had brought her Taste to Please;

I could but answer: “Omar were to Blame”.

April 28, ‘09

(a fair assumption, based partly on style, is that ‘Omar’ is Omar Khayyam)  

A Queen O’ May

Please call me early, mother dear,

     Around the break o’ day;

And lock up little brother dear,

     He’ll spoil the Queen of May.

For I’m to be the Queen they say,

The latest thing of May.

I want your new hat, mother dear,

     The big peach-basket lid;

No, I will have no other, dear

     My subjects have forbid.

The Queen of May, my playmates state,

This year must be right up-to-date.

I want your new gowns, mother dear

     And all your newest clothes;

You stay in bed with brother dear, –

     And what I’m ssaying goes.

I’ve got to have your whole array

To be a decent Queen o’ May.

April 28, ‘09

When The Fish Begin To Bite

When the warm creeps in the water, and the worms begin to crawl,

And the birds begin to chirp round the brook and waterfall;

When the toads begin to holler and the turtles come in sight,

That is when the season opens and the fish begin to bite.

When the man housed in his office in the noisy, bustling town

Feels that awful itchy feeling from his stockings to his crown;

When he slams his bulky ledger and “vamooses” in the night,

That is when the fever’s got him, and the fish begin to bite.

When the robins cheery carol comes across the balmy breeze,

And the boy along the millstream creeps beneath the budding trees;

When he drops his hook so gently where the little shiners skite,

There is joy within his bosom when the fish begin to bite.

When the landlord in the country advertises “board and rooms”,

With his rivers full of fishes and his fields full of perfumes;

When he writes his house is airy and mosquitoless at night,

That is when the city empties and the “fish” begin to bite.

April 28, 1901

Pub. in Leslies Weekly

     June 15, 1901

skite - to move quickly or hurriedly (dialect)

Familiar Sounds

You’ll always notice in the spring

     When fishing time comes round,

If trouters have the usual luck,

     You’ll hear the same old sound.

You’ll hear, “the water is too high”,

     Or else it is “too low”;

Or else the weather is “too cold”,

     Or else “too warm, you know”.

Or else "last year it was too dry”,

     “The winter too severe”,

“The spring too backward”, or perhaps

     “They’re running late this year”.

But never, never will you hear

     A single trouter state

“There are no trout”, or if there are

     “They will not take the bait”.

April 28, 1904

Sam And His Fiddle

His fiddle was only a home-made affair,

Fashioned right out of a hemlock chunk;

His bow he pulled out of the tail of his mare,

So it had the most natural spunk.

His fiddle warn’t polished like some that you see,

     The model I reason a kind of its own;

But no one who heard it could help but agree

     That it had a most beautiful tone.

When Sam got a-hold of the bow you can bet,

     (He never could let his old fiddle alone)

He could draw out a tune that could make your eyes wet,

     He could draw out a most beautiful tone.

Ol’ Sam hadn’t studied his music abroad

     Never’d heard no playin’ outside of his town;

He couldn’t have told you the name of a chord.

     Or whether crescendo went upwards of down.

He couldn’t read music, in fact never tried,

     Was allus too busy with playin’, he said;

Jest put all the questions of techn aside

     An’ played from his heart not his head.

He ‘lowed that to study would hamper his gait,

     An’ so he kept sawing long years all alone;

An’ people flocked round from over the state,

     To hear him draw out sech a beautiful tone.

Sam wasn’t much good in a business way,

     Some called him a loafer which wasn’t quite true;

He was kind an’ considerate, an’ played ev’ry day,

     Or oft’ner if anyone wanted him to.

At social or party he allus come round

     An’ played for his supper but never for more,

An’ when he’d start playin’ a silence profound

     Pervaded the parlor an’ every floor.

Ol’ Sam he bent over, an’ just drew his bow,

     An’ heaven jest out of his wrinkled face shown;

He lifted the souls of the high and the low

     By the grace of his wonderful tone.

When Sam goes too Heaven, he’ll go there, I say,

     For mortal never was more worthy than he,

They’ll want him to play on a harp right away,

     To which I am sure he’ll never agree.

If he could jest take his ol’ fiddle along,

     To play up above in the Heavenly street,

I satin the hull of the Heavenly throng

     Would leave all the others and be at his feet.

An’ then as for me, an’ the rest of us, too,

     We know ‘twould be joy at the Heavenly throne,

If we could have Sam on the gold avenue

     Continue to play in his wonderful tone.

May 3, ‘09