HEAT-LIGHTNING

There was a curious quiet for a space

Directly following: and in the face

Of one rapt listener pulsed the flush and glow

Of the heat-lightning that pent passions throw

Long ere the crash of speech.— He broke the spell —

The host:— The Traveler's story, told so well,

He said, had wakened there within his breast

A yearning, as it were, to know the rest —

That all unwritten sequence that the Lord

Of Righteousness must write with flame and sword,

Some awful session of His patient thought —

Just then it was, his good old mother caught

His blazing eye — so that its fire became

But as an ember — though it burned the same.

It seemed to her, she said, that she had heard

It was the Heavenly Parent never erred,

And not the earthly one that had such grace:

“Therefore, my son,” she said, with lifted face

And eyes, “let no one dare anticipate

The Lord's intent. While He waits, we will wait”

And with a gust of reverence genuine

Then Uncle Mart was aptly ringing in —

“‘ If the darkened heavens lower,

Wrap thy cloak around thy form;

Though the tempest rise in power,

God is mightier than the storm!’”

Which utterance reached the restive children all

As something humorous. And then a call

For him to tell a story, or to “say

A funny piece.” His face fell right away:

He knew no story worthy. Then he must

Declaim for them: In that, he could not trust

His memory. And then a happy thought

Struck some one, who reached in his vest and brought

Some scrappy clippings into light and said

There was a poem of Uncle Mart's he read

Last April in “The Sentinel.” He had

It there in print, and knew all would be glad

To hear it rendered by the author.

And,

All reasons for declining at command

Exhausted, the now helpless poet rose

And said: “I am discovered, I suppose.

Though I have taken all precautions not

To sign my name to any verses wrought

By my transcendent genius, yet, you see,

Fame wrests my secret from me bodily;

So I must needs confess I did this deed

Of poetry red-handed, nor can plead

One whit of unintention in my crime —

My guilt of rhythm and my glut of rhyme.—

“Mænides rehearsed a tale of arms,

And Naso told of curious metatmurphoses;

Unnumbered pens have pictured woman's charms,

While crazy I've made poetry on purposes!”

In other words, I stand convicted — need

I say — by my own doing, as I read.