SPRING LAKE

Some thought a bomb hit

Trotter's garage.

Some thought a comet

Blew up the Lodge.

Milem Alkire was riding in a Dodge,

Saw the water splashing, and a great light flashing,

And a thousand arrows flying from the heaven's glow;

And heard a great banging and a howling clanging

Of a bull-hide's string to a monstrous bow.

Milem Alkire became a changed man,

So the thing began, guess it if you can.

He turned in an hour from a man who was sour

To a singing, dancing satyr like Pan.

He hobbled and clattered as if nothing mattered

Down in his cellar for any strange fellow,

Bringing up the bottles, clinking, winking,

For the crowd that was drinking.

All against the statutes in such case provided.

Drew well water to cool the wine off,

Polished up the glasses with a humorous cough.

Milem Alkire for years had resided

A quiet, pious, law abiding citizen

Turned in an hour to a wag who derided

The feelings of the people, the village steeple,

And the ways that befit a man —

This Spring Lake citizen.

And about the time

That Milem Alkire

Became a wine seller,

And begetter of crime,

With parties on his lawn

From mid-night to dawn,

Making the wine free

Under the pine tree,

Starling Turner's wife ran away,

A woman who before was anything but gay.

Never had a lover in her life, so they say,

But like other clay, had the longing to stray.

She saw a cornet player,

An idler, a strayer,

And left her husband furious threatening to slay her,

And cursing musicians who have no honest missions.

So Starling Turner, a belated learner

Of life as music, laughter, folly,

Grew suddenly jolly, forgot his melancholy,

Became a dancer and rounded up the fiddlers,

Got up a contest of fifty old fiddlers,

With prizes for fiddling from best to middling:

A set of fine harness for the best piece of fiddling.

Work stopped, business stopped, all went mad,

Mad about music, the preachers looked sad

For music, the like of which the village never had....

The children in the street were shockingly bad,

And danced like pixies scantily clad;

Knocked away the crutches from venerable hobblers,

Threw pebbles at the windows of grocers and cobblers,

Made fun of the preachers, the grammar school teachers,

Stole spring chickens and turkey gobblers,

Roasted hooked geese in front of the police.

Till the quidnuncs decided it was n't any use,

The devil had let a thousand devils loose.

Then folks began to read old books forbidden.

Carpenters orated and expatiated

On Orphic doctrines and wisdoms long hidden,

A Swede who could n't speak began to talk Greek.

There were meetings in the park from dawn to dark.

And wild talk of razing the village, effacing

The plain little houses and the town replacing

With carved stone, columns and temples gracing

Gardens and vistas the water front embracing.

And others would create a brand new state.

So fire broke out in the strangest places.

The belated traveler beheld elfin faces

Springing from nothing, to vanish in a second.

Potatoes unthrown went whizzing round corners.

Voices were heard and white fingers beckoned,

Till all the wise ones, doubters and scorners

Although they winced, in some way evinced

That their minds were convinced.

Something was wrong,

The evidence was strong,

The air was full of song:

You woke out of sleep and heard a violin,

A harp or a horn;

And rose up and followed the sound growing thin

At the break of morn.

Music, music, music was blown

Over the waters, out of the woodlands,

Grassy valleys and sunny meadow lands

In the mid spaces, tone on tone.

The pasturing flocks were sleeker grown

And multiplied in a way unknown....

And little Alice bright of eye

Dreamed and began to prophesy:

And said the strayer, the cornet player,

Who took Starling Turner's wife away,

Is coming back at an early day:

Look out, said Alice, to Imogene,

Red-lipped, bright-eyed, turned eighteen,

You have danced too much on the village green.

Look out for the cornet player, I mean.

I know who he is for my eyes are keen.

Your blood is desiring, but yet serene.

I know his face and his bright desire,

Laurel leaves are around his brow;

He carries a horn, but sometimes a lyre.

His eyes are blue and his face is fire.

Look out, said Alice, his touch is dire,

Keep to the house, or the church's spire.

And what was next? The girl disappeared.

As Alice feared, no fate interfered.

A posse collected, hunted and peered,

Raced through the night till their eyes were bleared,

And looked for Imogene, cried and cheered

When a clew was found, or a doubt was cleared.

A posse with pitch-forks, scythes and axes,

Shot-guns, pistols, knives and rifles,

Hunts for Imogene, never relaxes,

Runs over meadows for luring trifles:

The wave of grain or a weed that tosses;

And curse and say what a terrible loss is

Come to Spring Lake: a wife's enticed,

And then this fairest maid is abducted.

Why are the innocent sacrificed?

We are a people well conducted.

What is the curse, or is it the war?

Why is it every one here is housing

Fiddlers, idlers, fancy dancers.

At Milem Alkire's why carousing;

Everything that the good abhor

In lovers and romancers?

The world is mad, the village is mad,

Even the cattle bellow and run.

Old maid, young maid, man and lad

Have eaten of something half insane;

Such antics never before were done

And never it seems may be again

Under the shining sun.

And now comes villainy out of the fun.

Come with the torch, come with the halter,

Gather the posse, stay nor falter,

Catch the scoundrel who spoiled our peace

And hang him up in the maple tree's

Highest branch. For what is the law

If it can n't slip the noose and draw

This minstrel man to a thing of awe?

Then the pastor said: Talk of the gallows

Is just the thing for it's righteous malice;

And we need hearts with piety callous

For work like this, I might say salus

Populi, but bright-eyed Alice

Can help us in this matter kinetic

Who has grown psychic and grown prophetic,

Sees round corners, and looks through doors

And spies old treasure under the floors.

And I have heard that Alice averred,

The cornet player's the self-same bird

Who enticed the wife of Starling Turner

And kidnapped Imogene; he will spurn her

Later for some one else, unless we

Capture and hang the vile sojourner;

So now for Alice, he said, and bless me!

Alice came out to lead the mob

Catch the scoundrel and finish the job.

Down to Fruitport before it is dark

Come, said Alice, Joan of Arc.

Farmers, butchers, cobblers, dentists,

Lawyers, doctors, preachers, druggists

Hustled and ran in the afternoon,

Following Alice who led the way

Chanting an ancient roundelay,

A wild and haunting tune.

Her hair streamed over her little shoulders

Back in the wind for all beholders.

And her little feet were as swift and white

As waves that dance in the noonday light.

Youths were panting, middle aged men

Had to rest and resume again.

She ran the posse almost to death,

All were gasping and out of breath.

At last they halted upon the ridge.

There! said Alice, beside the bridge

Under its shadow. Look, he's there

Weaving lilies in Imogene's hair;

His musical instrument laid aside

Now he has charmed the maiden pride

Of Imogene who is not his bride,

Come, said Alice, before they hide.

They ran from the ridge,

Looked under the bridge.

There! he escapes, said Alice, the fay.

Where? Howled the mob! which is the way?

There's Imogene wrapped as if in a trance,

Said the preacher, there where the waters dance.

I saw as it were a shaft of light

Steal from her side, vanish from sight.

The cobbler said: it was like a comet;

The druggist, water by a bomb hit.

Yes, said the lawyer, I heard a splashing

And saw a light as of waters flashing

Or a thousand arrows of splendor flying

I heard a booming, banging, clanging

Of a bull's hide string, it was terrifying.

No, said Alice, this form of light,

That stole away and vanished from sight,

That was the fellow, said Alice, the sprite.

Go after him, follow through meadow and hollow

The God Apollo, the great Apollo!

They went to Imogene then and took her,

Spoke to her, slapped her hands and shook her,

Asked her who it was that forsook her,

Why she had left her home and wandered,

What was the dream she sat and pondered,

And Imogene said, it's a dream of dread,

Now that the glory of it is fled.

Where am I now, where is my lover?

God of my dreams, singer and rover.

I danced with the muses in flowering meadows;

We lay on lawns of whispering shadows;

We walked by moonlight where pine trees stood

Feathery clear in the crystal flood;

He gave me honey and grapes for food.

We rode on the clouds and counted the stars.

He sang me songs of the ancient wars.

He told me of cities and temples builded

Under his hand, we waded rivers

By star-light and by sun-light gilded;

By shades where the green of the laurel shivers.

But it came to this, and this I see:

Life is beautiful if you are free,

If you live yourself like the laurel tree.

Then some of them teased her, the posse seized her,

They tore the lilies out of her hair.

Back to the village, exclaimed the preacher,

Back to your home, exclaimed the teacher.

You've been befooled, said Alice, the fay,

And back went Imogene in despair,

Weeping all the way!