Abram Morrison

Midst the men and things which will     Haunt an old mans memory still,     Drollest, quaintest of them all,     With a boys laugh I recall     Good old Abram Morrison.     When the Grist and Rolling Mill     Ground and rumbled by Po Hill,     And the old red school-house stood     Midway in the Powows flood,     Here dwelt Abram Morrison.     From the Beach to far beyond     Bear-Hill, Lions Mouth and Pond,     Marvellous to our tough old stock,     Chips o the Anglo-Saxon block,     Seemed the Celtic Morrison.     Mudknock, Balmawhistle, all     Only knew the Yankee drawl,     Never brogue was heard till when,     Foremost of his countrymen,     Hither came Friend Morrison;     Yankee born, of alien blood,     Kin of his had well withstood     Pope and King with pike and ball     Under Derrys leaguered wall,     As became the Morrisons.     Wandering down from Nutfield woods     With his household and his goods,     Never was it clearly told     How within our quiet fold     Came to be a Morrison.     Once a soldier, blame him not     That the Quaker he forgot,     When, to think of battles won,     And the red-coats on the run,     Laughed aloud Friend Morrison.     From gray Lewis over sea     Bore his sires their family tree,     On the rugged boughs of it     Grafting Irish mirth and wit,     And the brogue of Morrison.     Half a genius, quick to plan,     Blundering like an Irishman,     But with canny shrewdness lent     By his far-off Scotch descent,     Such was Abram Morrison.     Back and forth to daily meals,     Rode his cherished pig on wheels,     And to all who came to see     Aisier for the pig an me,     Sure it is, said Morrison.     Simple-hearted, boy oer-grown,     With a humor quite his own,     Of our sober-stepping ways,     Speech and look and cautious phrase,     Slow to learn was Morrison.     Much we loved his stories told     Of a country strange and old,     Where the fairies danced till dawn,     And the goblin Leprecaun     Looked, we thought, like Morrison.     Or wild tales of feud and fight,     Witch and troll and second sight     Whispered still where Stornoway     Looks across its stormy bay,     Once the home of Morrisons.     First was he to sing the praise     Of the Powows winding ways;     And our straggling village took     City grandeur to the look     Of its poet Morrison.     All his words have perished. Shame     On the saddle-bags of Fame,     That they bring not to our time     One poor couplet of the rhyme     Made by Abram Morrison!     When, on calm and fair First Days,     Rattled down our one-horse chaise,     Through the blossomed apple-boughs     To the old, brown meeting-house,     There was Abram Morrison.     Underneath his hats broad brim     Peered the queer old face of him;     And with Irish jauntiness     Swung the coat-tails of the dress     Worn by Abram Morrison.     Still, in memory, on his feet,     Leaning oer the elders seat,     Mingling with a solemn drone,     Celtic accents all his own,     Rises Abram Morrison.     Dont, hes pleading, dont ye go,     Dear young friends, to sight and show,     Dont run after elephants,     Learned pigs and presidents     And the likes! said Morrison.     On his well-worn theme intent,     Simple, child-like, innocent,     Heaven forgive the half-checked smile     Of our careless boyhood, while     Listening to Friend Morrison!     We have learned in later days     Truth may speak in simplest phrase;     That the man is not the less     For quaint ways and home-spun dress,     Thanks to Abram Morrison!     Not to pander nor to please     Come the needed homilies,     With no lofty argument     Is the fitting message sent,     Through such lips as Morrisons.     Dead and gone! But while its track     Powow keeps to Merrimac,     While Po Hill is still on guard,     Looking land and ocean ward,     They shall tell of Morrison!     After half a centurys lapse,     We are wiser now, perhaps,     But we miss our streets amid     Something which the past has hid,     Lost with Abram Morrison.     Gone forever with the queer     Characters of that old year     Now the many are as one;     Broken is the mould that run     Men like Abram Morrison.