Almon Keefer

Ah, Almon Keefer! what a boy you were,     With your back-tilted hat and careless hair,     And open, honest, fresh, fair face and eyes     With their all-varying looks of pleased surprise     And joyous interest in flower and tree,     And poising humming-bird, and maundering bee.     The fields and woods he knew; the tireless tramp     With gun and dog; and the night-fisher's camp -     No other boy, save Bee Lineback, had won     Such brilliant mastery of rod and gun.     Even in his earliest childhood had he shown     These traits that marked him as his father's own.     Dogs all paid Almon honor and bow-wowed     Allegiance, let him come in any crowd     Of rabbit-hunting town-boys, even though     His own dog "Sleuth" rebuked their acting so     With jealous snarls and growlings.         But the best     Of Almon's virtues - leading all the rest -     Was his great love of books, and skill as well     In reading them aloud, and by the spell     Thereof enthralling his mute listeners, as     They grouped about him in the orchard grass,     Hinging their bare shins in the mottled shine     And shade, as they lay prone, or stretched supine     Beneath their favorite tree, with dreamy eyes     And Argo-fandes voyaging the skies.     "Tales of the Ocean" was the name of one     Old dog's-eared book that was surpassed by none     Of all the glorious list. - Its back was gone,     But its vitality went bravely on     In such delicious tales of land and sea     As may not ever perish utterly.     Of still more dubious caste, "Jack Sheppard" drew     Full admiration; and "Dick Turpin," too.     And, painful as the fact is to convey,     In certain lurid tales of their own day,     These boys found thieving heroes and outlaws     They hailed with equal fervor of applause:     "The League of the Miami" - why, the name     Alone was fascinating - is the same,     In memory, this venerable hour     Of moral wisdom shorn of all its power,     As it unblushingly reverts to when     The old barn was "the Cave," and hears again     The signal blown, outside the buggy-shed -     The drowsy guard within uplifts his head,     And "'Who goes there?'" is called, in bated breath -     The challenge answered in a hush of death, -     "Sh! - 'Barney Gray!'" And then "'What do you seek?'"     "'Stables of The League!'" the voice comes spent and weak,     For, ha! the Law is on the "Chieftain's" trail -     Tracked to his very lair! - Well, what avail?     The "secret entrance" opens - closes. - So     The "Robber-Captain" thus outwits his foe;     And, safe once more within his "cavern-halls,"     He shakes his clenched fist at the warped plank-walls     And mutters his defiance through the cracks     At the balked Enemy's retreating backs     As the loud horde flees pell-mell down the lane,     And - Almon Keefer is himself again!     Excepting few, they were not books indeed     Of deep import that Almon chose to read; -     Less fact than fiction. - Much he favored those -     If not in poetry, in hectic prose -     That made our native Indian a wild,     Feathered and fine-preened hero that a child     Could recommend as just about the thing     To make a god of, or at least a king.     Aside from Almon's own books - two or three -     His store of lore The Township Library     Supplied him weekly: All the books with "or"s -     Sub-titled - lured him - after "Indian Wars,"     And "Life of Daniel Boone," - not to include     Some few books spiced with humor, - "Robin Hood"     And rare "Don Quixote." - And one time he took     "Dadd's Cattle Doctor."... How he hugged the book     And hurried homeward, with internal glee     And humorous spasms of expectancy! -     All this confession - as he promptly made     It, the day later, writhing in the shade     Of the old apple-tree with Johnty and     Bud, Noey Bixler, and The Hired Hand -     Was quite as funny as the book was not....     O Wonderland of wayward Childhood! what     An easy, breezy realm of summer calm     And dreamy gleam and gloom and bloom and balm     Thou art! - The Lotus-Land the poet sung,     It is the Child-World while the heart beats young....             While the heart beats young! - O the splendor of the Spring,             With all her dewy jewels on, is not so fair a thing!             The fairest, rarest morning of the blossom-time of May             Is not so sweet a season as the season of to-day             While Youth's diviner climate folds and holds us, close caressed,             As we feel our mothers with us by the touch of face and breast; -             Our bare feet in the meadows, and our fancies up among             The airy clouds of morning - while the heart beats young.             While the heart beats young and our pulses leap and dance.             With every day a holiday and life a glad romance, -             We hear the birds with wonder, and with wonder watch their flight -             Standing still the more enchanted, both of hearing and of sight,             When they have vanished wholly, - for, in fancy, wing-to-wing             We fly to Heaven with them; and, returning, still we sing             The praises of this lower Heaven with tireless voice and tongue,             Even as the Master sanctions - while the heart beats young.             While the heart beats young! - While the heart beats young!             O green and gold old Earth of ours, with azure overhung             And looped with rainbows! - grant us yet this grassy lap of thine -             We would be still thy children, through the shower and the shine!             So pray we, lisping, whispering, in childish love and trust             With our beseeching hands and faces lifted from the dust             By fervor of the poem, all unwritten and unsung,             Thou givest us in answer, while the heart beats young.