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. -             "Mnides 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.