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Poems in Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896

Ere Sleep Comes Down To Soothe The Weary Eyes.

The Poet and His Song

Retort

Accountability

Frederick Douglass

Life

The Lesson

The Rising of the Storm

Sunset

The Old Apple-Tree

A Prayer

Passon and Love

The Seedling

Promise and Fulfilment

Song

Ode to Ethiopia

The Corn-Stalk Fiddle

The Master-Player

The Mystery

Not They Who Soar

Whittier

Two Songs

A Banjo Song

Longing

The Path

The Lawyers' Ways

Ode for Memorial Day

Premonition

Retrospection

Unexpressed

Song of Summer

Spring Song

To Louise

The Rivals

The Lover and the Moon

Conscience and Remorse

Ione

Religion

Deacon Jones' Grievance

Alice

After the Quarrel

Beyond the Years

After a Visit

Curtain

The Spellin'-Bee

Keep A-Pluggin' Away

Night of Love

Columbian Ode

A Border Ballad

An Easy-Goin' Feller

A Negro Love Song

The Dilettante: A Modern Type

By the Stream

The Colored Soldier

Nature and Art

After While

The Ol' Tunes

Melancholia

The Wooing

Merry Autumn

When De Co'n Pone's Hot

Ballad

The Change Has Come

Comparison

A Corn-Song

Discovered

Disappointed

Invitation to Love

He Had His Dream

Good-Night

A Coquette Conquered

Nora: A Serenade

October

A Summer's Night

Ships that Pass in the Night

The Delinquent

Dawn

A Drowsy Day

Dirge

Hymn

Preparation

The Deserted Plantation

The Secret

The Wind and the Sea

Riding to Town

We Wear the Mask

The Meadow Lark

One Life

Changing Time

Dead

A Confidence

Phyllis

Right's Security

If

The Song

Signs of the Time

Why Fades a Dream?

The Sparrow

Speakin' O' Christmas

Lonesome

Growing' Gray

To the Memory of Mary Young

When Malindy Sings

The Party

Riding to Town.

WHEN labor is light and the morning is
fair,
I find it a pleasure beyond all compare
To hitch up my nag and go hurrying down
And take Katie May for a ride into town;
For bumpety-bump goes the wagon,
But tra-la-la-la our lay.
There 's joy in a song as we rattle along
In the light of the glorious day.

A coach would be fine, but a spring wagon 's
good;
My jeans are a match for Kate's gingham and
hood;
The hills take us up and the vales take us down,
But what matters that? we are riding to town,

And bumpety-bump goes the wagon,
But tra-la-la-la sing we.
There 's never a care may live in the air
That is filled with the breath of our glee.

And after we 've started, there 's naught can
repress
The thrill of our hearts in their wild happiness;
The heavens may smile or the heavens may frown,
And it 's all one to us when we 're riding to town.
For bumpety-bump goes the wagon,
But tra-la-la-la we shout,
For our hearts they are clear and there 's noth-
ing to fear,
And we 've never a pain nor a doubt.

The wagon is weak and the roadway is rough,
And tho' it is long it is not long enough,
For mid all my ecstasies this is the crown
To sit beside Katie and ride into town,
When bumpety-bump goes the wagon,
But tra-la-la-la our song;
And if I had my way, I 'd be willing to pay
If the road could be made twice as long.

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