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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

JAMIE AND HIS MOTHER - IN THE TROPICS by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

Poet Analysis

First Line: O MOTHER, WHAT COUNTRY IS THAT I SEE
Last Line: GOD GUARD HIS REST!
JAMIE.

O MOTHER, what country is that I see
Far over the stream and the boulders gray,
Where the wind-song pipes, and the curlews flee,
And the little brown squirrels dance and play
Through the boughs all day?

MOTHER.

Why, only a forest dark and wild,
A savage waste you must shun, my child!

JAMIE.

O mother, what shapes are those that sit
In the deep dun heart of the woodland gloom?
And what those creatures that dip and flit,
Each crowned with a golden and scarlet plume,
O'er the tamarind bloom?

MOTHER.

Why, only the monkeys crouched from sight,
And paroquets flashing in gay-hued flight!

JAMIE.

O mother, what children are those that run
So swift and light 'mid the tree-stems bare?
They seem to twinkle from shade to sun,
And beckon me over their sport to share
In the noontide fair!

"Go not," she cried, with a quivering breath:
"They are Pixies, child, and their sport is death!"

But there came a morn when the mother's words
No longer dwelt in her Jamie's mind;
When he followed the flight of the whirring birds
That circled and soared on the woodland wind,
And mother and home were far behind.

Like one in a golden dream was he,
Far over the stream and the boulders gray;
And the wind-song pipes, and the curlews flee,
And the little brown squirrels dance and play
Through the boughs all day.

But the day grew dim, and the night-shades fell,
And there in the dark, drear, hungry wild,
In the loneliest nook of a mountain dell,
Where never a tender moonbeam smiled,
Lay the weary child!

Like one in an awful trance was he,
In the deep dun heart of the woodland gloom;
But a trance whose shadows can never flee,
Till the mystic trump of the day of doom
Breaks vault and tomb.

And they found him there with his bleeding hands
So humbly crossed o'er the ragged vest,
His spirit had gore to the angel lands,
But his out-worn body they laid to rest
In the last sad smile of the gentle west:
God guard his rest!



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