Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONG OF THE SCUTTLE (AFTER EUGENE FIELD), by THOMAS AUGUSTINE DALY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONG OF THE SCUTTLE (AFTER EUGENE FIELD), by                    
First Line: Oh, ye who are fond of music
Last Line: The rattle of coal in the scuttle that mom drags up the stairs.
Alternate Author Name(s): Daly, T. A.
Subject(s): Family Life; Field, Eugene (1850-1895); Relatives


OH, ye who are fond of music (and some of you may recall
Field's "clink of the ice in the pitcher the boy brings up the hall"),
I challenge ye all to name me a song of a rarer tone
Than here in my cozy kitchen I know for my very own.
I grant you your harps or fiddles, your symphony bands or jazz,
Or the latest vocalization that Gluck or McCormack has;
You may take 'em for me and welcome, for nothing on earth compares
With the rattle of coal in the scuttle that Mom drags up the stairs!

A helpless creature is Mother. She bothers me quite a bit
And routs me out of the comfy chair in the kitchen where I sit
To get her the tallow candle from its place on the cellarway shelf --
For Mother is thin and little and couldn't reach it herself --
And then there's the trouble to light it. But when that trick is done
And I settle back by the fire the reward of my labor's won,
For up from the depths of the cellar ascends the sweetest of airs --
'Tis the rattle of coal in the scuttle that Mom drags up the stairs.

The bucket in which she gathers the nuggets that may be found
Along the tracks of the Reading emits but a wooden sound,
And her day-long comings and goings I scarcely notice at all
For her feet in wrappings of burlap go softly along the hall;
But when in the winter twilight arises a treble clear
It stirs me here in my corner to cock up a drowsy ear
To catch the delightful music so soothing to all my cares --
The rattle of coal in the scuttle that Mom drags up the stairs.

Time was, when the carbon nuggets were easy to get and keep,
The song of the brimful scuttle had a bass note full and deep,
But then Mom handled a shovel instead of a tablespoon,
And now there's a dwindling treble in the half-filled scuttle's tune.
Yet here by the kitchen fire, I dare you to name me a song
To play on my tender emotions and get to me half so strong
As the one that finds me drowsing, sprawled out on the kitchen chairs --
The rattle of coal in the scuttle that Mom drags up the stairs.





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