Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WABASH VIOLETS, by EARL MARBLE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WABASH VIOLETS, by                    
First Line: What? Sho'! You don't! Do you mean it, though?
Last Line: My love for them now is sp'iled.
Subject(s): Boston; Flowers; Indiana; Marigolds; Poppies; Violets


WHAT? Sho'! You don't! Do you mean it, though?
Are you really goin' with me
To meetin' in all that bandbox rig?
I'm so awkward, don't you see?
A reg'lar Hoosier. Yes, I know
We're cousins, as you say;
But I growed wild on the Wabash here,
And you like a sweet nosegay

Sprung sprightly-like to life in the air
Miles away, in Boston town.
Why, 't would be like a schoolma'am, college bred,
A-walking with a clown.
No, I don't guess that's just what I'd say;
But -- what? what's that? As we stroll
We'll gather some violets by the way,
To put in my buttonhole?

Do you know, I don't exactly see
What you find in them little things
To make you go as crazy as though
They was like an angel's wings?
If they was bright and handsome, now,
Like a poppy or a marigold,
I'd work like a man, and gather for you
All that your arms could hold.

It's culture that makes one like such flowers?
Yes, I reckon that's 'bout so;
But that's a yarb that grows more peart
In Boston than here, you know.
But some here, too, thinks a right smart chance
Of violets, cousin Kate --
Like schoolma'ams, you know, and notional gals,
As takes their poetry straight.

Don't know but I might have liked 'em too,
But for memories of a thing
That happened a dozen years ago,
In the days of early spring.
It seems like a dream. Jim Brown and I
We used to spend whole hours,
When we couldn't find anything else to do,
A-battlin' with them flowers.

We called them "roosters." Don't you see
How their necks lap over, so?
And then, when we pull, the strongest one
Jerks the other's head off. Oh,
The fun we had! We'd gather piles,
And hunt for the largest ones,
And then sit down on a rotten log
And fight like bloody Huns.

The violets' heads would drop in a pile,
Till I sometimes think a peck
Or more would be scraped up side of the log,
Where the war was neck and neck.
A joke? Well, I reckon. . . . But that's why
I can't give myself away
O'er the little posies, just as though
They was pinies or poppies gay.

Well, yes, I reckon there's a lesson here,
If you're bound to look for one;
There's many a page of poetry sp'iled
From a-draggin' it down to fun.
If the fountain-head of youth is foul,
Its stream through life will be riled;
Because these flowers were "roosters" then,
My love for them now is sp'iled.





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