Preface

I don't know how to weave a roundelay,
I couldn't voice a sighing song of love;
No mellow lyre that on which I play;
I plunk a strident lute without a glove.

The rhythm that is running through my stuff
Is not the whisp of maiden's trailing gown;
The metre, maybe, gallops rather rough,
Like river-drivers storming down to town.

--It's more than likely something from the wood,
Where chocking axes scare the deer and moose;
A homely rhyme, and easy understood
--An echo from the weird domain of Spruce.

Or else it's just some Yankee notion, dressed
In rough-and-ready "Uncle Dudley" phrase;
Some honest thought we common folks suggest,
--Some tricksy mem'ry-flash from boyhood's days.

I cannot polish off this stilted rhyme
With all these homely notions in my brain.
A sonnet, sir, would stick me every time;
Let's have a chat 'bout common things in
Maine.