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Title: The Moonshiners
Author: Cotton Noe [
More Titles by Noe]
Where the trailing arbutus filled the cove
With a perfume as sweet as the breath of love,
And the mountain ivy's astral bloom
Made radiant light of the darkest gloom,
A maiden dwelt as stainless the while
As the baytree's bloom in the steep defile;
And she loved a youth with a heart as true
As ever has beaten for me or you.
Soon summer passed and the autumn came
With its goldenrod and its sumac flame,
With its tinge of frost and its blood-red blush
That made every shrub a burning bush.
Then love became passion for maiden and youth;
All vision had vanished and life was now truth;
And they heard a voice in the flaming tree
Which told them that marriage was nature's decree.
When the spring beauties came and winter had fled
Sue Winn and Josh Bell were happily wed;
And the cowslips that bloomed in the side of the glen
Were fragrant as roses in the gardens of men.
Their home was a cabin, the mountain above
Was rugged and rough, and their fortune was love:
But a cabin with love and vigor and health
Is better than sin and a palace of wealth.
The seasons passed by and a few brief years
Brought bountiful crops to these mountaineers;
And their children that played round the great hollyhocks
Wore the sunniest curls and the cleanest of frocks;
And old-fashioned sunflowers smiled at their door
Midst beautiful pinks and pansies galore;
And the mountain redbirds flashed and flew
Around the rude cabin of Josh and Sue.
Ah, little you know, ye daughters of Jove,
The sweetness of poverty wedded to love;
Untrammeled by fashion, unsated by sin,
With the feeling that life and the dewdrop are kin.
Ah, little you know who dwell among men
The freedom and freshness of mountain and glen,
Where the Diva of Nature gives her grand matinee
In the opera of Love from a rich elder spray!
Yet the earth holds few spots where the winds never blow,
And summer's not followed by the bleak winter snow:
But the harvest will fail both the rich and the poor
In the deep fertile valley, on the thin healthy moor,
Thus Susan grew ill and Joshua found
His corn crop was short, his wheat was unsound,
That drouth and disease had stricken his home
With a hand that poverty couldn't overcome.
Ah, little you care who dwell high above
For the hardships of poverty wedded to love;
Whose awful temptations you never can know,
When the unfeeling winds of adversity blow;
When the loved one is lying all helpless abed,
And children are crying and begging for bread.
Yes, little you dream, ye rich sons of Jove
Of the trials of love in a rough mountain cove.
Josh Bell battled bravely, and fought sin and wrong
And the mighty temptation with a heart true and strong;
But Susan grew weaker, till bright bloomed the rose
That ever the blanched cheek of consumption shows.
"I must save her," he cried, "Oh, God, let the cost
Be my life; if she dies, I am lost, I am lost!"
And Joshua Bell smote his breast with a blow
That only the frenzy of a lover can know.
At a deep hour of night when the hoot of the owl
Made the dark glen as lonesome as haunt of a cowl,
Josh Bell left his cabin for a cave in the hill,
And began the erection of a small mountain still.
For weeks here he labored at midnight alone,
With a firm resolution and a heart like a stone:
Then his own golden corn he had gathered in sheaf,
He now husked in darkness and stole like a thief.
Ah, Joshua Bell, the world does not know
The depth of thy grief, the weight of thy woe,--
The conflict of conscience and love in thy breast,
The struggle of duty and shame unconfessed.
Thy act is a crime in the eyes of the law,
No matter the motive, it weighs not a straw;
No matter the liquid distilled be as dew
That drips from the stem and chalice of rue.
But the comforts of life that lessen the pain
Of those whom we love, ease conscience and brain;
And Josh half forgot the cave in the hill,
And the white sparkling liquor that flowed from the still,
When Sue smiled and said, "By thy great sacrifice
Of unceasing toil and love without price,
I am better to-day; with return of the spring
We can labor together where the brown thrushes sing."
Thus Josh kept his secret, and the daffodils came
That bloom but for those unworthy of blame;
And Sue never knew that the gold and the gain
Was purchased with liquor distilled from their grain.
But the sleuth-hounds of law found the cave in the hill
At a late hour of night and raided the still;
Then surrounded the cabin, and woke Josh and Sue
And demanded surrender of the moonshiners, too.
With Winchester rifle Josh leaped from his couch,
"I'll never surrender, nor cower, nor crouch
To cowardly villains that plunder the poor,
In the guise of the law; who crosses my door,
Had best make his peace with the angels above;
By my life I'll protect the darlings I love."
Like a lion at bay, the flash of his eye,
Told the brave mountaineer would shield them or die.
But the torch of the raiders lit a red flame that stung
The stouted hearted Josh like a vile adder's tongue,
Till he rushed from his cabin in madness and swore
He would save Sue and children or sleep nevermore.
But a flash from a rifle sent a ball through his brain,
And Joshua Bell never breathed once again.
And his loved ones perished in the flame and the smoke
Of his own little cabin he had hewn from the oak.
When the morning has climbed up the high eastern hill
And the sunlight is dancing on ripple of rill,
The coroner summons a jury and feigns
An inquest of law o'er the ghastly remains.
The verdict is heard with whoop and hurrah:
"These moonshiners died at the hands of the law;
Let all men beware," the coroner cried,
"The murder of outlaws is just homicide."
[The end]
Cotton Noe's poem: Moonshiners
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