Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Wood-Sprite
By Roger Riordan (18481904)H
Squirrels and mice don’t know what’s fun;
They skulk below in fur three-piled,
Nor show their nose till all is done;
Cut to and fro, lash high and low!
Till crack! alack, they snap and go.
O night of ruin, night of woe!
To-morrow, to the wood-folks’ sorrow,
Many a fine tree, lying low
Will show with top-twigs in the snow.
I rise from ’neath them like the air;
Or, ’gainst the trunks blown, like a bat,
I cling and stay suspended there.
Or, should a spruce-bough scurry by,
With cones up-pointed, leaf-tufts trailed,
I board it, and away speed I,
The maddest voyage ever sailed.
And bounce and jump, and thud and thump,
And chase ten devils round a stump;
Till rolled in snow, a frozen lump,
I tumble where some soul must stumble
Upon me—down he flounders plump
Like a lost soul at doomsday trump.
On good works bent, my form did find.
He picked me up and stood aghast,
But wrapped me from the bitter wind,
Then ran through banks and brakes and drifts,
And plunge he did, and slip, and slide,
And fall off rocks, and stick in rifts,
Before he reached his cold fire-side.
With puffing cheeks and smarting eyes,
His best to raise a flame—my cries
They drown the tempest, pierce the skies;
Hooting, calling, yelling, squalling,
Like everything that runs or flies,
To the good man’s wild surprise.
The Century Magazine. 1885.