Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
This is a property of type Text.
B
<div class="poem">
<p>Brown makes at such an hour of night!<br />
He’s celebrating something strange.<br />
I wonder if he’s sold his farm,<br />
Or been made Master of the Grange.”
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>And then went round it on his feet,<br />
After the manner of our stock;<br />
Not much concerned for those to whom,<br />
At that particular time o’clock,
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>Brown lived at such a lofty farm<br />
That everyone for miles could see<br />
His lantern when he did his chores<br />
In winter after half-past three.
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>He never let the lantern drop.<br />
And some exclaimed who saw afar<br />
The figures he described with it,<br />
“I wonder what those signals are
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>Faster or slower as he chanced,<br />
Sitting or standing as he chose,<br />
According as he feared to risk<br />
His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>Sometimes he came with arms outspread<br />
Like wings, revolving in the scene<br />
Upon his longer axis, and<br />
With no small dignity of mien.
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>Or even thought of standing there<br />
Until the January thaw<br />
Should take the polish off the crust.<br />
He bowed with grace to natural law,
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>And stamped and said things to himself,<br />
And sometimes something seemed to yield,<br />
He gained no foothold, but pursued<br />
His journey down from field to field.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Incredulous of his own bad luck.<br />
And then becoming reconciled<br />
To everything, he gave it up<br />
And came down like a coasting child.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Between the house and barn the gale<br />
Got him by something he had on<br />
And blew him out on the icy crust<br />
That cased the world, and he was gone!
</p>
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<div class="poem">
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<div class="poem">
<p>But now he snapped his eyes three times;<br />
Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s<br />
’Bout out!” and took the long way home<br />
By road, a matter of several miles.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;<br />
He fell and made the lantern rattle<br />
(But saved the light from going out.)<br />
So half-way down he fought the battle
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Yankees are what they always were.<br />
Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope<br />
Of getting home again because<br />
He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>And many must have seen him make<br />
His wild descent from there one night,<br />
’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything,<br />
Describing rings of lantern light.
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>“Well—I—be——” that was all he said,<br />
As standing in the river road,<br />
He looked back up the slippery slope<br />
(Two miles it was) to his abode.
</p>
</div> +
<div class="poem">
<p>Sometimes as an authority<br />
On motor-cars, I’m asked if I<br />
Should say our stock was petered out,<br />
And this is my sincere reply:
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>Walls were all buried, trees were few:<br />
He saw no stay unless he stove<br />
A hole in somewhere with his heel.<br />
But though repeatedly he strove
</p>
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<div class="poem">
<p>It must have looked as if the course<br />
He steered was really straight away<br />
From that which he was headed for—<br />
Not much concerned for them, I say.
</p>
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C
<div class="poem">
<p>We will sidestep, and to the final smirk<br />
Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb<br />
That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us,<br />
Facing the dull squint with what innocence<br />
And what surprise!
</p>
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