The Complete Works. O. Henry
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Название: The Complete Works

Автор: O. Henry

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Языкознание

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isbn: 9788027236237

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СКАЧАТЬ I shun as moles shun light,

       And turn my prow to make all haste

       To fly before the night.

       A poisonous mound hid from the sun,

       Where crabs hold revelry;

       Where eels and fishes feed upon

       The Thing that once was He.

       “At night I steal along the shore;

       Within my hut I creep;

       But awful stars blink through the door,

       To hold me from my sleep.

       The river gurgles like his throat,

       In little choking coves,

       And loudly dins that phantom note

       From out the awful groves.

       “I shout with laughter through the night:

       I rage in greatest glee;

       My fears all vanish with the light

       Oh! splendid nights they be!

       I see her weep; she calls his name;

       He answers not, nor will;

       My soul with joy is all aflame;

       I laugh, and laugh, and thrill.

       “I count her teardrops as they fall;

       I flout my daytime fears;

       I mumble thanks to God for all

       These gibes and happy jeers.

       But, when the warning dawn awakes,

       Begins my wandering;

       With stealthy strokes through tangled brakes,

       A wasted, frightened thing.”

      The Old Farm

       Table of Contents

      Just now when the whitening blossoms flare

       On the apple trees and the growing grass

       Creeps forth, and a balm is in the air;

       With my lighted pipe and well-filled glass

       Of the old farm I am dreaming,

       And softly smiling, seeming

       To see the bright sun beaming

       Upon the old home farm.

       And when I think how we milked the cows,

       And hauled the hay from the meadows low;

       And walked the furrows behind the plows,

       And chopped the cotton to make it grow

       I’d much rather be here dreaming

       And smiling, only seeming

       To see the hot sun gleaming

       Upon the old home farm.

      The Pewee

       Table of Contents

      In the hush of the drowsy afternoon,

       When the very wind on the breast of June

       Lies settled, and hot white tracery

       Of the shattered sunlight filters free

       Through the unstinted leaves to the pied cool sward;

       On a dead tree branch sings the saddest bard

       Of the birds that be;

       ’Tis the lone Pewee.

       Its note is a sob, and its note is pitched

       In a single key, like a soul bewitched

       To a mournful minstrelsy.

       “Pewee, Pewee,” doth it ever cry;

       A sad, sweet minor threnody

       That threads the aisles of the dim hot grove

       Like a tale of a wrong or a vanished love;

       And the fancy comes that the wee dun bird

       Perchance was a maid, and her heart was stirred

       By some lover’s rhyme

       In a golden time,

       And broke when the world turned false and cold;

       And her dreams grew dark and her faith grew cold

       In some fairy far-off clime.

       And her soul crept into the Pewee’s breast;

       And forever she cries with a strange unrest

       For something lost, in the afternoon;

       For something missed from the lavish June;

       For the heart that died in the long ago;

       For the livelong pain that pierceth so:

       Thus the Pewee cries,

       While the evening lies

       Steeped in the languorous still sunshine,

       Rapt, to the leaf and the bough and the vine

       Of some hopeless paradise.

      Two Portraits

       Table of Contents

      Wild hair flying, in a matted maze,

       Hand firm as iron, eyes all ablaze;

       Bystanders timidly, breathlessly gaze,

       As o’er the keno board boldly he plays.

       — That’s Texas Bill.

       Wild hair flying, in a matted maze,

       Hand firm СКАЧАТЬ