I'd run out through the garden gate,
And down along the pasture walk;
And off beside the cattle barns
I'd hear a kind of gentle talk.

I'd move the heavy iron chain
And pull away the wooden pin;
I'd push the door a little bit
And tiptoe very softly in.

The pigeons and the yellow hens And all the cows would stand away; wide to see

Their would open

eyes

A lady in the manger hay,

If this were very long ago

And Bethlehem were here to-day.

And Mother held my hand and smiled-
I mean the lady would-and she
Would take the woolly blankets off
Her little boy so I could see.

His shut-up eyes would be asleep,
And he would look just like our John,
And he would be all crumpled too,
And have a pinkish color on.

I'd watch his breath go in and out.
His little clothes would all be white.
I'd slip my finger in his hand
To feel how he could hold it tight.

And she would smile and say, "Take care,'
The mother, Mary, would, "Take care";
And I would kiss his little hand
And touch his hair.

While Mary put the blankets back
The gentle talk would soon begin.
And when I'd tiptoe softly out
I'd meet the wise men going in.

ORPHEUS

He could sing sweetly on a string.
He'd make the music curve around;
He'd make it tremble through the woods
And all the trees would leave the ground.

The tunes would walk on steps of air,
For in his hand a wire would sing;
The songs would fly like wild quick geese-
He could play sweetly, on a string.

If Orpheus would come to-day,

Our trees would lean far out to hear,
And they would stretch limb after limb;
Then the ellum trees would leave the ground,
And the sycamores would follow him.

And the poplar tree and the locust tree
And the coffeeberry tree would come
And all the rows of osage thorns,
And then the little twisted plum.

He'd lead them off across the hill.

They'd flow like water toward his feet. He'd walk through fields and turn in roads; He'd bring them down our street.

And he'd go by the blacksmith shop,

And one would say, "Now who are these?— I wonder who that fellow is,

And where he's going with the trees!"

"To the sawmill, likely," one would say,
"Oh, yes, the sawmill, I should think."
And then he'd cut the horse's hoof
And hammers would go clink and clink.

He could play sweetly on a wire.

And he would lean down near his lyre
To hear its songs unfold and wind,
And it would reach up toward his ear
To hear the music in his mind.

And when the road turned by the kiln,
Then Orpheus would happen to see
The little plum and the sycamore
And the poplar tree and the chinaberry tree,

And all the rows of osage thorns-
When he happened once to look-
He'd see them coming after him
Three birches, and he'd see the oak.

And he would lead them back again.
He'd bring each one to its own ground.
He'd bring each to its growing-place
And set them back with sound and sound.

He'd fit them in with whispered chords,
And tap them down with humming words.

STRANGER

When Polly lived back in the old deep woods, Sing, sing, sing and howdy, howdy-o!

Nobody ever went by her door,

Tum a-tum tum and danky, danky-o!

Valentine worked all day in the brush,

He grubbed out stumps and he chopped with his axe,
He chopped a clear road up out of the branch;
Their wheels made all the tracks.

And all they could see out doors were the trees,
And all the night they could hear the wolves go;
But one cold time when the dark came on
A man's voice said, "Hello, there, hello!"

He stood away by the black oak tree

When they opened the door in the halfway light;
He stood away by the buttonwood stump,
And Valentine said, "Won't you stay all night?"

He sat by the fire and warmed his bones.
He had something hidden down deep in a sack,
And Polly watched close while she baked her pones;
He felt of it once when she turned her back-
Polly had a fear of his sack.

Nobody lived this way or there,

And the night came down and the woods came dark,
A thin man sat by the fire that night,
And the cabin pane was one red spark.

When the candle dimmed and the logs fell low,
It was something dark, as Polly could see,
Sing, sing, sing and howdy, howdy-o!

He held it up against his chest,

And the logs came bright with a fresh new glow,
And it was a fiddle that was on his breast,

Tum tum-a and danky, danky-o!

He played one tune and one tune more;
He played five tunes all in a long row.
The logs never heard any songs before.
Sing, sing, sing and howdy, howdy-o!

The tunes lay down like drowsy cats;

They tumbled over rocks where the waterfalls go;
They twinkled in the sun like little June gnats;
Tum a-tum tum and danky dee-o!

The stumps stood back in Valentine's mind;

The wolves went back so Polly couldn't see;

She forgot how they howled and forgot how they whined. Tum tum a-tum and danky-dee!

The tunes flew by like wild quick geese,

Sing, sing, sing and howdy howdy-o!

And Polly said, "That's a right good piece."
Tum tum tum and danky danky-o!

Tum a-tum tum and danky dee-o!

Marion Strobel

Marion Strobel was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1895 and became Associate Editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse in 1921. Besides her principal work, she has published several short stories which, though without importance, display a certain grace of writing.

Her first volume, Once in a Blue Moon, was published in 1925. It is a mixed collection in which the execution is as varied as the poet's moods. Following pages which are emotionally as well as technically weak, there are passages in which the line and mood have a bright transparency. In its lack of synthesis and integrated power Once in a Blue Moon is typically a first volume; but it is a first volume by one who has both a capricious gaiety and what, for lack of a more exact characterization, might be called a delicate defiance.