Many names
I’ve not mentioned, most folks have gone away-- Many gone
beyond recall;
But I think when
we’re gathered on Judgment Day ‘Twould be wonderful to see
them all. There were fish for the taking back in the creek,
‘Coons and ‘possums
in the woodland shade. In the meadows about, bob-whitç you
would seek
And fat rabbits basked
in the shade.
There were blackberries
most as big as my thumb--
Gooseberries, and I
think, wild plums, a few,
Hazel nuts, hickory
nuts, walnuts and butternuts
Were in the woodlands,
too.
While, nestling down at
the dew at your feet
Were dew-berries
covered with dew.
Down on Rocky Branch,
behind Glasscock’s farm Grew lovely wild fern, half as long
as your arm.
Phlox,
“boy-breeches” and daisies, their languid heads raised, As
blue-bells silently rang out a paean in God’s praise. Some
of my Indian forebears may once have strode the halls
Of the wonderful Rocky
Branch Cave,
For their marvelous
drawings are all on the walls-
Forgive me, if I seem
to rave.
That a spot so fair
bears a name so drab
Certainly seems a
shame;
And mem’ry hears
Granpa’s voice insisting still-- Pleasant Hill is its
real-true name.
Some day all its
wonders will be known far and wide,
And Lord knows,
that’s as it should be. And if this small poem should help
“turn the tide”, ‘Twould be a great pleasure to me. And
if God’s new earth * I’m to see, I hope that Jehovah gives
me
A spot in SHAKERAG, you
guessed,
Where the truest, the
best
Friends on this old
earth seemed to be.
* See
Psalms 37: 9, 11. |