The Republican journal., 1905-08-10

Than lOating around the Throne
JIM BLUDso, OF THE PRAIRIE BELLE.
Wall, no can't tell where he lives,
Because he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
OF livln', like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three
years,
That you haven't heard folks tell
How Jimmie Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?
He weren't no saint-them engineers
Is all pretty much alike
One wife in NatcheZ- Under the-Hill
And another one here, in Pike;
A keerleSs man in his talk was lin,
And an awkward man in a row,
But he never tiunked and he never lied
| reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had
To treat his engine we'll;
Never be passed on the river,
To mind the pilots bell:
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire
A thousand times he swore
He'd hold her nozzle agn the bank
Till the last soul got ashore,
All boats has their day on the Mississippi,
And her day come at last
The MovaStar was better boat,
But the Belle, she wouldn't be passed,
The oldest craft on the line
With niger squat on her safety valve,
And her furnace crammed, roSin and pine
The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt hole in the night,
And quick as flash she turned, and made
For that Wlller bank on the right
There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim
yelled out,
Over all the Internal roar,
"Ill hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot's ashore"
Through the hot, black breath of the burn
in boat
Jim Bludso's voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness
And know'd he would keep his word.
And, sure's you're born, they all get off
Afore the smokestacks fell
And BludSo'S ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
He weren't no saint-but at Judgment
I'd run my chance with Jim,
'LOngside of some piouS gentlemen
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, dead sure thing
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ amt a-goin' to be too hard
On a man that died for men.
MY CASTLE IN SPAIN.
There was never castle seen
So fair as mine in Spain;
1t stands uncovered in green,
Growing the gentle slope
OF hill by the Nenil'S shore,
And at eve its shade tlaunts Ger
The storied Vega plain,
And its towers are hid in the mists of Hope
And toll through years of pain
Its Sllmmering gates to gain.
In visions wild and sweet
Sometimes its cOurtS | greet
Sometime in joy its shining halls
! tread with favored feet;
But never my eyes in the light of day
Were blessed with its ivied walls,
Where the marble white and the granite
grey
Turn gold alike when the sunbeams play,
When the soft day dimly falls
l know in its dusky rooms
Are treasures rich and rare,
The spoil of Eastern looms,
And whatever of bright and fair
Painters divine have caught and won
From the vault of Italy's air;
White gods in Phidisn stone
People the haunted glooms
And the song of immortal singers
Like fragrant memory fingers,
know, in the echoing rooms
But nothing of these, my soul.
Nor castle, nor treasures, nor skies,
NOl Ilo waves VI Lue river tudl roll
With cadence faint and sweet
In peace by its marble feet
Nothing of these is the goal
For which my whole heart sighs
IT'S the pearl gives worth to the she'll
The pearl would die to gain;
For there does my lady dwell,
My love that love SO we'll
The Queen whose gracious reign
Makes glad my castle in Spain.
Her face so pure and fair
Sheds light in the shady places,
And the spell of her girlish graces
Holds charmed the happy air,
A breath of purity
Forever before her flies,
And i'll things cease to be
In the glance of her honest eyes,
Around her pathway tlutter,
Where her dear feet wander free
In youths pure majesty,
The wings of the vague desires;
But the thought that love would utter
In reverence expires.
Not yet not yet shall see
That face which shines like star
- yer my stormswept life afar,
TRANSPORTED with love for me.
Ioiling, forgetting and learning
With labor and vigils and prayers,
Pure heart and resolute will,
At last shall climb the hill
And breathe the enchanted airs
Where the light Of my life is burning
Most lovely and fair and free,
And bound by her fate's sweet duty,
Unconscious she waits for me.