Songs and Other Verse

By Field, Eugene

Book Id: WPLBN0000631153
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.6 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Songs and Other Verse
Author:	Field, Eugene
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Classic Literature Collection, Blackmask Online Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Blackmask Online


Citation APA MLA Chicago Field, B. E. (n.d.). Songs and Other Verse. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.us/

Excerpt
Introduction: ?It is about impossible for a man to get rid of his Puritan grandfathers, and nobody who has ever had one has ever escaped his Puritan grandmother;? so said Eugene Field to me one sweet April day, when we talked together of the things of the spirit. It is one of his own confessions that he was fond of clergymen. Most preachers are supposed to be helplessly tied up with such a set of limitations that there are but a few jokes which they may tolerate, and a small number of delights into which they may enter. Doubtless many a cheerful soul likes to meet such of the clergy, in order that the worldling may feel the contrast of liberty with bondage, and demonstrate by bombardment of wit and humor, how intellectually thin are the walls against which certain forms of skepticism and fun offend. Eugene Field did not belong to these. He called them ?a tribe which do unseemly beset the saints.? Nobody has ever had a more numerous or loving clientage of friendship among the ministers of this city than the author of ?The Holy Cross? and ?The Little Yaller Baby.? Those of this number who were closest to the full?hearted singer know that beneath and within all his exquisite wit and ludicrous raillery?so often directed against the shallow formalist, or the unctuous hypocrite?there were an aspiration toward the divine, and a desire for what is often slightingly called ?religious conversation,? as sincere as it was resistless within him. My own first remembrance of him brings back a conversation which ended in a prayer, and the last sight I had of him was when he said, only four days before his death, ?Well, then, we will set the day soon and you will come out and baptize the children.?

Table of Contents
Table of Contents: Songs and Other Verse, 1 -- Eugene Field, 1 -- Introduction, 3 -- THE SINGING IN GOD'S ACRE, 11 -- THE DREAM?SHIP, 12 -- TO CINNA, 14 -- BALLAD OF WOMEN I LOVE, 14 -- ENVOY, 15 -- SUPPOSE, 15 -- MYSTERIOUS DOINGS, 16 -- WITH TWO SPOONS FOR TWO SPOONS, 17 -- MARY SMITH, 17 -- JESSIE, 19 -- TO EMMA ABBOTT, 20 -- THE GREAT JOURNALIST IN SPAIN, 21 -- LOVE SONG?HEINE, 22 -- THE STODDARDS, 22 -- THE THREE TAILORS, 24 -- THE JAFFA AND JERUSALEM RAILWAY, 26 -- HUGO'S ?POOL IN THE FOREST, 26 -- A RHINE?LAND DRINKING SONG, 27 -- DER MANN IM KELLER, 27 -- TWO IDYLLS FROM BION THE SMYRNEAN, 28 -- THE WOOING OF THE SOUTHLAND, 30 -- HYMN, 32 -- STAR OF THE EAST, 32 -- TWIN IDOLS, 33 -- TWO VALENTINES, 34 -- MOTHER AND SPHINX, 36 -- A SPRING POEM FROM BION, 37 -- BERANGER'S ?TO MY OLD COAT.?, 38 -- BEN APFELGARTEN, 39 -- A HEINE LOVE SONG, 40 -- UHLAND'S ?CHAPEL, 40 -- THE DREAMS, 41 -- IN NEW ORLEANS, 43 -- MY PLAYMATES, 44 -- STOVES AND SUNSHINE, 45 -- A DRINKING SONG, 46 -- THE LIMITATIONS OF YOUTH, 47 -- THE BOW?LEG BOY, 48 -- THE STRAW PARLOR, 49 -- A PITEOUS PLAINT, 51 -- THE DISCREET COLLECTOR, 52 -- A VALENTINE, 53 -- THE WIND, 54 -- A PARAPHRASE, 56 -- WITH BRUTUS IN ST. JO, 56 -- Songs and Other Verse -- i