^ '- 1 <y o# <V 
 
 \^V 
 
 
 .^^ 
 
 \PV 
 
 4? % '. 
 
 C, vT> 
 
 r oK 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 
 * V °^ ■ » ° A V- ■" 
 
 ■o . * * A 
 
 / V #Tr 
 
 
 
 ■^^ 
 
 
 ^ > _ y • o . *> * .» . s • • » ^^ r>> 
 
 
 f^ 
 
 £*+ 
 
 
 
y^ 
 
 ►* "o 
 
 % 
 
 
 r as *o . * * A. >. %^iw*;^ /y ^ * $ 
 
 *u „\ "O • * s <0 o 'o 
 
 .V s .. «*» ° " A U V. •' 1 « V °^ "»To° .0 J 
 
 *\ *• 
 
 i<r , 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 c v 
 
 "V A ^r;.'*.^ 
 
 h> ^ ^ *V$8V". ^ 
 
 
 
 
 0" ♦ 
 
 0' 
 
 *^_ 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 ,0 
 
 
 
 •" a* ... °* •-"' / **. ^-' y 
 
 
 0' 
 
 O 
 
 ^^ 
 
 «- -f 
 
 "oK 
 
 v0 
 
 
 
 p*^ 
 
 4 o^ 
 
 ^9 
 
 <* 
 
 o 
 
 
 A 
 
 V 
 
 > 
 
 <^ ^V.s- ,0 
 
 ^ 
 


*-* 
 
 ft 
 
 A i 
 
 
 • » 
 
ROSEMARY PRESS BROCHURES 
 
 THE VILLAGE BAND 
 
 (A SERMON IN PUPPYREL) 
 
 BY 
 
 Nathan Haskell Dole 
 
 Posemarv 
 
 Privately printed for the use of the members of the 
 CHILE CLUB 
 
Copyright 1922 
 by Rosemary Press. 
 
 DEC -2 72 
 
 C1A691680 
 
 *V\© J 
 
 
THE VILLAGE BAND 
 
 (A Sermon in Puppyrel) 
 
 By Nathan Haskell Dole 
 
 Among the Berkshires lies a village, 
 
 Whose straggling houses line the still edge 
 
 Of somber hills, first cousins to mountains, 
 
 From whose wild caverns flow the fountains 
 
 That feed a wide and turbulent brook 
 
 On which those straggling houses look. 
 
 The landscape, called by artists charming, 
 
 Has small advantages for farming; 
 
 But Nature, seeming so penurious, 
 
 Hid 'neath the hills, to tempt the curious, 
 
 A marvellous inexhaustible store 
 
 Of glittering sulfurous copper ore : — 
 
 "Fools' gold" men sometimes call this treasure — 
 
 A hoard that Ignorance could not measure 
 
 And so for ages long neglected it, 
 
 Till Science with her wand detected it; 
 
 And then the sleepy little village, 
 
 No more dependent on lean tillage, 
 
 Became a prosperous mining-center, prizing 
 
 The change accomplisht by the enterprizing. 
 
 Among the innocent diversions 
 
 Devised to obviate desertions 
 
 And make the young men more contented 
 
 (For Movies were not then invented!) 
 
 There was a lively Village Band 
 
Which played in Summer in a stand 
 Ornate, octagonal, many-colored 
 To suit the taste of boor or dullard. 
 Each Thursday evening and each Saturday — 
 (Tho' more distinctive was the latter day — 
 Approaching closely to an estival 
 Commemoration, Fete, or festival) 
 This famous rural Band assembled 
 While still the Sun God's last rays trembled 
 Across the forest-shrouded summits; 
 But even darkness could not dumb its 
 Enthusiastic rendering of medley 
 Potpourri, polka, waltz or deadly 
 Attempt to keep a march in time : — 
 Their leader's efforts were sublime, 
 And all the country population 
 Provided with a generous ration 
 Of peanuts, cornballs, cake and candy 
 Met promenading through the sandy 
 Deep-rutted littered street that skirted 
 The small square where the young folks flirted, 
 And old men doddered dully listening 
 Half-hypnotized by brass so glistening. 
 
 It was the weirdest aggregation 
 
 Of instruments in all creation : 
 
 A small Italian known as Niccolo 
 
 Evolved weird wailings from the piccolo; 
 
 But as he also blew the tuba, 
 
 The horn and trumpet, was the Poo-bah 
 
 And thought himself a stupid dunce 
 
 Unable to play four at once, 
 
 But still good-natured he succeeded 
 
In filling vacancies as needed. 
 
 Two Teutons tooted a tout-ensemble 
 
 That made the very heavens to rumble, 
 
 Lavishing breath on black bassoons, 
 
 Their red cheeks swelling like balloons. 
 
 The ''popular clerk" of the Apothecary's 
 
 (As papers put it) — in no wise loth, he carries 
 
 The cymbals and the big bass drum 
 
 (With a cling-clang, cling-clang, bum-bum-bum), 
 
 And the bell-boy from the one hotel 
 
 On the snare-drum raised a hectic Hell 
 
 (To borrow from Billy Sunday's vocabulary 
 
 Permitted by the State constabulary!) 
 
 A farmer's son — his mother's pet 
 
 Puft vigorously on the clarinet, 
 
 And by good luck a wandering hobo 
 
 Was found proficient on the oboe. 
 
 A tall cadaverous foreign fellow 
 
 (A Fin, I think) sawed at the 'cello 
 
 And got a tone, though nasal, mellow. 
 
 And a little Jew jabbed at the giant fiddle 
 
 Tho ' he barel}* reacht up to its middle : 
 
 How such long strings he manipulated 
 
 Was marvellous; but I know he stipulated 
 
 That they should furnish him a criket. 
 
 He sighed contented: "Dot's der ticket!" 
 
 The Leader tried to give the rhythm 
 
 But time was hardly ever with him — 
 
 Perhaps the joke is rather grim: 
 
 We might say that the Time beat him. 
 
 Ambrosial drafts one should imbibe 
 Ere starting boldly to describe 
 
A concert by these rare musicians: — 
 Such gasps and bangs, such blast-emissions. 
 Such woful, awful, dire, cacophonies 
 (Where pleasing melody not often is!) 
 I will not try it, since the Muse 
 To help me do it would refuse! 
 
 One afternoon I took the road 
 
 That skirted where the river flowed 
 
 And wandered idly miles and miles, 
 
 Up thro' the high hills' wild denies; 
 
 Then turning as the darkness fell, 
 
 I reacht a captivating dell 
 
 And sat down in the evening hush 
 
 To listen to the hermit thrush 
 
 Whose sweet voice in the solitude 
 
 With melancholy seemed imbued ; 
 
 When suddenly my soul was stirred 
 
 Not by the cadenced song of bird, 
 
 But by a magic rush of sound 
 
 Which seemed to flood from all around, 
 
 As if it issued from the ground, 
 
 As if it burst like vocal fountains 
 
 Out from the bosom of the mountains, 
 
 As if it came from upper air — 
 
 A solemn Music — Nature's prayer! 
 
 The shadow-brooding mountain-side 
 
 I saw in fancy opened wide 
 
 And in the high-arched temple vaulted 
 
 Which lofty ebon piers exalted 
 
 I seemed to see an organ buried, 
 
 With rows of pipes in order serried — 
 
 Bourdon and trumpet, reed and flute, 
 
And all the varied stops that suit 
 
 The complicated harmonies 
 
 Wrought by the Master on his keys. 
 
 The Music that around me welled 
 
 And all my raptured spirit held 
 
 Seemed like the music of the Spheres, 
 
 Not meant for sluggish mortal ears : — 
 
 It rose and fell in shadowy waves 
 
 Quite untranscribable on the staves 
 
 That symbolize to eye and mind 
 
 What those initiated find 
 
 And by that secret inward ear 
 
 Which hears more than one seems to hear. 
 
 Not long did Fancy conjure treason 
 
 Against superior human Reason. 
 
 I knew full well that mountain-side 
 
 No magic instrument could hide, 
 
 That those weird melodies symphonious 
 
 Were but the echoes made harmonious, 
 
 Of that far-distant rustic band, 
 
 Down at the village, in their stand ! 
 
 And Mother Nature, sensitive, 
 
 Had sifted with her fancy sieve 
 
 The floating notes, confused and jarring 
 
 Discarding those that might be marring, 
 
 Selecting such as in their far ring 
 
 Would be most pleasing to be heard 
 
 By prowling fox or hermit bird, 
 
 Or even by a wandering Poet, 
 
 Who, finding loveliness, would know it. 
 
 This seems to me a sort of parable — 
 
 Here in this epoch harsh, unbearable. 
 
Where all the world is discord-blended, 
 And Civilization's hope seems ended, 
 We who are seated on the grand-stand 
 And hear the orgy from the band-stand, 
 Find only discord and cacophonies, 
 Where naught to harmonize and soften is. 
 But when we pass the Now's confusion, — 
 I hope it will not be illusion — 
 The echoes of the bitter strife 
 Striking upon the hills of Life, 
 Mayhap by Nature 's mystic sieve 
 Undreamed-of harmonies will give ; 
 The terrors of War's blatant brass 
 Into the chords of Peace shall pass; 
 The banging of the brutal drum 
 Like a deep organ-tone shall come ; 
 The cries of anguish shall be dumb! 
 
 5 36 • 
 

 '_ \> A 
 
 *> 
 
 A 
 
 V ,.p" °* o C^ 
 
 
 .0 
 
 N o 
 
 ,0 0° " ° 
 
 < o 
 
 
 
 
 
 < O 
 
 ^ V » - * °* C\ 
 
 c^n ^^nd^o A** 
 > C° - 
 
 
 
 /. 
 
v<> 
 
 v v o * • °* cv 
 
 -c \ 
 
 4 o 
 
 "/z\ APa -* 9 
 
 ^Cr 1 ^ N. MANCHESTER, 
 ^jg* 7 INDIANA 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 •J o