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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


WAR-TIME IN THE MOUNTAINS by ANN COBB

First Line: DULCIMER OVER THE FIREBOARD, HANGING SENCE ALLUSAGO
Last Line: BEAT AND BEGET SONS AND DAUGHTERS TO SING THE OLD SONGS AT HIS FEET.
Subject(s): DULCIMERS; KENTUCKY; MOUNTAINS; MUSIC & MUSICIANS; WELLESLEY COLLEGE; WORLD WAR I; HILLS; DOWNS (GREAT BRITAIN); FIRST WORLD WAR;

DULCIMER over the fireboard, hanging sence allusago,
Strangers are wishful to buy you, and make of your music a show:
Not while the selling a heart for a gold-piece is reckoned a sin,
Not while the word of old Enoch still stands as a law for his kin.

Grandsir' he made you in Breathitt, the while he was courting a maid.
Nary a one of his offsprings, right down to the least one, but played,
Played and passed on to his people, with only the song to abide,
Long-ago songs of Old England, whose lads we're now fighting beside.

There you'll be hanging to greet him, when Jasper comes home from the fight.
Nary a letter he's writ us, but he'll be a-coming, all right.
Jasper's the last of the Logans. Hit's reason to think that he'll beat,
Beat and beget sons and daughters to sing the old songs at his feet.



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