Ohio History Journal

132        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

POEMS BY C. B. GALBREATH1

MORNING GLORIES

From the shadows of night they called for the dawn

In notes that were subtle and clear,

In a strain of music too exquisite

For the range of mortal ear.

From their leafy columns and battlements

That were moist with the morning dew,

A call for light and a reveille

From the bells of their bugles they blew.

And lo! up the east in the blush of the rose

Came the tremulous light of the morn,

And earth awoke in the fullness of joy

To welcome the day new-born.

In color arrayed on trellis and wall

The heralds stepped into view

And bravely their passionate greetings poured

From their bugles of pink, white and blue.

When up the sky to the throne of light

They had played the god of day,

Like spirits elate with a work well done

They folded their bugles away.--

Up the quiet valley one autumn night

Came the hoar mist grim and slow,

And stilled were the minstrels; their music no more

From the bells of their bugles they blow.

1 The following poems of Mr. Galbreath are republished to give the

readers some idea of his versatility as a poet.--Editor.

 

 

CHRISTMAS TREE*

Fair dreamer with the brand of fire,

A little respite grant, I pray,

Before you toss me on the pyre

To burn my wasted form away;

Though I have felt the spoiler's knife

And to this rubbish heap have gone,

I was a thing of sentient life

And beautiful to look upon.

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Charles Burleigh Galbreath             133

I breathed the baimy air of dawn;

I drank the sunshine rich and warm;

When clouds across the sky were drawn,

With joy I buffeted the storm.

Beside the somber, ancient wood,

I grew in grace and symmetry

Until a lad beside me stood

And marked me for a Christmas tree.

The autumn days grew short and cold;

The fields took on a russet hue;

The trees were tipped with red and gold;

The birds of passage southward flew;

Their chanting broke the solitude

As high they passed in pointed files;

The gusty north wind shook the wood

And scattered leaves along its aisles.

The clouds took on a darker gray,

But lighter grew the waste below,

For over hill and valley lay

A spotless coverlet of snow;

And as the flakes in silence fell

And gathered round me white and deep,

I yielded to their soothing spell

And sank into my winter sleep.

The joyful awakening of the Christmas Tree.

Awake! Awake! called the violin,

The pianoforte and the saxophone;

Through my fibres there crept a tremulous thrill--

A thrill I never before had known.

Music and warmth and a wonderful light

That flashed from the tips of my bending boughs,

A rustle of garments, a colorful swirl

And the ecstasy of a blissful rouse.

In gorgeous spangles I stood arrayed,

On a flake-flecked carpet as white as the snow;

My arms were laden with precious gifts

While others were heaped on the carpet below;

Bright, happy faces around me beamed,

As a beautiful child tripped softly nigh,

In a gauzy garment of pink and white,

With the golden wings of a butterfly.

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134        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

 

The Christmas presents all neatly bound

With cord and ribbon of red and green,

In the midst of laughter and shouts of joy

Were soon dispensed by the butterfly queen.

And music again with rapturous spell

Enchanted the vibrant and redolent air;

And strong were the notes from the manly lips

And soft from the lips of the ladies fair!

"Hurrah, hurrah for the Christmas Tide,

That brightens the years as they come and go,

For its portals of mirth that are opened wide,

For its holly wreath and its mistletoe.

Forgotten tonight are the cares of the past

And the shadow of cares that may never be;

For joy in its fullness is here at last;

Hurrah, hurrah for the Christmas Tree."

Then around they swung in a merry dance,

With gliding advance and furtive retreat,

While fair lithe figures kept rhythmical time--

To the throbbing of music, the thrumping of feet.

Down, down to the depths of my dizzy soul

An exhilarant spell began to creep;

From the plaited folds of their winter caps,

Lo, my baby buds began to peep!

The music ceased and reluctantly

The dancers parted and glided away;

The lights went out, but soon in the East,

Through the windows I saw the dawning of day.

And faces new to the mansion came

With greetings and gifts and rejoiced to see,

In its crown of glory and spangles bright,

The "wonderful," "beautiful" Christmas Tree.

The decline begins.

The New Year's dawning had scarce passed by

When the ladies fair had ceased to call;

The spangles were stripped from my stiffening limbs

And the spines from my plumes began to fall.

A thirst was gnawing my tortured soul;

The cells of my fibers were hard and dry;

But severed from earth, I could drink no more,

And my baby buds began to die.

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Charles Burleigh Galbreath              135

The final phase.

But why delay the bitter truth--

The story of my pride and fall--

The transit from my vernal youth

To wreckage sad and skeletal,

Spurned by the feet of passers-by,

An outcast in the mire and rain,

Unworthy of a passing sigh

And dead alike to joy or pain?

Fair maiden, speed--I ask no more--

My flight aloft on fiery wings

To Nature's mighty reservoir--

The goal of all material things,

Your hope serene I may not claim

Of joys supernal yet to be,

Mine be the pride, refined by flame,

That I was once a Christmas Tree.

* NOTE: Suggested by a young woman in the act of throwing the rem-

nant of a Christmas tree on a burning rubbish heap. The tree asks per-

mission to tell its story before it is consigned to the flames.

 

OHIO

Ohio, bounteous state,

Home of the fair and great,

We hail thy name!

Star of the Middle West,

Gem in the Nation's crest,

Land that we love the best,

We sing thy fame!

Land of the clement skies,

Of rosy morning dyes

And sunset bars,

Of streams and woodland bowers,

Of fruit and grain and flowers,

Of quiet evening hours

And rising stars!

The fire of genius runs

In thy inventive sons,

And they have furled

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