Ballad of Old Doc Higgins

Old Doc Higgins shot a mermaid:
Vowed he’d ketch her, fish or woman, fiend or
human; |
Carryin’ on along the river, catterwaulin’ up the
river,
Scarin’ fish where they lay hid! Swore he’d hev her,
lights an’ liver —
(And what old Higgins swore, he did.)

Old Doc Higgins cleaned his gun:
The proper fishin’-hook, he’d swan, fer mermaids’
gills,
The slickest tackle! (Leaning on the pasture-wall,
old Doc Higgins gave a cackle) ;
Watch him git her, pesky critter,
Tail an' all.

No one knew but old Doc Higgins:
No, an’ none wuz goin’ to know, ’twarn’t no need
fer folks to know.
He saw sister Mame’s boy go swimmin’ to her —
natteral fool!
All uncovered wuz her breast, hair all streamin’,
shiny’z gold;
An’ the rest —a fish’s tail, gormin’ up his troutin’
pool!

Higgins saw and never told:
Hev the hull town call him crazy? Sister Mame’s
boy, loony, lazy, heard him shoutin’;
Turned and laffed ez they went under; started kissin’
—let em wonder,
Knowin’ how the boy cud swim;
They'd make no laffin-stock uv him.

But here’s the thing thet riled him so:
Jest ez he wuz settlin’ down to a peaceful mornin’s
fishin’
(How his baited line would hum up the stream to
some swift eddy),
Settin’ there enjoyin’ things while the fish got good
an’ ready —he cud feel their noses pushin’ —
Jest ez they wuz bitin’ some, up she’d come!

Naked to the waist, an’ sassy! Wavin’ to him, swimmin’
by, shameless hussy;
Or jest singin’ ez she floated, kind uv high,
No tune at all (and he noted how her tail would
flash and swish),
Gorry, how she scared the fish! Old Doc Higgins on
the shore
Yelled and swore.

And he’d watch her at the turning of the river, see :
her sink
Where the willow near the brink dipped to touch
the mermaid’s locks;
“Shucks,” said old Doc Higgins, “ Shucks!”
His ears didn’t need no wax (thinking of the deafened
crew,
And Odysseus, fettered fast), oh he knoo a thing or
two, ~

All the Higginses hed larnin’; needn’t tie him to no
mast!
Smilin’ at him ez she passed, any lunk-head could
see through her —
Like to take a cow-hide to her!
Poor old Mame —her only son — (yes, but listen as
you hasten,
Listen to the lonely singing, old man with a gun.)

Ah who will seek Muirish,
The lost one, the sea-swan?
Ah ripples, ah road
Where the foolish, the frolicsome
Strayed to her sorrow.
Muirish is gone
From the waters of Kerry,
Ah tarry not, sisters,
But speedily come!
Beneath a strange willow
She sits with her sorrow,
And all the bright sea-shells
Are spilled from her hair.
Ah sisters, my friends,
Where the ancient tide ends,
Will you fare, will you follow
The track of the tears
To Muirish, the lost one,
The sea-swan of Kerry?
Ah tarry not, sisters,
My loves and my dears!

Ah... Ah... Ah...

Heathen singin’, fit fer Sat—a Crnee!pin g close as
she rose
From beneath her willow-bough, old Doc Higgins
held his breath ...
Now!
And a singing turns to sighing, and a sighing pales
to dying,
And a dying lifts to death.

Ripples reddening as they float, rippling from a tender
throat,
Reddening from a cry of pain.
Old Doc Higgins stood there blinking and his
thoughts were not all pretty
s he watched a whiteness sinking. Wished he’d hed.
a good look at her,
Never’d git thet chance again.

Gosh, it wuz a fust-rate shot! Kissin’ Mame’s boy ez
she drowned him,
Lips all pursed up when they found him,
Died uv kissin’ like ez not.
Wal, there warn’t no use in wishin’;
An’ tomorrer he’d go fishin’.

Mist can do strange things to rivers, make a ghost of
any river:
Such a day is good for fishing. Old Doc Higgins
vowed he’d never
Seen the like; it did beat all, the way the pike
An’ pickerel came a-crowdin’ round; cat-fish too,
and Lord, the trout
Jumpin’ out!

Peter wuz a fisherman; guessed he’d hev to let him
pass —
There wuz bass over there, lyin’ low! Allus thot he’d
like to go,
His time come to meet his God, with fishin’-rod an’
basket spillin’;
He’d be willin’. (Say you so?
Old Doc Higgins, say you so?)
Mist that reaches thick and sallow up the ledges of
the land,
Up to where a tired old man sits a while beneath a
willow;
(Willow-tree, you remember! But does he?)
And his pipe slips from his hand . . . What’s that
creeping through the sedges?
Have a care, old Doc Higgins, sleeping there!

Mist that swirls ... mist ... mist...
Something holds him by the wrist. (White and wet
and cool and strong,
Fish or woman, fiend or human!)
Oh the shoal of leaping girls all about him, all about
him,
Beautiful and baleful throng— and their song:

Muirish, Muirish, white Sea-swan!
Sister slain, sister slain! — And an answering crimson
stain
Rises rippling where she sank.
Oh the whimpering little man, fighting, frightened,
on the bank
As he wakes —

Sees a face, pale, pale,
Sees a tail,
Snatches at a bough that breaks,
(Vengeful little willow-tree!)
“ God-a-mighty! Leave me be! Leave me be!”

Thus they drowned him, old Doc Higgins,
With their arms like wreaths around him, heavy,
silver wreaths around him,
Struggling, strangling, tightly pressed to a soft,
ironic breast;
Thus he lies —
In a grave of running water, who had slain a deepsea
daughter.

- Old Doc Higgins, old Doc Higgins, wishing so to
die, a-fishing ;
Thus he lies till all things rise: if there still be aught
to rise.