THE ROAD TO DARLINGTON

Milestones Vol 1 No 4--Fall 1975

The Road To Darlington
Milestones Vol 1 No 4--Fall 1975

James Vale Downie

(First published in the Geneva Cabinet
for February, 1903)

I never hear the sleighbells chime
On a night of moon and snow
But I dream this dream of the olden time And hanker again to go; -
To tuck my sweetheart into a sled,
With a hot brick at her toes
Her cheeks aglow and a flake of snow
On the tip of her tilted nose;
Inside her muff to hold her hand
And, close to her hooded ear,
To plead that she remember me,
Her "Spanish Cavalier";
Whilst echoed all the snowy slopes
With a musical hullabaloo
Of Clementine and Auld Lang Syne
And "Adieu, kind friends, adieu."
And I'd be off in a bobsled load,
With a dozen old friends or so,
Under a bright and frosty moon,
Out of the long ago;
And we'd let the good nags jingle gaily
Up the hills and down, By farm and fell To an old hotel
In the village of Darlingtown.

There were 'Forty-nine Blue Bottles, Boys,
A-hanging on the Wall"
And forty-nine blue damosels
Left in Geneva Hall,
When vikings in a scarlet sled
From Lutton's Livery Stable
Absconded with their comeliest
As fast as they were able.
The moon behind the belfry
Sailed straight up in the sky
And diamonds sparkled in the campus
Snowdrift speeding by.
Four steaming steeds plunged onward
With jingling bridle chains.
The Soph'more sweetings snuggled close
Beside their chosen swains.
With shout and cheer and laughter clear
And bells like a million bees,
Glad music flung across the snow
Beneath the creaking trees.
So strained the nags up Steffen's Hill
And the sled-ride was begun
At the valley's crest,
As we jingled west,
On the Road to Darlington!

III

A silly song the sleighbells sang
With a wild and merry trill.
The mad bells great and little rang
As the sled went down the hill;
And every heart was full of joy
And light as eiderclown-
Or the fairy flakes the pine tree shakes
On the Road to Darlingtown.
What shoutings pierced the wintry night
And echoed o'er the snows!
Full many a patient country wight
From his warm bed uprose
To stand befuddled and afraid,
Or grumbling his distaste
For "Nally Grey" and the "Nut Brown Mayde
With the slender, slender waist."
But, when we sped by Estep's Grange,
We reached a stony steep
With slopes, adventurous and strange,
And gullies gaunt and deep.
We stopped our singing and looked down,
Like travellers in a tale,
At a sugary spire
And a tinsel town
In a silver-spangled vale.

Into the wooden Tunnel Bridge,
After a long descent,
In a magic vale beyond the ridge,
The clattering horses went.
Into the darkness dank and chill,
Scented by snags of hay
That hung from studding and rafter sill,
The slow sled made its way.
Over the splintered, rumbling floor
I heard the runners creak.
The Nut Brown Mayde withheld no more
The fragrance of her cheek.
Sweet Clementine and Darling Sue
Drew closer to their swains.
The driver urged his steeds anew
With ship and voice and reins.
Over the Little Beaver stream
We rode with a merry clang.
Into the snowy tavern yard
The four good horses sprang.
Out of the long, straw-cushioned bed
Two dozen youngsters fell,
Where a welcome glowed
At the end of the road,
In the Darlington Hotel.

Eight miles across the hills we'd come
In a merry two hours' span.
Some of us flirted; some of us froze
And some got out and ran;
But all of us had good appetites
To take such victuals down
As Landlord Cole, God rest his soul,
Dispensed in Darlingtown.
How shall one sing the chickens of
A long-forgotten Spring?
Delicious fries that tantalize
'Till the throat's too full to sing!
What can one say of waffles
With bowls of gravy brown,
Of which the like you'd never strike
Except in Darlingtown?
Hard cider, eke, in tankards tall
Was set upon the board,
And the strongest coffee, in pint cups,
That kettle over poured;
Buckwheat honey and corn bread
And a-many kinds of pieWhen I recall That supper and all
A tear comes to mine eye.

The moon came down in Darlingtown-
Low in the western sky;
The pallid stars were weak and wan
And the frosty dawn was nigh,
When the 'ostler led his munching nags
Out of the stable door
And backed them into the swingletrees
Of the double sled once more.
The stars came down in Darlingtown
And the night was almost sped-
Afoot we mounted Estep's Hill
Behind the creaking sled.
Afoot with tingling toes we climbed
That cold and crooked steep.
The girls were buried in the straw,
Half frozen-half asleep.
The moon fell down in Darlingtown
Beside the sugary spire
And the Covered Bridge beyond the Ridge
Tonight, beside my fire,
I dream of sleighbells all in chime
And the Nut Brown Maiden's spellOf a Bobsled Load And the magic road
To the Darlington Hotel!