What song is this across the mountain side,
Where every leaf bears elements of Him
Who is all music? Silences abide
With rock and stone. A conscious seraphim
Directs the measure, when the need of song
Arrives to set the spirit free again.
The Mountain Singers, traipsin' along
To woody trail and a cabin in the rain,
Bring native music fit to cut apart
Old enemies with gunshot for the heart.
With Singin' Gatherin' and Infare still intact,
The Mountain Singers make of ghost, a fact.

--Rachel Mack Wilson

TRAGEDY

THE ASHLAND TRAGEDY

One Christmas morn in eighty-one,
Ashland, that quiet burg,
Was startled--the day had not yet dawned--
When the cry of fire was heard.

For well they knew two fair ladies
Had there retired to bed.
The startled crowd broke in, alas,
To find the girls both dead.

And from the hissing, seething flames
Three bodies did rescue;
Poor Emma's and poor Fannie's both,
And likewise Bobby's too.

And then like Rachel cried of old
The bravest hearts gave vent,
And all that blessed holiday
To Heaven their prayers were sent.

Autopsy by the doctors show'd
The vilest of all sin,
And proved to all beyond a doubt
Their skulls had been drove in.

And other crimes too vile to name;
I'll tell it if I must;
A crime that shocks all common sense,
A greed of hellish lust.

An ax and crowbar there was found
Besmeared with blood and hair,
Which proved conclusively to all
What had transpired there.

Two virgin ladies of fourteen,
The flower of that town,
With all their beauty and fond hopes,
By demons there cut down--

Just blooming into womanhood,
So lovely and so true;
Bright hopes of long and happy days
With morals just and pure.

Then Marshal Hef