* 
 
CAROLS OF THE COAST 
 
 A COLLECTION OF 
 
 SONGS, BALLADS AND LEGENDS, 
 
 ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED. 
 
 BY 
 
 M. H. NICKERSON. 
 
 '* He touehed the tender stops of various quills 
 With eager thought, uuarbling his Dorie lay.^-^lVllIiTOH* 
 
 HALIFAX : 
 
 NOVA SCOTIA PRINTING COMPANY. 
 
 1892. 
 
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, 
 in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two, by 
 Moses H. Nickerson, at the Department of Agriculture. 
 
PRE^ACli. 
 
 T DO not propose to introduce this little book with 
 ^ elaborate remarks on what I conceive to be its 
 
 merits or defects. That task, I am quite willing to leave 
 where it belongs, in more competent hands. 
 
 Neither shall I say anything of my hopes or fears 
 concerning the treatment it may leceive, should it ever 
 rise to the dignity of formal criticism. The usual com- 
 ment on that head, prefixed to works of this nature, is 
 always insipid, often unnecessary and sometimes- worse 
 than useless. 
 
 Every writer of verse, who deems his performances 
 worthy of public regard, is justly supposed to put into 
 them his best effort. They go forth to speak for them- 
 selves, in such spirit and voice as he has been able to 
 endow them with. If they are found, by a fair audience, 
 hopelessly dull or insufferably harsh, no preliminary 
 flourish in prose can rescue them from that limbo which 
 yearly swallows an enormous mass of futile literature. 
 
 Let me observe, however, in justice both to myself 
 and to those who may honor with perusal the following 
 collection, that it was too hastily prepared for publication 
 to be free from certain faults, which would have been 
 avoided had circumstances permitted me to bestow more 
 care upon it. The pieces it contains, many of them the 
 productions of extreme youth, had long lain in forgotten 
 
IV. 
 
 PREFACE!. 
 
 manuscript, without revision or the slightest attempt bo 
 improve them, till within a few days of their going to 
 the press. This fact may explain, if not excuse, the more 
 obvious imperfections. With ampler opportunity, there 
 would have been a wiser selection, a better arrangement 
 and perhaps less ruggedness of language. But if literary 
 merit, even in its crudest state, is entirely lacking; then 
 I shall not, like many others, lay the blame on adverse 
 circumstances, but frankly admit that the highest advan- 
 tages of leisure and learning — both of which were denied 
 me — could not have availed to supply the deficiency. 
 
 Clark’s Harbor, ) THE AUTHOR. 
 
 April 23rd , 1892. ) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Overture 
 
 A Fragment 
 
 From the Shore 
 
 Dark Hours 
 
 The Village Croesus 
 
 At Philippi 
 
 Francesco to Bianca 
 
 To the Muses 
 
 The Mother-Speech 
 
 Speranza 
 
 The Storm 
 
 Song 
 
 To J. Atkinson 
 
 New Year’s Morning, 1878 
 
 A Character 
 
 Major Bray 
 
 The Major’s Monologue . . . 
 
 The Garland 
 
 Farewell 
 
 To a Flatterer 
 
 A Mock-Monody 
 
 To J. Atkinson 
 
 A Recollection 
 
 Song 
 
 John the Soldier 
 
 A Joyless June 
 
 Loved and Lost 
 
 At Jericho 
 
 Death of Lovelace 
 
 Euthanasia 
 
 Bahamas 
 
 Justice 
 
 Invocation 
 
 Ode to Ignorance . 
 
 To a Fastidious Maid - . . , 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 17 
 22 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 
 25 
 28 
 
 29 
 
 30 
 
 30 
 
 31 
 
 34 
 
 35 
 
 36 
 
 48 
 
 49 
 53 
 56 
 59 
 62 
 
 65 
 
 66 
 67 
 69 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Our Torquemada 70 
 
 The Two Monarchs 71 
 
 The Poetic Art 72 
 
 In Exile 77 
 
 Song 77 
 
 A Feast of Fat Things 78 
 
 Nova Scotia 79 
 
 Song 82 
 
 The Contrast • ♦ 83 
 
 Chatterton’s Picture 84 
 
 Reflections of Faust 85 
 
 A Roman Model 86 
 
 Ode to Pandora 89 
 
 Storm-Stanzas 90 
 
 To C. F. McWhorter 91 
 
 Lark-Song 95 
 
 To Harriet Beecher Stowe 96 
 
 Apathes 98 
 
 The Brook 99 
 
 The Field-Flower 100 
 
 November Song 100 
 
 A Modern Maxim 101 
 
 The Clyde 102 
 
 Epitaph on Capt. Potter 103 
 
 Wherefore ? 103 
 
 The Pachyderms 103 
 
 Song 104 
 
 Parting 105 
 
 Disappointment 105 
 
 SONNETS : 
 
 The True Poet 107 
 
 Francesco Petrarca 108 
 
 Twenty-Five 108 
 
 To the Servians, 1877 109 
 
 Aspiration 109 
 
 L. Amore L’amicizia 110 
 
 Love and Friendship HO 
 
 To Capt. H. C. McWhorter m 
 
 Francesco’s Lost Love . , , 1 12 
 
CONTENTS. Vli 
 
 SONNETS : 
 
 Midnight 112 
 
 Despair 113 
 
 Resignation 113 
 
 Santa Selva 114 
 
 The Dead Prince 114 
 
 To the City of Halifax 115 
 
 To Miss 115 
 
 Grandezza 116 
 
 To a Young Lady 116 
 
 The Safest Guide 117 
 
 Carissima 117 
 
 Superstition 118 
 
 The Humbler Egotism 119 
 
 The Wish 125 
 
 Swan-Song of Timon 131 
 
 The Tyrant of Syracuse 135 
 
 Archilochus 140 
 
 Reconstruction 143 
 
 Nero II 143 
 
 Sailing in Summer 146 
 
 My America 147 
 
 The Orator 148 
 
 Agariste 150 
 
 Nocturne 151 
 
 To Floarea 153 
 
 The Token 154 
 
 Response 155 
 
 The Faithless Floarea 156 
 
 Farewell to Floarea 157 
 
 The Holocaust 160 
 
 The Furies of the Feast 161 
 
 Troy Afloat 164 
 
 TRANSLATIONS : 
 
 Glory 175 
 
 The Dying Poet 178 
 
 The Hero's Battle-Prayer 180 
 
 Calumny 182 
 
 Woman 183 
 
 To Annie 184 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 TRANSLATIONS : page 
 
 The Richest Ruler 185 
 
 The Wandering Jew 186 
 
 Genius 188 
 
 Happiness • 190 
 
 The Ballad of the Bodensee 191 
 
 Spring Song 194 
 
 The Deserter’s Friend . . 195 
 
 Cupid 196 
 
 Country Life 197 
 
 The Frightened Fawn 198 
 
 The Power of the Poets 199 
 
 Noel— An Ode 203 
 
 The Reversion 208 
 
 To Miss Hattie E. Homer 216 
 
 The Sea in Sunshine 218 
 
 Cupid’s Career 219 
 
 Arion 228 
 
 The Clerical Quack 242 
 
 To Count Tolstoi 244 
 
 At Sea 249 
 
 Darwin 250 
 
 Sunrise 253 
 
 Oriental 254 
 
 John Burns, of London 257 
 
 The People First 259 
 
 The Doom of Romanoff 261 
 
 Giordano Bruno 265 
 
 To the Servians 269 
 
 Freedom 270 
 
 Folk-Song 273 
 
 New Year’s Ode 274 
 
 To a Kindly Catechist 277 
 
 To Hon. W. S. Fielding 279 
 
 To Olive Schreiner, Capetown, Africa 280 
 
 To a Friend 281 
 
 The New Drama 282 
 
 Ad Populum 283 
 
 Stanzas to Mary 284 
 
 The Minstrel’s Good-Night. f ... f t T f , f 285 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Ok page 201, the third line first stanza at top should 
 be the second one. In the foot-note on same page, 
 read “knock of a king/’ instead of “ring.” Con- 
 cluding line of first stanza at top of page 202 was 
 intended for foot-note, referring to Skelton, in the text. 
 
CAROLS OF THE COAST. 
 
 .. 1 ^* 111 ...- 
 
 OVERTURE. 
 
 These are the sea-waifs gathered in my strolling 
 Along the sand-paved beach — 
 
 The duller shells of pearly clusters rolling 
 Beyond my depth and reach. 
 
 Oft have I watched them, from dark caves emerging, 
 Gleam brightly and depart ; 
 
 While the wild waves through all my veins were surging, 
 And breaking at my heart. 
 
 I stood in pleasing peril, never pondering 
 The way my steps should go ; 
 
 The glorious morn shone not to guide my wandering, 
 But to impart its glow. 
 
 To me no danger lurked within the ocean 
 That clasped the passive land, 
 
 With majesty in every sound and motion, 
 
 So free, so strong, so grand. 
 
2 
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 What radiant dreams since then have risen and faded 
 Into the mist of tears, 
 
 While the chill flood has ruthlessly invaded 
 The swiftly wasted years ! 
 
 Yet the first spell they wove shall be unbroken 
 Until my latest hour. 
 
 These carols are a faint and fleeting token 
 Of their abiding power. 
 
 FRAGMENT 
 
 OF A JUVENILE ESSAY IN VERSE. 
 
 All things revolve with ceaseless change 
 Through nature’s teeming, boundless range, 
 E’er since from eldest night 
 The fiat of the eternal mind 
 Impressed chaotic matter blind 
 With motion, form and light. 
 
 Adhering particles were mixed 
 And to their various functions fixed 
 Within the mighty scheme. 
 
 Light poured its vitalizing heat 
 Until creation was complete 
 And order rose supreme. 
 
FRAGMENT. 
 
 3 
 
 But though the primal elements 
 In combinations rare and dense 
 Through endless cycles run, 
 Ho particle to all the globe 
 Or to its vast ethereal robe 
 
 Has e’er been lost or won. 
 
 The very essences that mould 
 Our frames — at first inane and cold, 
 
 Dispersed through air and earth, — 
 Are yet coeval with the spheres 
 Whose chorus ravished angel ears 
 With joy o’er nature’s birth. 
 
 Through rolling years, each race remains, 
 But like the summer-ripened grains, 
 
 The individuals pass, 
 
 Dissolved to nourish other forms 
 Of future life that ever swarms 
 From out the general mass. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Proof, too, that universal law 
 Which overwhelmed the sage with awe 
 Its secret to unfold ; 
 
 That marvelous law can thus alone 
 The worlds, through space eternal sown, 
 In even balance hold. 
 
FRAGMENT. 
 
 If but a single atom lacked, 
 
 The solar charm would cease to attract 
 Our darkened, wandering world : 
 One atom more would add a force 
 To send this planet from its course 
 To fiery ruin hurled. 
 
 The changes palpable to sense 
 All furnish ample evidence — 
 
 Germ culminates in germ ; 
 
 The sea, the mist, the cloud, the rain, 
 Are links in observation’s chain 
 To hold this doctrine firm. 
 
 ****** 
 
 And is the animating soul, 
 
 With powers angelic at control, 
 Self-bounded and distinct 1 
 The higher faith alone can see 
 With all that’s past, with all to be 
 Its life forever linked. 
 
PROM THE SHORE. 
 
 5 
 
 FROM THE SHORE. 
 
 The southern winds are piping loud, 
 
 All into spray the breakers shiver ; 
 
 Fast flies, o’er head, the black- winged cloud 
 Whose flaming tongues in fury quiver. 
 
 Yon cape that lifts it awful form, 
 
 So dreaded by the ocean-ranger, 
 
 Surveys the progress of the storm, 
 
 Exulting in the hour of danger. 
 
 The spirit of the rocky caves 
 
 Where dark the sea-weed curtain flutters, 
 
 Now like the ancient sibyl raves, 
 
 And what mysterious things he utters ! 
 
 God pity now the hampered ship ! 
 
 One fearful chance is open for her — 
 
 To wear her canvas, though she dip 
 Her yard-arms in the foamy horror ! 
 
 Ah ! strength of soul, however grand, 
 
 When in our course, where faults mis-shape it, 
 
 Whirls the dread vortex close at hand, 
 
 It bends us lowly to escape it. 
 
6 
 
 DARK HOURS. 
 
 DARK HOURS. 
 
 Oh dark is the hour 
 
 On the refugeless main, 
 When the tempest hath power 
 And man’s efforts are vain ; 
 When stricken with dread 
 
 Are the strong and the brave, 
 And death’s chilly bed 
 
 Is the white-sheeted wave ! 
 
 That hour, too, is dark 
 
 When within his lone cell 
 The captive must hark 
 To the summoning knell ; 
 When terror appears 
 
 Dressed in colors so strong, 
 That the moment which nears, 
 Seems to linger too long. 
 
 But dark as the pall 
 
 Is that hour when the heart 
 Is destined, from all 
 
 It had cherished, to part ; 
 When for hopes once in bloom 
 But now withered by woes, 
 The breast is a tomb 
 
 Yet without its repose ! 
 
THE VILLAGE CRCESUS. 
 
 7 
 
 THE VILLAGE CRCESUS. 
 
 To see him you would scarcely think 
 He was so very great, 
 
 Till you hear his tumid pockets clink 
 To his self-important gait ; 
 
 Then other people’s pockets shrink 
 For six months after date. 
 
 At church what meekness does he wear ; 
 
 But the home-life lifts the mask : 
 The family bible on that shelf there — 
 On this, a whiskey flask ; 
 
 That closet used for secret prayer, 
 
 And this for a smuggled cask ! 
 
 But when the village chapel swarmed 
 With clergy and with lay, 
 
 We saw him suddenly transformed 
 That yearly meeting day ; 
 
 His charities were roused and warmed 
 Like a snake in the month of May. 
 
 We saw him near the altar stand 
 With penitential air, 
 
 And hold an offering in his hand 
 To make the worldly stare — 
 
 An offering with this meek demand : 
 Five dollars’ worth of prayer ! 
 
8 
 
 AT PHILIPPI. 
 
 Revolting thought ! perhaps the sum 
 In such oblation spent 
 
 Was the clear revenue of rum 
 AH vitrioled cent, per cent ! 
 
 Howe’er it be, it did not come 
 A worse way than it went. 
 
 I thought of Simon Magus’ rash 
 Yet similar desire ; 
 
 But I looked in vain for the answering flash 
 Of holy, withering ire 
 
 Condemning the hypocrite and his cash 
 To hell’s eternal fire. 
 
 AT PHILIPPI. 
 
 Midnight in the dungeon grim 
 Where the preachers of the word 
 
 Lay wtth heavy-fettered limb, 
 
 But their souls with heaven conferred ; 
 
 And the prayer and chanted hymn 
 All their fellow-prisoners heard. 
 
 Hark ! an earthquake’s sudden shocks 
 Strike responsive to the strain. 
 
 And the shattered prison rocks 
 Like a wreck upon the main ; 
 
 Broken are the bars and locks, 
 
 Rent from every hand the chain ! 
 
AT PHILIPPI. 
 
 While the keeper, wild with fears, 
 Draws his sword and bares his breast, 
 The apostle’s voice he hears, 
 
 Which his rash arm does arrrest. 
 Then before them he appears 
 
 Trembling with this great request : 
 
 ■*‘That salvation may be mine, 
 What, oh what must I achieve ? ” 
 ** Grace shall be to thee and thine 
 If on Christ thou dost believe ! ” 
 Thus the liberty divine 
 
 Did that captive soul receive. 
 
 Ye who are as captives bound, 
 
 Ye whom doubts aud fears enthral, 
 Such deliverance can be found 
 In his might who governs all ; 
 Such the grace that does abound 
 When repentant sinners call. 
 
10 
 
 FRANCESCO TO BIANCA. 
 
 FRANCESCO TO BIANCA. 
 
 Lovely Bianca, my heart’s dearest treasure, 
 Never again thy sweet face shall I see ; 
 
 Still my dark thoughts, in retracing lost pleasure, 
 Wild though they wander, are faithful to thee. 
 
 Banished from friendship — e’en pity denied me, 
 Far from the scenes of our former delight, 
 
 Forests and caves in their solitude hide me, 
 
 Name, hopes and life all have suffered one blight* 
 
 When for thy favor my rival was seeking, 
 
 Mine was the madness that brooked no control ; 
 Blood is the witness — oh, still it seems reeking 
 Red on my blade as the guilt on my soul ! 
 
 Long to my bosom delight is a stranger, 
 Tired of my very existence I grow ; 
 Restless in safety and reckless in danger — 
 Death is but cruel refusing his blow. 
 
 Lovely Bianca, my heart’s dearest treasure, 
 
 Dire is the doom that has fallen on me ; 
 
 All could I bear, but this woe beyond measure, 
 Through my own crime torn forever from thee 1 
 
TO THE MUSES. 
 
 11 
 
 TO THE MUSES. 
 
 Ye nymphs who, in olden time, dwelt 
 In a sacred recess of the grove 
 
 On that mountain, ere yet you had felt 
 What it is through creation to rove, 
 
 While thousands have access so free 
 To your presence and mystical shrine, 
 
 ’Tis enough on an alien like me 
 
 That your smiles intermittently shine. 
 
 ’Tis enough that my spirit is charmed 
 By the spell which they say you prepare, 
 
 And oft, as in panoply, armed 
 To combat the demon of care. 
 
 Then I crave not the polish of art 
 
 Nor wish my rude numbers more smooth, 
 
 If so they but lighten my heart 
 
 An d its throbs of inquietude soothe. 
 
 Whom the walls of a study immure 
 Oft utter your oracles deep, 
 
 And the less comprehended, be sure, 
 
 The fuller the credence they reap. 
 
 Thus the robin’s plain note in the dell 
 May be with indifference heard ; 
 
 But the pedant admires Philomel, 
 
 Though he knows not the song or the bird. 
 
TO THE MUSES. 
 
 No claims to your favors I lay, 
 
 Nor join in your numberless train ; 
 
 But destiny gave me away 
 
 To your transports of pleasure and pain. 
 
 Else wherefore, great nine, was I born 
 With a heart so erroneously proud, 
 That the pageant of man it could scorn 
 Yet to feminine weakness has bowed 1 
 
 Oh ! the tutorless fancy of youth 
 Can never be brought to perceive 
 Such attractions in wisdom and truth 
 As in you and the daughters of Eve. 
 
 Hence every wild impulse can urge 
 Beyond reason’s legitimate bound, 
 
 Till remorse, with the scorpion-hung scourge, 
 Repays every joy with a wound. 
 
 For such is the make of the wight 
 
 Over whom your strange witchery hangs, 
 He loses himself in delight 
 
 And awakes to the keenest of pangs. 
 
 Different passions within him are stirred 
 And he readily yields to their force ; 
 So betwixt the sublime and absurd 
 He makes but a devious course. 
 
THE MOTHER-SPEECH. 
 
 1 
 
 The wise ones, with judgment amiss, 
 Still deem his impetuous soul 
 Might bask in the moonbeams of bliss 
 Submitting to cautious control. 
 
 But his being they cannot improve 
 By prudence that calculates slow. 
 Should the comet all sluggishly move, 
 ’Twould diminish its luminous glow. 
 
 THE MOTHER-SPEECH. 
 
 Native language, mother tongue, 
 Gently spoken, sweetly sung, 
 Hallowed memories endear it 
 Till, like some aerial tone 
 
 From the seraph-land, we hear it 
 In the desert and alone. 
 
 Sad the mind is and confused 
 Where a foreign tongue is used, 
 
 Which we too must join in speaking 
 With the carefulness of art 
 And the weariness of seeking 
 Words that dwell not in the heart. 
 
14 
 
 SPERANZA. 
 
 Hear the stately Roman speak, 
 
 Hear the strong, sonorous Greek, 
 
 Like the storm-flood rush and tumble ; 
 Hear the Tuscan’s dulcet tide ; 
 
 Let the German torrent rumble 
 And the smooth Castilian glide ; 
 
 Let the Frankish step with grace, 
 
 In a quick but even pace ; 
 
 And the studious ear may listen 
 Captivated for an hour ; 
 
 But the eye through life must glisten 
 At one home word’s sacred power. 
 
 SPERANZA. 
 
 Her face has the radiance of dreams unsung, 
 Like that of an infant newly woke ; 
 
 Men call her Speranza in that sweet tongue 
 Which Beatrice in Heaven spoke. 
 
 Less frequently, as the year roll on, 
 
 Have her visits been, — but the very tear 
 Which mourns her now as forever gone 
 Is the secret gem that draws her near. 
 
THE STORM. 
 
 THE STORM. 
 
 i. 
 
 Beyond the confines of the west 
 The day’s last traces flee. 
 
 All earth is lying with stirless breast 
 As in dire expectancy. 
 
 Deep silence broods o’er the lonely hills 
 And o’er the snow-clad plains. 
 
 The sun has sunk, but his pathway fills 
 With the hue of the tide that battle spills 
 From an army’s burning veins ! 
 
 IL 
 
 Though no white waves assail the shore, 
 And no rude gust sweeps by, 
 
 Yet a look more boding never wore 
 The ocean and the sky. 
 
 The night draws on but it does not bring 
 The promise of repose ; 
 
 It seems to spread its sable wing 
 
 Like the prophet’s malison hovering 
 In the clouds where Babel rose. 
 
 hi. 
 
 Far other events than the elements 
 About to wreak their rage 
 
 With all its wasteful consequence 
 These omens do presage. 
 
SONG. 
 
 Avert thine eye from the signs on high 
 And say, dost thou not discern 
 That we soon must wage with a foe malign 
 A conflict still more stern 1 
 
 ****** 
 
 There shall wailing be where once was glee. 
 But the right shall win at last 
 And peaceful thrive, as the fields revive 
 When the storm is overpast. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Through' all the woods the robins sing 
 Their madrigals to soft-eyed spring, 
 While gentle evening comes to fling 
 
 Her eastward-reaching shadows. 
 
 The herds returning often stop 
 The young and tender blade to crop, 
 All gemmed with many a pearly drop. 
 Along the quiet meadows. 
 
 Come, dearest, let us forth to share 
 The pleasant time ; this balmy air 
 Can kiss no other brow as fair 
 As that I am beholding. 
 
 And see, how even the loveliest flower 
 That shelters in your garden bower, 
 Abashed at beauty’s richer dower, 
 
 Its blushing sweets is folding. 
 
TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 17 
 
 TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 Again the sun’s obliquest ray 
 To nine dull hours restricts the day ; 
 
 And earth is white and heaven is gray. 
 While gloomy trees 
 
 Shudder and wring their hands and pray 
 On bended knees. 
 
 And still I tread the humble round 
 That chillier deeps than snow-drifts hound 
 And though some pleasure I have found 
 To cheer existence, 
 
 The famous fairy-haunted ground 
 Still keeps its distance. 
 
 When first in life’s bright morning seen. 
 The future flaunts in heavenly sheen ; 
 But, when arrived at grave nineteen, 
 
 We sadly miss its 
 Delights, or find them far between, 
 
 Like angels’ visits. 
 
 Yet ’tis not all a dull surrounding; 
 
 I hear the surf its onset sounding, 
 
 I see the storm’s fierce front confounding 
 Sea, sky and land, 
 
 And all the while my heart is bounding 
 To measures grand. 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 Then every legend, every lay, 
 Learned in some long-forgotten day, 
 Gleams on me, as the sudden ray 
 Amid the storm 
 
 Paints on the heaven-aspiring spray 
 The rainbow’s form. 
 
 But most unhappy of his kind 
 Is he whose ever-roving mind, 
 Impatient purer bliss to find, 
 With fiery fleetness 
 Still rushes on and leaves behind 
 Untasted sweetness. 
 
 His breast is in chaotic state 
 Where hope and fear and love and hate 
 Alternately preponderate 
 And wisdom fails, 
 
 Withholding, hut not wanting, weight 
 To right the scales. 
 
 As well the traveller might slake 
 His thirst at the Asphaltic Lake, 
 
 As one of such peculiar make 
 Could satisfy 
 
 His soul with what men scrape and rake 
 And sell and buy. 
 
 I love the girls, I love a song, 
 
 I hope I’m right, yet feai I’m wrong, 
 
TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 19 
 
 And when the gossips censure strong 
 My inclination, 
 
 I hate and scout the vulgar throng 
 In style Horatian.* 
 
 Their precepts I would fain obey 
 Whose twilight heads are cool and gray, 
 But dazzling follies round me play 
 And fire my veins, 
 
 Then resolution all gives way 
 And passion reigns. 
 
 Yet oft I take a view sublime 
 Of that Lethean gulf-stream, time ; 
 
 And feel convinced no greater crime 
 Than mere neglect 
 Will drift us to the torrid clime 
 That few expect. 
 
 Ah ! youth and vigor wane and dwindle 
 Till love no more its flame can kindle, 
 
 And life is one inglorious swindle, 
 
 Or with sly tread 
 
 Comes death, and from the half-run spindle 
 Cuts off the thread. 
 
 The high, the low, the grave, the gay 
 Make up their quotas of his prey ; 
 
 Unlike some statesmen of our day 
 I could describe, 
 
 You cannot turn him any way 
 By dint of bribe. 
 
 * “ Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.” — Horace,. 
 
20 
 
 TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 Divines are often wont to treat 
 Of life as frail, and time as fleet, 
 
 To make the sensual sinner meet 
 For saving grace ; 
 
 But here’s a metaphor complete 
 In shorter space : 
 
 Life is a sort of fastening 
 To time that, ever on the wing, 
 
 Draws through slack hands the slender string 
 Till all is gone, 
 
 Then off they drop without a thing 
 To rest upon. 
 
 They only are the truly wise 
 Who hind the moment as it flies 
 To some beneficent emprise ; 
 
 The elevation, 
 
 Which they at length attain, defies 
 All gravitation. 
 
 The greatest prudence I have shown 
 Is just to purpose and postpone ; 
 
 Though in my temperament were sown 
 Some virtuous seeds, 
 
 The field is rankly overgrown 
 With flowering weeds. 
 
 But latterly I have begun 
 To get the pruning process done ; 
 
 And gentle showers and genial sun 
 May yet mature 
 
 The fruits and in the lengthy run 
 Good crops secure. 
 
TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 21 
 
 My tedious daily routine o’er, 
 
 The mines of knowledge I explore, 
 But still, in balancing my store 
 Of that material, 
 
 I find it as it was before — 
 Somewhat ethereal. 
 
 As duty bids, not taste inclines, 
 
 I trace the geometric lines, 
 
 Or con the algebraic signs, 
 
 Though here, the will — - 
 As that pedantic phrase defines — 
 Is minus still. 
 
 For me the sciences abstruse 
 Possess small pleasure and less use. 
 Can sentiment delight to cruise 
 The bridge of asses, f 
 Or angle and hypotenuse 
 
 Help scale Parnassus ? 
 
 With far more ardor I engage 
 In learning from the classic page 
 How poet, orator and sage 
 
 Sang, spake and taught, 
 Or how, with patriotic rage, 
 Stern valor fought. 
 
 f Pons Asinorum, the name facetiously given to the fifth 
 proposition of Euclid. 
 
22 
 
 NEW YEAR’S MORNING; 1878. 
 
 The tinsel trickery that adorns 
 Most modern lays my spirit scorns. 
 They either sound like dinner-horns 
 Or penny whistles. 
 
 Well, grapes will never grow on thorns, 
 Nor figs on thistles. 
 
 NEW YEAR'S MORNING, 1878. 
 
 A royal greeting to Seventy-eight, 
 
 As he marches through the eastern gate, 
 
 In his ruffled but stainless robe of state 
 With icicles bestudded. 
 
 The sceptre is not yet in his hand : 
 
 Pray Heaven it may not he more grand 
 Than just a simple olive wand 
 
 For peace and plenty budded. 
 
 We have longed for the regimen to shift, 
 
 The old year’s burdens were hard to lift ; 
 
 May the new have blessings in his gift 
 For general distribution ; 
 
 But whether he carry our wishes out, 
 
 Give him the benefit of the doubt 
 And welcome the reign that is brought about 
 By a bloodless revolution. 
 
A CHARACTER. 
 
 A CHARACTER. 
 
 Although he could not learn the common art 
 Which sets the speech at variance with the heart, 
 Ne’er to the crowd his inner life was shown, 
 
 Nor was he to himself entirely known ; 
 
 Yet never mortal, by the vulgar touch, 
 
 Was swayed, by turns, so little and so much. 
 
 In keenest sympathy, e’en from his birth, 
 
 With each vicissitude of sky and earth, 
 
 No fixed condition long his taste could please, 
 
 He courted turmoil, while he sighed for ease ; 
 Aoid hope, the dove, to him seemed never dear, 
 Save when she fluttered in the claws of fear. 
 
 His mind, with all the weeds of fancy filled, 
 
 Was harrowed deep enough, but never tilled. 
 
 His natural diffidence oft galled him sore, 
 
 His forced audacity galled others more. 
 
 Active in sport, in labor indolent, 
 
 He knew each phase of feeling save content. 
 
 Plain facts he missed, the latent he perceived, 
 And trusted most, where most men disbelieved. 
 
 So in his wildest or his tamest guise 
 He was a paradox to good men’s eyes. 
 
 Unfitted for obedience or command, — 
 
 A peasant’s figure, a patrician hand, 
 
 Midway between a gentleman and boor. 
 
24 
 
 MAJOR BRAY. 
 
 MAJOR BRAY , 
 
 OF THE COUNTY MILITIA. 
 
 ’Tis the day of the drill and the ranks soon fill 
 With the very flower of the nation. 
 
 But the bloodless plain for this campaign 
 Is somebody’s turnip plantation. 
 
 But look at the man who leads the van, 
 
 An object to cause reflections; 
 
 He is major-in-chief by right of a leaf 
 
 Which he got from the book of directions. 
 
 He shows more skill in militia drill 
 Than in other departments of labor ; 
 
 Though his hands were made for wielding the spade 
 Or anything else but a sabre ! 
 
 Yet when he is clad in warlike red 
 With a borrowed horse to ride on, 
 
 He would easily pass as did the ass 
 That put the lion’s hide on. 
 
THE MAJOR’S MONOLOGUE. 
 
 25 
 
 THE MAJOR'S MONOLOGUE. 
 
 At your service and the nation’s, 
 I’m the gallant Major Bray, 
 
 With my uniform and rations 
 And my fifty cents a day. 
 
 War’s a glorious profession 
 For a gentleman to fill, 
 
 Plying it without transgression 
 Of the law, Thou shalt not kill ! 
 
 I was made expressly for it 
 By my bearing and my voice ; 
 
 Mere civilians may abhor it, 
 
 Making sluggish life their choice. 
 
 In a dozen years of drilling 
 I have learned upon parade 
 
 All its arts, except the killing — 
 Not essential to the trade. 
 
 But my maiden sword I brandish 
 And such antics I perform, 
 
 I would like to see the Standish* 
 That I could not take by storm ! 
 
 * Presumably Miles Standish, the hero of Plymouth. 
 
26 
 
 THE MAJOR’S MONOLOGUE. 
 
 Even now my bravery’s noted ; 
 
 Everybody looks at me ; 
 
 I’m the only soldier-coated 
 Man in all our company. 
 
 Hannibal and Alexander ! 
 
 I perhaps might rival you, 
 
 But the modern tongue of slander 
 Will not give a man his due. 
 
 When we march through country places, 
 ’Tis a glorious sight to see 
 Windows lined with pretty faces 
 Smiling loyally on me. 
 
 Then to think how such sweet glances 
 Of fair lady on her knight 
 Used to shiver helms and lances, 
 Makes me hanker for a fight. 
 
 Then if trumpets loud were braying 
 I could raise as wild a din, 
 
 If some shot, too widely straying, 
 Might not chance to graze my skin. 
 
 With your corse the ground to measure 
 Where the leaden hail flies fast, 
 
 Is, no doubt, a thrilling pleasure 
 That is far too good to last. 
 
THE MAJOR’S MONOLOGUE. 
 
 For your country nobly dying 
 Talked about is very nice ; 
 
 But this fact is past denying : 
 
 No one can enjoy it twice ! 
 
 Yet in spite of this misgiving, 
 
 Death would never me appal, 
 
 If, thereafter, to the living 
 I could boast about my fall. 
 
 I have had a thousand fancies 
 Of adventure and escape, 
 
 And have stood some narrow chances 
 From the canister and grape. 
 
 And if things go on in quiet, 
 
 If no accident occurs 
 Like rebellion, raid or riot, 
 
 I am bound to win my spurs. 
 
 Without getting gashed and gory 
 I can be a son of Mars ; 
 
 Give me gold and gin and glory 
 And the devil take the scars ! 
 
28 
 
 THE GARLAND. 
 
 THE GARLAND. 
 
 Come teach me now some dainty song, 
 
 Ye little Sylphids that preside 
 The summer long 
 Over the garden’s floral pride 
 And dress the earth as Phoebus’ bride. 
 
 As softly as the enamored south 
 Lisps to the rose in sunlight clear, 
 
 Frame to my mouth 
 Some carol fit for Jennie’s ear 
 And sweet, like her, and all sincere. 
 
 Oh could she know how oft I lift 
 Up to my lips this flowery band — 
 
 Her treasured gift — — 
 
 Then she my heart might understand, 
 
 As I, the sweetness of her hand ! 
 
 What matter if these woven flowers, 
 
 With all my care, can only live 
 A few brief hours ? 
 
 Yet to my inmost soul they give 
 A bloom that is not fugitive. 
 
 They promise with their dying breath 
 
 That when the north winds, rudely bleak, 
 Have done to death 
 Their frail companions, I may seek 
 More lasting ones upon her cheek. 
 
FAREWELL. 
 
 29 
 
 FAREWELL. 
 
 WRITTEN IN A COPY OF CHAMBERS’ EUCLID. 
 
 Old Euclid, farewell ! our acquaintance was brief. 
 
 We part not in anger, we part not in grief ; 
 
 Nay, justice compels me to say, as we part, 
 
 You were dear to my patience, if not to my heart. 
 
 I revere you as much as my youth will permit, 
 
 Nor doubt anything save your aid to our wit, 
 
 For I think from the day-star of nations there shines 
 A far better method of dealing with lines. 
 
 Why treat of the upright , the mean, and the base 1 
 Daily life affords almost a parallel case : 
 
 Just minus the first, plus the foolish and vain, 
 
 An d mankind is geometry, rather more plain ! 
 
30 
 
 A MOCK MONODY. 
 
 TO A FLATTERER. 
 
 Reserve that soft phrase for some timelier use. 
 
 Let candor inform you it vexes me less 
 To suffer a volley of causeless abuse 
 
 Than be lauded for virtues I do not possess. 
 
 There is full-blooded vice, there is hollow-souled sham, 
 And the first is more worthy of honest esteem. 
 
 My destiny is to be just what I am, 
 
 And yours to be all things but what you would seem. 
 
 A MOCK MONODY. 
 
 Death, the prayer of hundreds granting, 
 Did one errand to a charm ; 
 
 And the dirge it set us chanting 
 Sounded like a fire-alarm. 
 
 Then the sexton, red and panting, 
 With his spade upon his arm, 
 Came and did the best day’s planting 
 Ever done on Adam’s farm ! 
 
TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 31 
 
 TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 ’Our pathways at length have begun to diverge, 
 
 So fortune capricious is pleased to ordain ; 
 
 But till Lethe’s dark waters existence submerge 
 Shall our souls in the union of friendship remain. 
 
 I wander, as ’twere, from the bad to the worse 
 On a desert with scarce an oasis in sight. 
 
 Yet I cannot complain of a heavy reverse, 
 
 For my earthly possessions are notably light. 
 
 Wisdom dignifies neither my actions nor looks ; 
 
 For a hermit, perhaps, I am wholly too young ; 
 
 But a series of lessons, not found in the books, 
 
 Keeps more busy my thought and more silent my 
 tongue. 
 
 0 that freshness of spirit, vivacious and bold, 
 
 When we aim at the height, disregarding the mean ! 
 
 1 woujd give, if I had it, some thousands of gold, 
 
 Not to be what I hoped for, but what I have been. 
 
 Contentment smiled on us without being sought, 
 
 A maid by a passionate suit never won ; 
 
 No need was there then for distracting the thought 
 This thing to attain and the other to shun. 
 
 Our hearts were untainted, our heads were unschooled 
 
 J 
 
 Our minds no rich-freighted idea could float ; 
 
 But a few people’s conscience we rigidly ruled 
 By the law of the mischievous stanzas we wrote. 
 
32 
 
 TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 Tet joys more enduring oft hallowed those hours 
 When mirth in the lap of reflection was lulled, 
 
 And, revering, we bent o’er those perishless flowers 
 That spirit aspiring from Paradise culled. 
 
 Or we gloried with him* whose Promethean fire 
 But dazzled the more that its altar was dark ; 
 
 At whom, after basely provoking his ire, 
 
 The whole pack of critics no longer durst hark. 
 
 Not to questions of morals our thoughts we confined 
 Nor measured his lines with mechanical scan, 
 
 But we soared on the 'pinions sublime of his mind, 
 And admiring the poet, lost sight of the man. 
 
 Through the small but choice list of illustrious names, 
 The grave and the tender engaged us by turns ; 
 
 But the strongest and far the most permanent claims 
 On our sympathy came from the genius of Burns. 
 
 His songs that so lively a pleasure impart 
 Show nature in simplest yet fairest attire, 
 
 More pleasing indeed from the absence of art 
 For man teaches not what the heavens inspire. 
 
 Then our first chanted rhymes, rather warm, I confess, 
 Came out with a promise that very soon fades ; 
 
 Because of their peasant-like manner and dress 
 
 They flourished and died in their own native shades 
 
 * Byron. 
 
TO J. ATKINSON. 
 
 33 
 
 It was much that a village our works should discuss, 
 It was more that some persons detested the sound ; 
 Approbation was never so pleasant to us 
 
 As the anger which showed that our satire could 
 
 [wound. 
 
 Yes, such the amusements that managed to steal 
 Our leisure, then deemed at a trival cost ; 
 
 An d, indeed, there are times even now when I feel 
 That the moments so spent were not utterly lost. 
 
 For, memory glowing, each juvenile whim 
 Arises from seeming oblivion once more. 
 
 Thus, a sketch on a slate may in coldness grow dim, 
 But the warmth reproduces it plain as before. 
 
 And out of this madness some method may rise, 
 
 Some figures that strike, though not long to exist, 
 As the tempest piles up cloudy towers in the skies 
 That in a dead calm would have settled in mist. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 A RECOLLECTION. 
 
 A RECOLLECTION. 
 
 O’er the white waste of drifted sands unstable 
 We climbed the sedgy dune, 
 
 Where, like a sleeping giant, old Cape Sable 
 Basked at the feet of June. 
 
 Beneath the summer noon, the shore-birds twittered 
 Around in glancing flocks, 
 
 And, like a fair display of jewels, glittered 
 The foam-bells on the rocks. 
 
 Deep peace was in the air and on the billows, 
 
 That in smooth slumber lay, 
 
 Or gently tossed upon their sandy pillows 
 As infants wake to play. 
 
 The breeze moved landward, scarcely felt in blowing, 
 But such the fisher hails 
 
 With joy when, after weary hours of rowing, 
 
 It swells his spritted sails. 
 
 The brave flotilla then like snowy sprinkles 
 Bar outward we could trace ; 
 
 The sight was fair and seemed to have smoothed the 
 From out old ocean’s face. [wrinkles 
 
 No envious shadow on the flood descended; 
 
 Unflecked, the sky’s broad sweep 
 
 In silent grandeur with th’ horizon blended, 
 
 Deep calling unto deep. 
 
SONG. 
 
 35 
 
 And every shadow from my life retreating, 
 Left free the placid mind ; 
 
 The finite with the infinite was meeting 
 Undimmed and unconfined. 
 
 How many times my eager gaze had rested 
 Upon that sea and shore ; 
 
 Hut never, never had they been invested 
 With such a charm before. 
 
 They wear it still in calm ideal perfection, 
 Though years since then have flown : 
 That summer day’s unclouded recollection 
 Shall ever be my own. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 ’Twas night, and all was still, except 
 The flow of the summer sea ; 
 Love’s star alone its vigil kept 
 And where the folded flow’rets slept 
 It led my way to thee. 
 
 Our meeting lips and mutual eyes 
 Drank glowing blisses there ; 
 
 And full of questions and replies 
 Of tenderest import were the sighs 
 That charmed the dewy air. 
 
36 
 
 JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 And now ’tis night : the sky arrayed 
 With many a brilliant star 
 Hangs o’er me like an endless shade 
 As if the morning were delayed 
 With love and thee — afar. 
 
 Those lights that play o’er the glassy tide 
 From angel-bowers may be ; 
 
 Hot one of them my steps shall guide, 
 
 But the thought of a distant green hill-side 
 Is a ghost that follows me. 
 
 JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 A MEDIEVAL SPANISH LEGEND. 
 
 In Andalusia lived a youth, 
 
 Some half-score centuries since, 
 Descended, so tradition said, 
 
 From some old Gothic prince, 
 
 As plainly did his noble form 
 And gallant soul evince. 
 
 His real name I hide, because 
 From modern tongue ’tis gone ; 
 
 To speak it right would set one’s jaws 
 Between a gasp and yawn ; 
 
 A Celto-Gothic name it was, 
 
 But we will call him John. 
 
JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 37 
 
 No title or estate liad he ; 
 
 His patrimonial right 
 By the invading Saracen 
 
 Had been swept out of sight ; 
 And so, as duty hound, he went 
 His country’s foes to fight. 
 
 There long he served and well he fought 
 On many a bloody field, 
 
 And with his good two-handed sword 
 Which none so well could wield, 
 
 He mowed through many a Paynim horde, 
 Through turban, moon* and shield. 
 
 But when two dozen years had past, 
 The soldier sought to lay 
 His arms aside and live in peace ; 
 
 But judge of his dismay, 
 
 When sixpence and a loaf of bread 
 Was all he got for pay ! 
 
 They would not hear his plea at all, — 
 ’Twas useless to insist ; 
 
 Pablo la Mierda (Miser Paul) 
 
 Controlled the pension list, 
 
 And squeezed the shape from every coin 
 On which he closed his fist. 
 
 * The crescent, or new moon, the Muslim standard. 
 
38 
 
 JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 Of all the cuts the soldier knew 
 This was the most unkind, 
 
 And for a certain time he felt 
 To mutiny inclined ; 
 
 But as he reasoned with himself, 
 
 These thoughts rose in his mind : 
 
 “ Carajo ! what am I to do ? 
 
 I’ve always shunned disgrace, 
 
 But danger never ; as for death, 
 
 I’ve dared him to his face. 
 
 But now to die for lack of food 
 Would he a piteous case. 
 
 “ But all my life I’ve hated care, 
 
 Just as a soldier should ; 
 
 And now, to give up to despair 
 Would surely do no good, 
 
 ’Twould only help to vex the brain, 
 And over-heat the blood.” 
 
 Then merrily he marched along 
 Unmindful of his lack, 
 
 Chanting a Saturnalian song, 
 
 And with his haversack — 
 
 All empty — strapped, as was his wont 
 On service, to his back. 
 
 At length he met a holy friar, 
 
 In whose apostleship 
 One sacred precept was observed ; 
 
 He’d neither purse nor scrip, 
 
 And he declared that for a week 
 No food had passed his lip. 
 
JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 39 
 
 “ Por Dios !” the son of Mars replied, 
 
 “ ’Tis little I can give ; 
 
 For all the time I served my king, 
 
 Your reverence must believe, 
 
 A sixpence and this loaf of bread 
 Were all I did receive. 
 
 “ But, sir, it is the soldier’s pride 
 To give to those in need. 
 
 Here’s half my rations ; so farewell, 
 
 And gaily may you feed.” 
 
 The friar received the food with thanks, 
 
 And started to proceed. 
 
 But scarcely had he vanished, when 
 Again he showed his nose, 
 
 And finished up a lengthy tale 
 Of poverty and woes 
 By begging for a little cash 
 To buy him shoes and clothes. 
 
 The soldier did not hesitate, 
 
 Nor say with lengthened face 
 That he must first investigate 
 The merits of the case. 
 
 He pulled his sorry sixpence straight 
 From out its hiding-place. 
 
 “ Now,” said the friar, “ my Christian friend, 
 If anything you want, 
 
 Ask it of me — whate’er it be 
 I have the power to grant. 
 
 For having served the king so long, 
 
 Your recompense is scant.” 
 
40 
 
 JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 “ Then grant me, sir,” the veteran said, 
 “ That I may have the knack 
 To make the things I wish for, come 
 Into my haversack.” 
 
 “Sea hecho,” said the mendicant ; 
 “You never more shall lack.” 
 
 The soldier then resumed his march 
 And travelled very fast. 
 
 Footsore and much fatigued, he reached 
 A little town at last. 
 
 As he was entering into it, 
 
 A baker’s shop he passed. 
 
 He saw against the window placed, 
 
 In many a tempting row, 
 
 Coiled sausages and spongy rolls 
 As white as drifting snow. 
 
 “ Into my haversack,” he cried, 
 
 And into it they go ! 
 
 El Panadero, badly scared 
 By such miraculous deeds, 
 
 Having a long time blankly stared, 
 Began to tell his beads. 
 
 Meanwhile the soldier calmly fared 
 Upon the best of feeds. 
 
 Then at th’ alcalde’s office next 
 Himself he did present, 
 
 With a brief story as to how 
 His lustiest years were spent, 
 Concluding with the mild request 
 For lodgings free of rent. 
 
JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 41 
 
 Th’ alcalde told him, from the town 
 A short way, he would find 
 A house unoccupied, hut stored 
 With things of every kind, 
 
 And he might take up quarters there, 
 
 If he was so inclined. 
 
 “ But,” added he, “ its owner, who 
 Unbounded wealth did boast, 
 
 Died suddenly, before the priest 
 Could elevate the host ; 
 
 Now no one dares approach the place, 
 
 ’Tis haunted by his ghost.” 
 
 The soldier waited for no more, 
 
 And soon the house he found — 
 
 Cellar and larder flowing o’er, 
 
 An orange grove around ; 
 
 Each branch beneath its golden store 
 Was bending to the ground. 
 
 He piled the grapes upon the board 
 In many a luscious bunch ; 
 
 And from the cellar’s various hoard 
 He drew, for mixing punch ; 
 
 Then up the flue the bright flames roared 
 To warm a little lunch. 
 
 But scarcely had the cheery blaze 
 Upon his features shone, 
 
 When up the chimney’s sooty maze 
 Was heard a gurgling groan, 
 
 And “ May I fall ?’ a voice exclaimed 
 In no melodious tone. 
 
42 
 
 JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 “ Fall, if you like,” the soldier said, 
 
 “ ’Twill jar me not a peg !” 
 
 But as he stretched his hand again 
 To tip the genial keg, 
 
 Grandios ! beside him on the hearth 
 
 i 
 
 There fell a human leg ! 
 
 At this the honest soldier’s hair 
 Began to stand upright ; 
 
 He felt the shadow of a fear, 
 
 In truth, as well he might — 
 
 A fear which loosened not his joints, 
 
 For he was rather tight. 
 
 And soon there fell another leg, 
 
 The former one to meet ; 
 
 Next came the body, then the head, 
 
 Then all the limbs complete ; 
 
 The total took a ghostly shape 
 That rose upon its feet. 
 
 Awhile the apparition glared 
 As silent as the grave ; 
 
 Then, as if satisfied at length, 
 
 A spectral smile he gave, 
 
 And muttered in metallic voice, 
 
 “ I see that thou art brave !” 
 
 “ My courage,” answered John, “ I’ve proved 
 In many a desperate scene ; 
 
 Who buys it for a sixpence now 
 Gets sold himself, I ween.” 
 
 “ Thou served’st the king,” the spectre groaned, 
 “ He served thee — devilish mean !” 
 
JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 43 
 
 “ But follow me and thou shalt see 
 That I can amply pay 
 The man that carries out my wish 
 In one particular way.” 
 
 The soldier, Bacchus ne’er so drunk, 
 Rose, reeling, to obey. 
 
 His ghostly guide led on and sought 
 The cellar’s deepest shade, 
 
 Where, after a few minutes’ thought, 
 He turned about and said : 
 
 “ How, valiant soldier, doff thy coat 
 And dig here with a spade.” 
 
 “ Dig there yourself,” the soldier said ; 
 
 “ I’ll serve no ghost like you.” 
 Thereat the spectre took the spade, 
 And hard to work he flew ; 
 
 And from the excavation made 
 Three wooden boxes drew. 
 
 “ This box,” he said, “ is full of bread 
 On which the poor shall feast, 
 
 And this is filled with silver coins ; 
 
 Go, give them to the priest, 
 
 That he from purgatorial pains 
 May get my soul released. 
 
 “ But this last box,” continued he, 
 
 “ Is full of solid gold. 
 
 It shall he thine, with all the estate 
 Which I in life controlled, 
 
 If thou accomplish faithfully 
 The things which I have told.” 
 
44 
 
 JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 “That,” answered John, “is something worth ; 
 No effort will I spare. 
 
 A man can move both heaven and earth 
 By means of cash and prayer.” 
 
 The apparition bowed its thanks 
 And melted into air. 
 
 The soldier did as he was bid, 
 
 And worked the soul’s release ; 
 
 Then, blessed with plenty and content, 
 
 He passed his days in peace, 
 
 And saw his worldly heritage 
 From year to year increase. 
 
 Now ill the realms of endless night, 
 
 There was among the rest 
 
 A very cunning demon-sprite 
 Whom Satan loved the best ; 
 
 He saw his sovereign’s downcast look 
 And soon the cause he guessed. 
 
 “ My liege,” said he, “ you’re grieved, I see, 
 And I suspect the cause ; 
 
 ’Tis that vile soldier, who has dared 
 To counteract your laws. 
 
 I only wait for your command 
 Without a saving clause !” 
 
 This pleased the master-devil well, 
 
 And for it he agreed 
 
 To teach his favorite all the arts 
 By which the great succeed ; 
 
 He praised his pluck, he wished him luck 
 And sent him off with speed. 
 
JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 45 
 
 The soldier in his spacious hall 
 Was seated, when came in 
 With swaggering air and bristly hair, 
 That graceless spawn of sin, 
 
 Who made his mighty mission known 
 With many a demon grin. 
 
 “ Ah ora hablas,” answered John, 
 
 “ The journey will me suit ! 
 
 But first I’ll go and fetch some wine, 
 
 For thou must needs recruit ; 
 Meanwhile, sit down — regale thyself 
 With this delicious fruit.” 
 
 The sprite obeyed, and stealthily 
 The soldier stepped aside 
 Into his armory and returned 
 With military stride, 
 
 And then “ Into my haversack !” 
 
 With clarion voice he cried. 
 
 As quick as thought, the incubus 
 Was seized by magic force, 
 
 And thought he strove to scratch and bite 
 He could not change his course, 
 
 But in the sack and out of sight 
 His yells grew feebly hoarse. 
 
 Incontinent, the soldier grasped 
 A mallet made of oak 
 And dealt upon the struggling mass 
 With many a vigorous stroke, 
 
 Indeed, he never slacked his hand 
 Till every bone he broke. 
 
JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 When Satan saw his favorite come 
 Al l beaten black and blue, 
 
 His features, always rather dark, 
 Assumed an inky hue ; 
 
 And when he heard the dismal tale, 
 
 No hounds his fury knew. 
 
 Then he resolved to go himself 
 Nor wait a single hour, 
 
 Nor sleep, nor eat, nor drink, but seek 
 For whom he might devour, 
 
 That is, to get the soldier safe 
 Within his vengeful power. 
 
 Now John the Soldier, who was wont 
 To he upon his guard, 
 
 Awaited Lucifer’s approach 
 With every gate unbarred, 
 
 But with his haversack in hand 
 He strolled about the yard. 
 
 When Satan came, the soldier said, 
 
 “ What business brings you here ? 
 Know you that I have served my king 
 And am unknown to fear ? ” 
 
 His darkness, almost blind with rage, 
 Responded with a sneer : 
 
 “ Now shall you serve a mightier prince 
 And get full pay beside.” 
 
 “ Get you into my haversack ! ” 
 
 The valiant soldier cried ; 
 
 And in he went, in double quick, 
 Despite his fiery pride. 
 
JOHN THE SOLDIER. 
 
 47 
 
 And then the soldier swung on high 
 A massive iron club, 
 
 And as the ponderous engine fell 
 ’Twas rough on Beelzebub, 
 
 Whose towering form in little time 
 Was battered to a stub. 
 
 Even as the wine-press crushes out 
 The virtue of the grape, 
 
 The martial mill reduced his rage 
 And let him out the scrape 
 With not a single vestige left 
 Of that majestic shape. 
 
 When dim on Satan’s blood-shot eyes 
 His hot headquarters rose, 
 
 “ Haste, guards,” he cried, “ bolt every door 
 And every loophole close. 
 
 That varlet ne’er shall enter here 
 To trouble my repose ! ” 
 
 And now all Spain this moral learns : 
 
 A man, in word and deed, 
 
 Who from a foeman never turns 
 Or from a friend in need, 
 
 Can close the deepest pit that burns 
 In any churchman’s creed. 
 
48 
 
 A JOYLESS JUNE. 
 
 A JOYLESS JUNE. 
 
 Now when bud and bloom are meeting 
 In the coronet of June, 
 
 Would that I could give her greeting 
 In her own celestial tune. 
 
 Heaven unfolds the choicest drapery 
 For this darling of the year. 
 
 But the pageant looketh vapory 
 
 Yiewed through one remorseful tear. 
 
 For the human panorama 
 
 With its shifting scenes I see. 
 
 I am nothing to the drama ; 
 
 Would it were the same to me. 
 
 Spotless is the water-lily, 
 
 Pure the sweet white rose may blow, 
 
 But to one whose heart is chilly 
 They are flakes of summer-snow. 
 
 0, the frailest is the finest, 
 
 With the maiden as the flower, 
 
 And the light we call divinest 
 Dawns and dies within an hour. 
 
 Yet what marvel, when the ages 
 Cool the suns to sparkless dust, 
 
 If our blood one moment rages, 
 
 And then mantles o’er with rust 1 
 
LOVED AND LOST. 
 
 49 
 
 Beauty fades, love droops his pinion ; 
 
 They are attributes divine : 
 
 Their omnipotent dominion 
 Has been ruinous to mine. 
 
 Thus with Ovid when they stripped him 
 To enjoy the genial heat, 
 
 Till the Scythian winter nipped him 
 And congealed his tears to sleet ! 
 
 LOVED AND LOST. 
 
 [The subjoined songs are attempted translations of three 
 detached interludes in the first part of Goethe’s “Faust,” 
 in which the unhappy Gretchen first desires to know more 
 about the polite stranger, then discloses her love for him 
 and finally deplores i's sad consequences.] 
 
 I. 
 
 BY THE FIRESIDE. 
 
 I would give anything to see, 
 
 Or know where he is now — 
 That gentleman who spoke to me 
 With such a graceful how. 
 
 Refined and noble he must he, 
 ’Tis written on his brow ; 
 
 And yet inclined to he more free 
 Than prudence should allow. 
 
 4 
 
LOVED AND LOST. 
 
 II. 
 
 AT THE WINDOW 
 
 My joy is done, 
 
 My heart is sore, 
 
 My peace is flown 
 To come no more ! 
 
 I loathe the spot — 
 Though once so fair — 
 Where he is not ; 
 
 5 Tis cold and bare. 
 
 My temples ache, 
 They throb so strong. 
 My heart will break 
 With waiting long. 
 
 Against the glass 
 I press my brows 
 To see him pass 
 From out the house. 
 
 His sprightly step 
 I love to mark, 
 
 His manly shape, 
 
 His eyes so dark, 
 
 His words that flow 
 With readiness, 
 
 His smile and oh, 
 
 His fond caress ! 
 
LOVED AND LOST. 
 
 51 
 
 Before he goes 
 I burn, I pine 
 To clasp him close 
 And call him mine ; 
 
 To kiss and kiss 
 And hold him fast, 
 
 And in such bliss 
 To breathe my last ! 
 
 My joy is done, 
 
 My heart is sore, 
 
 My peace is flown 
 Forevermore ! 
 
 III. 
 
 BEFORE AN IMAGE OF THE VIRGIN. 
 
 Thou sinner’s friend, 
 
 In pity bend 
 
 Thine eyes upon a maid undone. 
 
 Thy gentle heart 
 Felt every dart 
 
 That pierced thine agonizing son ! 
 
 In misery lone 
 To heaven’s throne 
 
 What sighs methinks I hear thee send ! 
 But ah, who heeds 
 This heart that bleeds, 
 
 The pains that this poor bosom rend ? 
 
LOVED AND LOST. 
 
 The pangs my soul is feeling, 
 
 The coldness o’er me stealing, 
 
 Thou knowest and thou alone. 
 
 Where’er I go 
 
 What bitter woe 
 
 Bursts forth with every groan ! 
 
 I am — no, not alone ; 
 
 Through weary nights of waking 
 It will not let me sleep ; 
 
 For this my heart is breaking, 
 
 I weep and weep and weep. 
 
 The flower-stand in my window 
 I bathed with tear-drops free, 
 
 When from its blooms this morning 
 I culled a wreath for thee. 
 
 The sun shone in my window ; 
 
 I saw the light with dread, 
 
 For still it found me sitting 
 In sorrow on my bed. 
 
 0 blessed name, 
 
 From death and shame 
 Now save me with thy holy aid ! 
 
 Thou sinner's friend, 
 
 In pity bend 
 
 Thine eyes upon a ruined maid 
 
AT JERICHO. 
 
 53 
 
 AT JERICHO. 
 
 The freestone fane had packed within 
 Its solemn Avails that host to wh om 
 The Lord imputeth ne’er a sin 
 From Adam to the day of doom. 
 
 But they were eager to impute, 
 
 For they had come to persecute 
 Young, tender-footed heresy, 
 
 Who halted at the stumbling-block 
 Of hopeless, endless misery 
 For all except the chosen flock ! 
 
 There tingled to my finger-tips 
 A sense of the Apocalypse : 
 
 The spectacles ablaze with ire — 
 
 A sea of mingled glass and fire — 
 
 The saints with heads as white as wool, 
 The angels with their vials full, 
 
 Slain heresy — the pink of feasts — 
 
 The elders, too, if not the beasts ! 
 
 By friendly aid, a man had reached 
 That place where charity was preached. 
 A wretched creature, lame and blind, 
 Beside the sacred porch reclined 
 That he might turn to good account 
 This new Bethesda’s troubled fount. 
 
 The sky, the earth were lost to him 
 With sightless eyes and shrivelled limb. 
 
54 
 
 AT JERICHO. 
 
 A placard hung upon his breast 
 Was pleading with a mute request, 
 And thus the scrawling legend ran : 
 “ Pity a poor , blind , helpless man !” 
 
 0 satire on our social pride, 
 
 And libel on our art, 
 
 Where charity’s soft cloak is tied 
 Around a stony heart ! 
 
 But those who feel as well as see, 
 Such line becomes for them 
 The “ lesou, eleeson me ” 
 
 Graven on a priceless gem. 
 
 Out where the blessed sunlight shone 
 Linking this footstool with the throne, 
 
 In whose stupendous shade they bowed, 
 Poured forth the dinner-seeking crowd. 
 They trampled past the crippled wretch 
 Who tried his trembling hand to stretch ; 
 With scornful or averted eye 
 Both priest and Levite passed him by. 
 
 I marked them well, but no one lent 
 The Lord that day a single cent ! 
 
 I said — -for I was wicked then 
 
 And loathed the heartlessness of men ; 
 
 And where a poet loves or loathes, 
 
 The one with majesty he clothes, 
 
AT JERICHO. 
 
 55 
 
 The other, with a felon’s garb 
 And pins it with a rankling barb — 
 
 I said : 0 misery’s favorite child, 
 
 Let some one bear you to the wild, 
 
 There while the boughs, like Jonah’s gourd„ 
 A screen from sun and shower afford, 
 
 The clamorous calls of hunger stop 
 With acorns that the squirrels drop, 
 
 Until you muster strength to raise 
 Your voice and cry “ yet forty days !” 
 
 Or if indulgent heaven retract 
 And Nineveh remain intact, 
 
 Then get yourself transported where 
 Some prodigal can hear your prayer. 
 He might be melted into giving 
 The remnant of his riotous living. 
 When he reforms, then go and dine 
 Not on the calf, but with the swine, 
 But waste no precious time in search 
 Of bread beside a freestone church t 
 
56 
 
 DEATH OF LOVELACE. 
 
 DEATH OF LOVELACE. 
 
 [Richard Lovelace, chief of the cavalier poets, was a 
 splendid figure at the court of the unhappy Charles I. His 
 wit, gallantry, and personal attractions made him a general 
 favorite. During the civil war he served his king faithfully 
 and well, for which he was imprisoned by the victorious 
 party. After his release he wandered for a time obscure 
 and friendless. While yet quite young he died in circum- 
 stances of extreme wretchedness. Previous to this, his 
 mistress, Lucy Sacheverell, whom he had celebrated under 
 the name of “Lueasta,” was married to another person, 
 supposing that Lovelace had died in France. His songs, 
 mostly amatory, are remarkable, considering the age, for 
 tenderness and purity of sentiment.] 
 
 Methought I saw him in his last heart-sickness 
 Alone, and heard above the thunder’s roll 
 Those accents clear that gave unwonted quickness 
 To all the swelling currents of my soul. 
 
 That voice — oh ! grandeur once had listened to it, 
 While all the poet’s fervor it expressed ; 
 
 But now a deeper pathos shuddered through it 
 As thus he breathed his latest wish to rest : 
 
 ’Round me the elements in fury waken 
 
 But not like human wrongs my heart they rend. 
 
 To me, degraded, outcast and forsaken, 
 
 To me the trees their sheltering arms extend. 
 
 As some lone bird whose mate has been down-stricken, 
 Nor longer calls him to the widowed nest, 
 
 I’ve strayed, love’s light is gone, the shadows thicken, 
 And I am grown so weary — let me rest. 
 
DEATH OF LOVELACE. 
 
 57 
 
 The morning’s promise now no more can cheer me, 
 Nor sunset’s portent chill me with despair. 
 
 All, all is past, and nothing lingers near me 
 Save the great Presence that is everywhere. 
 
 Here was the desert. One green spot was in it, 
 Towards which my steps irregularly pressed. 
 
 It seemed just now one struggle more might win it, 
 But I am tired and only wish to rest. 
 
 Where are the brilliant honors that attended 
 When gayest ’mid the courtly throng I moved, 
 
 By the most powerful in the realm befriended, 
 
 And by the fairest in the world beloved 1 
 How sad it is to think that when least needed 
 Such lavish kindness paid my lightest jest, 
 
 And now my bitter groans must pass unheeded ! 
 ■Cease, cruel thoughts, and let me sink to rest. 
 
 Is this the hand that, when the clarion sounded 
 To the fierce onset, couched the royal lance 1 
 Is this the heart that in the conflict bounded 
 As eager as the reveller in the dance 1 
 Is this the voice that could our squadrons rally, 
 
 When the grim zealots smote down helm and crest 1 
 Is this the voice that rang through death’s dark valley 
 Now feebly pleading for the hour of rest ? 
 
 Ah, wretched life ! What is it but the action 
 Of drawing, as a task, the painful breath 
 With not one hope, with not one faint attraction 
 To lure my dim eyes from the blank of death 1 
 
58 
 
 DEATH OF LOVELACE. 
 
 No more the lacerated chords of feeling 
 Vibrate with feverish pangs. ’Tis best, ’tis best. 
 The troubled fount of tears is fast congealing 
 Beneath those cold dark clouds — but I must rest. 
 
 Adored Lucasta ! Tenderly and proudly 
 I sang that name once, but my song was weak. 
 
 I’ve taught it to the storms of night, and loudly 
 I’ve heard them call her when I could not speak. 
 She is another’s, yet she did not leave me ; 
 
 ’Twas fate forbade that we should be so blest. 
 
 I must no more lament. It could bereave me 
 Of every hope save that of final rest. 
 
 Ah ! this will be no fitful slumber, giving 
 One moment’s opiate to recurring pain — 
 
 The ebb and flow of anguish ever living 
 In a crushed heart and madly throbbing brain. 
 
 Yet might I, ere this icy languor bound me, 
 
 Repose my head upon her faithful breast 
 
 And feel once more love shed its dews around me — 
 
 No matter — I am weary and must rest. 
 
 Blow on, rude winds. You cannot make me shiver. 
 Why, they have changed their howling tone of fear 
 To dulcet sounds as of a flowing river ! 
 
 And whence is that strange melody I hear 1 
 What lovely star is that ? Can mortal seeing 
 Transpierce the shade that does these orbs invest 1 
 Dim earth, farewell. Forget I e’er had being. 
 
 Dear Christ, forgive and take me to thy rest ! 
 
EUTHANASIA. 
 
 59 
 
 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 i. 
 
 When the cup of my years shall be broken by death, 
 
 And life tremble frail on the last parting breath — 
 
 A period I would not delay — 
 
 Let those be around me whose love I have known, 
 
 Too kind to disturb with a tear or a groan 
 My soul as it passes away. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The lamp, ere expiring, more brightly awakes. 
 
 The lyre, when o’ermastered by transport, it breaks, 
 Rings out in sublimest of tones. 
 
 The swan looks to heaven and sings as she dies ; 
 
 But man, only man, casts behind him his eyes 
 And numbers past moments with groans. 
 
 hi. 
 
 Oh ! what are those days that ye wail for them so ? 
 
 The joyous too fleet and the grievous too slow, 
 
 And all with deception abound. 
 
 I never took root in the soil that ye mourn, 
 
 The flower is laid low but no fibres are torn, 
 
 And no echoes of ruin resound. 
 
60 
 
 EUTHANASIA. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It never disturbs my composure to know 
 That the spirit of life to its author I owe, 
 
 That my body is due to the dust. 
 
 And when nature shall call me to pay the last debt 
 Let me cheerfully answer. Who pays with regret 
 Is surely unworthy the trust. 
 
 v. 
 
 Yet not like a hireling who labors his day, 
 
 While his fraudulent thought is employed but to pray 
 For the quick going down of the sun; 
 
 I would honestly, faithfully finish the piece 
 hTor long for dismissal, nor ask for release 
 Till the work I was born for is done. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But the every-day objects of envy and strife, 
 
 The hopes, the desires and the pleasures of life 
 All, all could I gladly resign, 
 
 Save of spirits congenial the intercourse sweet, 
 
 The tremulous sigh and the amorous beat 
 Of a bosom pressed warm against mine. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Ah ! yes, on the young blooming cheek to behold 
 The innocent blush the soft secret unfold, 
 
 And from lips so inviting to hear 
 That murmur which thrills through the regions above, 
 Sweet music to mortals and angels — I love. — 
 
 Death, spare a remembrance so dear. 
 
EUTHANASIA. 
 
 61 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Yet needless that prayer ; for the stars which survey 
 A flame so divinely informing the clay 
 Absorb those delectable sighs, 
 
 And sound them forever in raptures refined, 
 
 Inaudible but to the purfied mind 
 
 When it follows them up to the skies. 
 
 IX. 
 
 My soul drank in love when existence was new, 
 
 And then the emotions within me that grew 
 Instinctively burst into voice. 
 
 Thus a bird ’mid the branches, all carelessly rocked, 
 When the wide-flaming portals of morn are unlocked 
 By nature is taught to rejoice. 
 
 x. 
 
 How oft when a child, on a summer day bright, 
 
 Have I lain as immerged in a sea of delight 
 Where the rushes waved over my rest. 
 
 And my thoughts and my gaze floated up through the 
 skies 
 
 With infinite searching, till, closing my eyes, 
 
 I could see the abodes of the blest. 
 
 XI. 
 
 An ri yet I recall when my joy was intense 
 In all I beheld, it was dimmed by a sense 
 Of some brief indescribable gloom ; 
 
 As when from the sunny cerulean deeps, 
 
 Though hut for a moment some cloud-shadow sweeps 
 O’er a field in its undulant bloom. 
 
62 
 
 BAHAMAS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 I ask not, I care not to leave a great name. 
 
 Whose life is engrossed by the worship of fame 
 Has beyond it no brighter reward. 
 
 What recks the young eagle when proudly he wings 
 Towards the full-blazing sun, if the shadow he flings 
 Be traced on earth’s mutable sward ? 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Inscribe not a line o’er my last low abode, 
 
 Nor prison my dust ’neath a monument’s load ; 
 
 On the mound in the stillness of even 
 Enough that some loved one may piously kneel, 
 
 And blest in that humble position, may feel 
 Much nearer to me and to heaven. 
 
 BAHAMAS. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY THE FREQUENT SHIPWRECKS, ACCIDENTAL 
 AND OTHERWISE, ON THOSE ISLANDS. 
 
 Vexed is the shipman’s way 
 ’Mid the Bahamas gay. 
 
 Sea-tigers, sharp for prey 
 ’Neath the blue surface, 
 
 Growling, oft rise and rip 
 Open the staunchest ship. 
 
 Men of the ashen lip, 
 
 Ere the salt death ye sip, 
 
 Oh could ye only skip 
 Where the green turf is ! 
 
BAHAMAS. 
 
 63 
 
 Oft through the din and dark 
 Scuddeth the naked bark, 
 
 As from the pirate-shark 
 Elieth the dolphin. 
 
 Nor can her course be checked 
 Though her pale crew expect 
 Soon to he wholly wrecked, 
 Where the hoarse reefs project, 
 Which the waves, foam-beflecked, 
 Dig a death-gulf in ! 
 
 Many a gallant band 
 Under approved command 
 Stick at a bank of sand, 
 
 Ere they can make that land 
 Tropic and curious ; 
 
 Land of melado butts, 
 Dotted with coolie huts, 
 Dappled with cocoanuts, 
 Seamed with volcano-ruts, 
 Where the Hidalgo struts, 
 Grave yet luxurious. 
 
 Oft in the mazy strait, 
 
 Master and only mate 
 Lose both their ship and freight, 
 Then by their wretched state 
 Prove their endurance. 
 
 Nobly poor Jack behaves 
 Rafting o’er coral-caves, 
 
64 
 
 BAHAMAS. 
 
 Calm while the tempest raves, 
 Knowing some landsman saves 
 From the englutting waves 
 All the insurance. 
 
 Often the narrow track 
 Windeth with jibe and tack 
 As a man playeth back- 
 Gammon or checkers. 
 
 Then when the keel is stuck, 
 Ere the pumps fail to suck, 
 Ere the bunts in they tuck 
 Cometh the captain’s luck 
 In a good bargain struck 
 With the bold wreckers. 
 
 Hear from our captain’s lip, — 
 Saved from the oozy drip, 
 Saved on a floating chip — 
 
 All his last luckless trip, 
 
 “ Some one was Joner.” 
 Such is the captain’s tale 
 Cool as a water-pail. 
 
 But the truth will prevail : 
 
 In that same wrecking sale 
 There was an ancient whale 
 Took in his owner ! 
 
JUSTICE. 
 
 65 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 ’Tis well when true desert is crowned with praise 
 And gratitude the heartxfelt tribute pays, 
 
 Whate’er the form in which it may appear, 
 
 Thrill from the tongue or sparkle in a tear, 
 
 Or, ere the impulse cool to stiff design, 
 
 Pour all its pathos in the flowing line. 
 
 What pride we feel in him whose matchless tongue 
 The knell of tottering despotism rung, 
 
 In those heroic days when thought and speech 
 Taught many a lesson arms could never teach. 
 
 Such men are not to any land confined, 
 
 They spoke for me and you and all mankind. 
 
 Now when the shallow, factious demagogue 
 Forgets the ninth clause of the Decalogue, 
 
 And when his party, in some luckless hour, 
 
 Leap o’er the bounds of decency to power, 
 
 And teach a servile press, that parrot brood, 
 
 To chirp laudations, while they gape for food, 
 What breast but feels, from slavishness exempt, 
 
 A hatred equalled only by contempt ? 
 
 Oh did the laws but hold to justice strict 
 And for each crime due penalty inflict, 
 
 The men, who bolstering up a party name, 
 
 Live by their heads, should perish by the same ! 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 INVOCATION. 
 
 INVOCATION. 
 
 Ye shades of those who graced the olden time, 
 
 And breathed the air of wit’s inspiring clime, 
 Return once more, if Pluto’s iron gate 
 Permit transition to a sadder state — 
 
 Charon for you his stranded barge would launch ; 
 Your wreath outshines the Trojan’s golden branch — 
 Return, and viewing with astonished eyes, 
 
 What talents lead, what merits win the prize, 
 
 Tell us, if in some spheres of great pretence, 
 
 (The sure concomitant of little sense) 
 
 The gold of learning has not run to dross 
 And glitters but with superficial gloss. 
 
 Methinks the Stagyrite would view with pain 
 His lore neglected, treated with disdain, 
 
 Or blindly heaped upon a barren brain. 
 
 Even Maro’s mildness would entirely yield 
 To see how lean a herd profane his field, 
 
 Esteem themselves the master of his best, 
 
 And sadly mangle more than they digest ! 
 
ODE TO IGNORANCE. 
 
 67 
 
 ODE TO IGNORANCE. 
 
 A winged yet plumeless creature, like the bat, 
 Begot of night ; 
 
 Erring as much on this side as on that, 
 
 For want of light, 
 
 In daytime oft ’neath some pretentious hat 
 Close hid from sight. 
 
 Bold sprite ! not always does it fix its nest 
 ’Neath humble eaves ; 
 
 But oft to mitre, coronet and crest 
 It firmly cleaves. 
 
 And over many and many a Sunday’s vest 
 A film it weaves. 
 
 The antiquarians know not when ’twas hatched. 
 You lift the screen 
 
 When some time-honored systems are unthatched ; 
 And I have seen 
 
 Its foot-prints on some modern records scratched, 
 Not far between. 
 
 Will not the critics, calmly looking on 
 With sight less blurred, 
 
 Swear that the bat throughout my lines has gone 
 O’er every word, — 
 
 And what I took to be a rare white swan 
 Was that same bird ? 
 
68 
 
 ODE TO IGNORANCE. 
 
 It may be so. But what is done is done 
 And past repair. 
 
 My atmosphere henceforward it shall shun 
 If all the glare 
 
 Of classic light from Pentheus’ double sun 
 The fowl can scare. 
 
 I do not like its note — a grating pipe 
 Not half so clear 
 
 As that with which the flushed short-wheeling snipe 
 Salutes the ear, 
 
 And which the autumn-tide serene and ripe, 
 
 Has rendered dear. 
 
 Oh let it flit forever whence it came — 
 
 Where darkness dwells, 
 
 Where superstition, ancient wrinkled dame, 
 Her legends tells ; 
 
 Where bigotry on every other name 
 Some brimstone smells 
 
 And dire old discord drowns the trump of fame 
 With Thracian yells ! 
 
TO A FASTIDIOUS MAID. 
 
 69 
 
 TO A FASTIDIOUS MAID. 
 
 They tell me, dear girl, of the vine 
 That however propitious the skies, 
 Unless ’round support it can twine, 
 
 It trails on the gravel and dies. 
 
 So woman, the animal grape, 
 
 When she turns from her natural trust, 
 Can scarcely expect to escape 
 
 Going downward unpressed to the dust. 
 
 In the sentinel glance of your eye 
 
 There is fire, when your anger is hot ; 
 But it makes little cupid fight shy 
 For fear that himself should be shot. 
 
 Nor can the vain flourish of art 
 For the absence of candor atone ; 
 
 And if e’er you would capture a heart 
 You must learn to surrender your own. 
 
70 
 
 OUR TORQUEMADA. 
 
 OUR TORQUEMADA. 
 
 T. D. T. 
 
 Upon that brow so high yet meek, 
 Upon that never-smiling cheek, 
 Upon those lips ordained to speak 
 The living word, 
 
 Intolerance, with one grimy streak, 
 God’s image blurred. 
 
 And now the heretic must quake 
 Like poor Servetus at the stake, 
 When for his heavenly master’s sake, 
 John thought it good 
 To start a sacrificial hake 
 
 With green hardwood.* 
 
 * I am not sure that there was any ti uth in the report, 
 long current, that green wood was used in the burning of 
 Servetus, in order to prolong his agony. 
 
THE TWO MONARCHS. 
 
 71 
 
 THE TWO MONARCHS. 
 
 THE SAD RENCONTRE OF CHARLES VI. OF FRANCE. 
 
 A king on a progress was heading his train 
 All clad in their armor and gear ; 
 
 And they rode, and they rode till they came to a plain 
 With a thick grove of cypresses near. 
 
 Out of this rushed a man, most gigantic in size, 
 Coal-black from his head to his feet, 
 
 And visible but to his majesty’s eyes, 
 
 Made haste the procession to meet. 
 
 He spoke — and his voice had that musical ring 
 Which by cloud-splitting thunder is made — 
 
 Halt, there ! Whither ridest thou, miserable king ? 
 Turn back, thou art foully betrayed ! 
 
 That moment a page dropped his lance to the ground, 
 Having fallen asleep on his steed, 
 
 And the monarch felt sure that its glean and its sound 
 Were the signals that doomed him to bleed. 
 
 In the blindness of fury he turned himself hack, 
 
 And a dozen or so of his hand, 
 
 As fast and as fierce as his sabre could hack, 
 
 He laid low with a very high hand. 
 
 They finally hound him and got him confined 
 To make him less rash in his ways, 
 
 And thus, in a dungeon and out of his mind, 
 
 He lingered the rest of his days. 
 
72 
 
 THE POETIC ART. 
 
 Then soon, like a swarm that has lost its queen-bee, 
 The nation was totally dazed, 
 
 Till an enemy landed from over the sea 
 And his standard triumphantly raised. 
 
 ’Twas the sovereign of Hades — so runs the romance — 
 Who came from the grove and o’erthrew 
 The mind of that popular sovereign of France, 
 
 Because he was honest and true. 
 
 Things have changed. If His Darkness has ever been 
 To ruin earth’s royalty since, [known 
 
 ’Twas because, like the Turk, he could bear near the 
 Ho rival in monarch or prince. [throne 
 
 THE POETIC ART. 
 
 pounded on Horace’s famous letter to the pisos. 
 
 I am going to give some poetic advice 
 And each son of the muses should think of it twice 
 Ere he writes his first line, if his name he would carve 
 On the column of fame when his time comes to starve ! 
 
 Suppose that a painter his canvas should spread 
 And sketch you a fine looking feminine head, 
 
 But, neglecting to follow a natural course, 
 
 Should fashion the neck like to that of a horse 
 
THE POETIC ART. 
 
 73 
 
 And finish his picture by grouping together 
 Some parts of most creatures of fur, scale and feather, 
 Until the fair face he had skilfully put 
 At the top, has the tail of a fish for the foot. 
 
 Though his colors were faultlessly toned and refined, 
 You would think the poor painter was out of his mind. 
 A work so prodigious would soon be pulled down, 
 
 And sold for a carpet-mat miles out of town. 
 
 Yet believe me, a picture like that, is no worse— 
 
 Nay, not half so bad as those efforts in verse, 
 
 Where the author, no matter how fairly he starts, 
 Neglects the judicious relation of parts, 
 
 But jumbles ideas from farthest extremes 
 Incoherent and wild as a lunatic’s dreams, 
 
 So that unity nowhere appears to prevail 
 
 And the whole, as we say, is without head or tail. 
 
 The line may be flowing, high-colored and sweet 
 And the measure as light as a ballet-girl's feet ; 
 
 ’Tis a failure, for taste can more safely dispense 
 With harmonious sound than harmonious sense. 
 
 “ Ah but,” says some rhymer, “ the whole world agrees 
 That poets and painters may try what they please, 
 
 And the standard of taste very often permits 
 The wildest attempts as original hits.” 
 
 I know it. That license I freely allow ; 
 
 I use it sometimes ; I am using it now, 
 
 But never to such an unbridled extent 
 That incongruous things are commingled and blent ; 
 An d whatever my freedom, I’m careful to keep 
 The hawks from the doves and the wolves from the 
 
 [sheep. 
 
74 
 
 THE POETIC ART. 
 
 Very oft, to beginnings for grandeur unmatched, 
 
 One or two flashy fragments are awkwardly patched, 
 For the purpose of making a show this is done — 
 
 It succeeds, but the show is a ludicrous one. 
 
 From the top of Olympus where thunder-clouds frown. 
 On a spiritless pinion the muse flutters down, 
 
 Then flies to the shady retreats of the grove 
 To hide from the presence of all-seeing Jove, 
 
 With a modesty greater but vainer than Eve’s, 
 
 For her nakedness shows through the kirtle of leaves. 
 Or else she aspiringly puts forth her power 
 To catch at the ribbon that binds up the shower — 
 That is, at the rainhow, which fades in a wink, 
 
 Like the best of its glories when painted in ink. 
 
 One more illustration : The fault to my mind, 
 
 Is like that of a potter who, having designed 
 And started to model a five-gallon jug, 
 
 Keeps tapering off till he turns out a mug, — - 
 A vessel in which we can never confide, 
 
 For its heart is too small, and its mouth is too wide. 
 Now this is the moral — your subject should suit 
 Your abilities first, be they grand or minute ; 
 
 Then your poem will take with the public, no doubt, 
 If ’tis uniform, pointed and simple throughout. 
 
 There remains for most poets a great source of bother j, 
 By shunning one fault, we fall into another. 
 
 Now I often strive to come right to the point, 
 
 But as oft, put some metrical foot out of joint. 
 
 Another one aims at grace, smoothness and ease 
 And lands on stupidity’s lowest degrees ; 
 
THE POETIC ART. 
 
 75 
 
 While a third may attempt the sublime and the vast, 
 And sink out of sight in a stream of bombast. 
 Whoever is hound to produce something rare 
 To make all his readers in wonderment stare, 
 
 Will portray you a dolphin at sport ’mong the trees 
 And a herd of wild hoars roaming over the seas. 
 
 Care cannot atone for the absence of skill 
 But unperceived blunders will hamper you still. 
 
 Yet sometimes a poet egregiously fails 
 By exhausting his skill upon minor details, 
 
 When the trifles appear overloaded with art 
 At the glaring expense of some weightier part. 
 
 A sculptor, at work on the marble so hard, 
 
 If he mind not proportion, resembles that bard. 
 
 On the block without form his commencement is fair. 
 Imitating from life every curl of the hair, 
 
 And making, with asinine instinct, appear 
 The fine convolutions that lurk in the ear ; 
 
 Yet going astray from the rules of proportion, 
 
 His work is a monster, if not an abortion : 
 
 The features ill-formed, or but poorly assorted, 
 
 A soulless expression, a posture distorted, 
 
 The figure thrown into that elegant pose 
 
 Of the shape set in cornfields to frighten the crows ; 
 
 A goblin sufficiently horrid to scare 
 
 The scavenger-birds which but darken the air, 
 
 Then who can describe how the effigy harrows 
 The fluttering souls of the dear little sparrows ? 
 Remarkable beauty all eyes will attract, — 
 
 A remarkable blemish the same way will act ; 
 
76 
 
 THE POETIC ART. 
 
 Yet I’d rather be gazed at and theme for remark 
 On account of my eyes being piercingly dark, 
 
 Than to be mid a mixed crowd of friends and of foes, 
 Conspicuous but for my prominent nose. 
 
 If your genius would shine like a new farthing candle, 
 Your theme should be one you can easily handle ; 
 Then ponder it duly and cogitate deep 
 And long, never giving your eye-lids to sleep 
 Till you have in your mind, all as clear as the day, 
 
 The least little image that comes into play ; 
 
 Thus you ne’er will be brought to the end of your wits 
 In search of some phrase or expression that fits. 
 
 The only legitimate way to secure 
 A style that is beautiful, pleasing and pure — 
 
 Unless I am greatly one side of my text — 
 
 Is to bind every thought to the one that comes next 
 All witty conceits that come into your head 
 But have no connection with what is just said, 
 
 Though still kept in view, put them off till the time 
 When reason demands them as well as the rhyme. 
 
 The author of verse that is fit to be heard 
 Will be almost fastidious in choosing each word. 
 
 The counterfeit j ingle his ear must detect 
 Before he can properly choose and reject. 
 
 The rule must be absolute : put ’neath your feet 
 The cant of the clubs and the slang of the street ; 
 
 And though words of your coining had better be few. 
 Make the old ones, if possible, shine as if new : 
 
IN EXILE SONG. 
 
 77 
 
 IN EXILE. 
 
 As the exile may wistfully gaze o’er the ocean 
 
 That rolls between him and the land he holds dear,, 
 And forget, in that moment of rising emotion, 
 
 The thoughts that oppress him hy being too near. 
 
 So when dreams, as if bright from some former existence 
 That had in this dull state of being no part, 
 
 Crowd on me from out the unspeakable distance, 
 
 The things of to-day cannot enter my heart. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 What warring thoughts disturb my rest 
 Two wishes may reveal : 
 
 That you were mine, or that this breast 
 Were tempered hard as steel. 
 
 The strong emotions that arise 
 No promise bring to me, 
 
 But only waste themselves in sighs 
 For that which ne’er can he. 
 
 Whatever joy our loves impart 
 ’Tis not unmixed with pain ; 
 
 For nothing soothes the restless heart 
 Where every hope is vain. 
 
 And yet to chide the dream away 
 Would give a pang more deep, 
 
 As flowers which languish ’neath the day 
 At day’s departure weep. 
 
78 
 
 A FEAST OF FAT THINGS. 
 
 A FEAST OF FAT THINGS. 
 
 AN ALLEGORY. 
 
 The tailors made a feast one day 
 As gay as gay can be ; 
 
 And ninety-nine sat down to dine 
 On the ham of a roasted flea. 
 
 Now when they had discussed the feast 
 They felt their legs grow nimble ; 
 
 The ninety-nine poured out their wine 
 And drank it from a thimble. 
 
 Then full of music in themselves, 
 Without the violin’s tweedle, 
 
 The ninety-nine danced on the fine 
 Steel point of a cambric needle. 
 
 When night was somewhat past its noon 
 They did the curtain draw ; 
 
 And the ninety-nine slept all in a line 
 Upon a single straw. 
 
 But in the middle of their dreams 
 A mouse beside them plumped ; 
 
 The ninety-nine asked aid divine 
 And through the key-hole jumped ! 
 
NOVA SCOTIA. 
 
 79 
 
 NOVA SCOTIA. 
 
 O land of the mayflower and birch 
 
 Where my sires paid their homage to God 
 
 What time neither schoolhouse or church 
 Bestudded the wilderness broad, 
 
 With Britain supreme in their thought, 
 
 They heeded no danger nor toil ; 
 
 And the tenderest affection they brought 
 Took root in thy stoniest soil. 
 
 How simple, how few the delights 
 They found in this tenantless coast ; 
 
 Yet the land of Arabian Nights 
 
 Not deeper contentment could boast. 
 
 They faced with a Puritan ( psalm 
 The roughest encounters of life, 
 
 And bore in their bosoms a calm 
 
 Through the winds and the waters at strife. 
 
 Their shades may look down from above 
 Forgiving the worst I have done ; 
 
 But the moment I fail thee in love 
 Let them curse their degenerate son. 
 
 Though winter may scowl on thee rude 
 And summer be fickle at times, 
 
 Thy children, with vigor endued, 
 
 Never envy the sun-gilded climes. 
 
80 
 
 NOVA SCOTIA. 
 
 And wherever distinction is sought, 
 
 Though boldly and widely they roam, 
 
 Their sweetest and holiest thought 
 Is when they are dreaming of home. 
 
 Of the pure azure sky overhead, 
 
 Of the close-knitted sward ’neath the feet, — 
 Of the glistening waters outspread — 
 
 Has earth any picture more sweet? 
 
 Of the fragrance afloat on the breeze 
 When daylight began to decline, 
 
 Of the hand that it thrilled you to squeeze — 
 Has heaven any joy more divine ? 
 
 Ah no ! to the end of my days, 
 
 Though I stray to the ends of the earth, 
 
 My song and my prayer and my praise 
 Shall be for the land of my birth. 
 
 I behold thee when fairest thou art 
 With a lover’s devotion and pride, 
 
 And the climate ne’er changes the heart 
 Ever warm with a patriot tide. 
 
 E’en the deep’s unmelodious tunes, 
 
 When the crags with the storm-echoes rang,, 
 Always had the brave dash of the runes 
 That Thorfinn, saluting thee, sang. 
 
 Neither title nor lordly domain 
 With vassalage cumbers thy soil, 
 
 But the forest, the mine and the plain 
 Present thee the tribute of toil. 
 
NOVA SCOTIA. 
 
 81 
 
 And. here where the storm-braving cape 
 Reaches out its white arms to the sea, 
 Old Proteus puts on the shape 
 Of a ministering angel to thee. 
 
 Since Delos called over the deep 
 To the farthest Ionian glen, 
 
 Even life has been reckoned more cheap 
 Than honor, with maritime men. 
 
 Hova Scotia, the home of the fair 
 As well as the land of the brave, 
 Those bards fable not who declare 
 That Venus is horn of the wave. 
 
 Dear land, may the years as they roll 
 Still view thy just fortunes increase* 
 Placed under no harsher control 
 
 Than that which give freedom and peace. 
 
 And may thy inherited tongue 
 
 Which encircles this planet with fame, 
 
 In leaving no virtue unsung, 
 
 With its trinmphs commingle thy name. 
 
82 
 
 SONG. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 i. 
 
 And didst thou think I could forget 
 Or lightly hold the past ? 
 
 .No — till my latest sun shall set 
 One mem’ry fond must last. 
 
 ii. 
 
 ’Tis of a visionary dream 
 That blest my gayest hours, 
 
 But vanished like the solar beam 
 When some black tempest lowers. 
 
 in. 
 
 If only I had cause to mourn, 
 
 I might have found relief, 
 
 But severed hearts have ne’er outworn 
 The sense of mutual grief. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It haunts me ’mid the faithless crowd, 
 And when I’m all alone ; 
 
 And even in my laughter loud, 
 
 I start to hear its tone. 
 
 v. 
 
 The glow of early passion o’er 
 Has left a withered trace, 
 
 Time never can the one restore, — 
 
 The other ne’er efface. 
 
THE CONTRAST. 
 
 83 
 
 THE CONTRAST. 
 
 Though I mingle with all that is mirthful and bright, 
 I am treading the wine-press alone ; 
 
 And the bubbles are dancing delusively light 
 O’er a heart that is heavy as stone. 
 
 How painful the cup, blushing warm to the brim, 
 Contrasts with the colorless lips ! 
 
 Its spaikle relumes not a world that is dim 
 'Neath a darkly-foreboding eclipse. 
 
 Yet calmly the two-fold affliction I bear 
 When the happy around me rejoice ; 
 
 It rends me to stifle the groan of despair 
 And to counterfeit merriment’s voice. 
 
 O God ! ’tis the bottomless bathos of woe 
 When the hour, that should offer relief 
 
 To a life of depression, is false in its show 
 And increases the burden of grief ! 
 
 But small is the aid that repining can bring, 
 
 Let me set my teeth hard and defy 
 
 The damnably double-edged torture to wring 
 From its victim a tear or a sigh. 
 
84 
 
 chatterton’s picture. 
 
 GHATTEBTONS PICTURE. 
 
 That marvellous ooy t 
 
 The sleepless soul that perished in his pride.— Wordsworth, 
 
 Those features bear no stamp of grief, 
 
 No token that this world’s annoy 
 Had fastened on so fair a leaf 
 Its infant promise to destroy. 
 
 And yet sharp misery effaced 
 That beauty, tender as a girl’s, 
 
 Ere time, with all his envious haste, 
 
 Had touched the wealth of graceful curls. 
 
 0 genius in its brightest blaze 
 
 Too early quenched ! The pitying tears 
 That consecrate this moment’s gaze 
 Outnumber far his sum of years. 
 
 Clear-visioned boy of passions blind, 
 
 It cannot make men love him less 
 To search their colder hearts and find 
 What gave his own its bitterness. 
 
 Yolcanic hursts of feeling shook 
 All, all but mad ungoverned pride 
 Which settled to that savage look 
 By death forever petrified. 
 
 0 ruin lamentably rash 
 
 Presaged in many a line of fire, 
 
 As meteors through the heavens flash 
 The light which dooms them to expire ! 
 
REFLECTIONS OF FAUST. 
 
 85 
 
 REFLECTIONS O F FA UST. 
 
 Thrice welcome twilight, soft and sweet ! 
 Along yon distant grassy slope 
 
 Romance might stray with eager feet 
 Bright with the dews of hope. 
 
 But thou, from passion long estranged, 
 What brings thee to this sacred spot ? 
 
 Unhappy Faust ! thou art so changed 
 I recognise thee not. 
 
 The mighty breath of love has mixed 
 Thy sky with dead emotion’s dust. 
 
 Gods ! is the mind I deemed so fixed 
 The sport of every gust ? 
 
 What frailty rules in every state ! 
 
 A village maid I chance to meet — 
 
 The heart which would not bend to fate 
 Bows down even at her feet ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 Could that to me one pleasure bring 
 Which caused a guileless being shame 1 
 
 For am I not that cursed thing, 
 
 Without repose, without an aim, 
 
 Which, like the torrent, to and fro 
 Is bounding to the abyss below ? 
 
86 
 
 A ROMAN MODEL. 
 
 And she, the innocent and pure, 
 
 Who sheltered in this valley, dwells 
 Within her little world secure, 
 
 Though near to where the torrent swells — 
 
 Could I, abhorred of man and heaven, 
 Invade her happy dwelling-place, 
 And all its peace forever riven, 
 
 Plunge her in misery and disgrace 1 
 
 Help, devil ! lend your influence, 
 Whate’er the end, it cannot be 
 Worse than this tenible suspense — 
 Ruin to her or death to me ! 
 
 A ROMAN MODEL. 
 
 Horace, who lived a thousand years or so 
 Before the date of spelling-books and rhyme, 
 
 In a most pleasing picture lets us know 
 
 How schools were managed in that olden time. 
 When Roman urchins, yet too weak to climb 
 The tree of knowledge, sat and sucked their thumbs, 
 The bland preceptor, working on the prime 
 Incentive whence all human effort comes, 
 
 Coaxed out their latent taste with sugar-cake and plums ! 
 
A ROMAN MODEL. 
 
 87 
 
 The world’s young conquerors, on their patent slates — 
 
 Those tiny poplar slabs rubbed smooth with wax 
 
 Then formed their tu’s and piece’s, aut’s and ait’s 
 Without the pressure of a grinding tax, 
 
 Without the stimulus of constant whacks ; 
 
 For rods were things as yet that only served 
 To lash the handle of the lictor’s axe, 
 
 Yet not one tyro from his tablet swerved 
 
 And not a rule was broke and not a spine was curved. 
 
 Dear nature tutors not with birchen twigs ; 
 
 The chubby Flaccus* in his leafy nook, 
 
 Where stock-doves strewed his sleep with myrtle-sprigs, 
 Learned wonders from the universal book. 
 
 And then young Maro, with his maiden look, 
 
 At morn conversing with the oaks and rills, 
 
 Or piping till the hazel copses shook 
 With tremulous joy to hear his graceful trills — 
 
 Oh, give me such a field, and take your Seven Hills ! 
 
 These are the days of culture and of art 
 Wherein we make a pictured paper prize 
 The object of ambition from the start, 
 
 For which the aspirant must sacrifice 
 His native freshness and his natural eyes, 
 
 And take his view of things through Laurance’lenses — 
 
 A sad mistake, which he will realise 
 When the vain building of a life commences 
 On ten half-sciences and only four poor senses. 
 
 * Quintus Horatius Flaccus and Publius Virgilius Mars 
 are known to English readers by their Frenchified names of 
 Horace and Virgil respectively. 
 
88 
 
 A ROMAN MODEL. 
 
 How oft the regent of a brazen globe 
 On the hard pan of human dulness toils 
 With patience near akin to that of Job 
 When sore beleaguered by a host of boils. 
 
 But all that learning’s dry machinery oils 
 He rigorously places under ban 
 
 And his young charge methodically spoils 
 On Wordsworth’s — or somebody else’s plan — 
 Maintaining that “ the child is father to the man.” 
 
 And so he strives to make its head turn gray, 
 
 But will the little slips mature the faster 
 For being compelled to sit six hours a day 
 Just like their grandsires — cut in alabaster? 
 
 I tell you nay. The prim, pretentious master, 
 
 So slow to comprehend, so dull to feel, 
 
 Would best be placed where he could teach the Shaster, 
 And see the sucklings by fanatic zeal 
 Thrown out to Jagarnath and crushed beneath his 
 
 [wheel ! 
 
ODE TO PANDORA. 
 
 89 
 
 ODE TO PANDORA. 
 
 O lovely prototype of all 
 Who murder with the eye, 
 
 Which, if it pierce not like a ball, 
 Most fatally can pry ; 
 
 When A ulcan forged the pretty box 
 In which thy gifts were hid, 
 
 He should have furnished double locks 
 To fasten down the lid.* 
 
 But thou didst wantonly unpack 
 Disease’s baleful train, 
 
 All aches and ills that cramp and rack 
 The limbs, the heart, the brain. 
 
 And in the most persistent shapes 
 They spread, increase and rage ; 
 
 'There’s scarcely one in ten escapes 
 In this progressive age. 
 
 They love the loftiest of the race, — 
 ’Tis proved beyond a doubt 
 
 By many a dignitary’s pace 
 Undignified by gout. 
 
 *In the Greek fable, the gods sent presents to Pandora, 
 ^with strict injunctions not to open the box containing thetn. 
 Overcome by curiosity, she disobeyed orders, and thus let 
 loose all the evils which have since afflicted mankind. 
 
90 
 
 STORM-STANZAS. 
 
 Yet thy pernicious brood of ills, 
 Diffused through earth and air, 
 To antidotal drugs and pills 
 Is hut a small affair. 
 
 The city walls, the desert stones 
 Bear testimony true, 
 
 And monumental piles of bones 
 Might rise in witness, too. 
 
 Pandora, nullify thy curse 
 By this one saving clause : 
 
 Shut every quack within a hearse 
 And win the world’s applause ! 
 
 STORM-STANZAS. 
 
 Let the pedant pore over the page scientific, 
 
 Or seek his delight in some angular form ; 
 
 But oh ! let me study that grand hieroglyphic 
 
 That’s writ in the stars and pronounced by the storm. 
 
 Away with the lessons of midnight instilling 
 Exhausting the soul as the lamp glimmers low ! 
 
 Let me take my instruction all vivid and thrilling 
 From Nature’s own volume, and feel what I know. 
 
 In the tameness of quiet, thought languishes idly 
 Beneath the dull weight of mortality’s shroud, 
 
 But excited, it flashes as fiercely and widely 
 
 As Jove’s awful shafts from the dark-rolling cloud. 
 
TO O. F. MCWHORTER. 
 
 91 
 
 Then the rage of the tempest has wild fascination 
 Which danger and solitude only enhance ; 
 
 The elements utter that mute exultation 
 
 Which swells in the bosom and glows in the glance. 
 
 For this, I have oft on the lonely shore wandered, 
 And visions of grandeur stole over me then, — 
 
 A clearer conception of what I had pondered 
 
 And longed for in vain when surrounded by men. 
 
 to a f. McWhorter , 
 
 CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA. 
 
 Long may these happy missives tell 
 My trusty friend is hale and well, 
 And deep in philosophic dream 
 Still musing on that rapid stream, 
 Which frets the Alleghanies’ side 
 And swells Ohio’s yellow tide. 
 Though when the Democrats are in 
 He joins the conclave’s roaring din ; 
 Or, like the moth, is bound to gnaw 
 His way through bulky tomes of law, 
 He still can fan that sparkling wit 
 Which nature in his bosom lit, 
 
 For higher use than idle show — 
 
 To cheer a friend and blast a foe. 
 
92 
 
 TO C. F. MCWHORTER. 
 
 Some cynics always try to mar 
 The reputation of the bar, 
 
 And now in anger, now in sport, 
 
 Exhibit their contempt of court 
 And men who cultivate the knack 
 Of arguing that white is black. 
 
 But hear me hurl that falsehood back ! 
 Themselves the slanderer’s brand must bear 
 While I can quote your record fair. 
 Whatever may that record sully 
 When you have donned the robe of Tullv, 
 
 I hold you now, as in the past, 
 
 A soul of most heroic cast, 
 
 Since all those sportive nymphs that glide 
 Along the Elk’s romantic side 
 Your modest steps could not decoy 
 To match them in their wanton joy, 
 
 Or pledge them in the flowing cup 
 Which conjures frolic spirits up. 
 
 ******* 
 
 From birth to death we scarcely know 
 How much to friendship’s power we owe. 
 But were it once from earth expunged, 
 
 In what a gloom we should be plunged ! 
 
 Our hearts would be, like monkish oysters, 
 Sealed tight in hard calcareous cloisters ; 
 Our warmest thoughts would freeze to stone 
 Within a moral frigid zone ; 
 
 Our lives would stagnate to a lake 
 From which no streams in gladness break, 
 
TO C. F. MCWHORTER. 
 
 The muse would lose her tenor note 
 And have a very tuneless throat. 
 
 ’Tis not in festive hours alone 
 That friendship’s highest aid is known ; 
 But when on life’s tempestuous -wave 
 Where storms of adverse fortune rave, 
 When all a-wreck, the last faint hope 
 Is clinging to a parting rope, 
 
 Then flows its genial current warm 
 To help us safely through the storm. 
 
 So some tall ship from England late 
 To Boston bound with costly freight, 
 Arrived in Nova Scotian seas 
 What time the coast begins to freeze. 
 Encounters furious northern gales 
 That snap her spars and split her sails, 
 
 Till rudderless and from her course 
 Blown southward by the tempest’s force, 
 She meets the Gulf-stream’s tepid tides 
 That free her ice-encumbered sides, 
 
 And then, refitted mast and stay, 
 
 She bravely bears upon her way, 
 
 And soon, though battered, still a ship 
 Triumphant o’er the dangerous trip, 
 
 No more of winds and waves the sport, 
 
 She anchors in the destined port. 
 
 Yet there is one thing far above 
 The name of friendship — youthful love, 
 Which, strong, spontaneous, high and pure, 
 Must live "while soul and sense endure. 
 
94 
 
 TO C. P. MCWHORTER. 
 
 The chiefest bliss of mortal life 
 Is nearing your embrace — a wife ! 
 
 While heaven approves the rapturous union 
 Of two fond hearts in close communion, 
 
 A brother of the gentle craft 
 His blessing from afar may waft. 
 
 ******* 
 
 May thriving offspring, more or less, 
 The dear connubial bondage bless. 
 And as in sylvan haunts I’ve seen 
 An aged tree yet strong and green, 
 While growing from it fibrous roots 
 Sprang up innumerable shoots, 
 
 And clustering round on every side, 
 Enshrined it in paternal pride ; 
 
 So may your progeny like them 
 Long flourish ’round the parent stem. 
 
LARK-SONG. 
 
 95 
 
 LARK-SONG. 
 
 As a lark on the billowy breezes uplifted, 
 
 Forgets the dull cage that so dismally long 
 Cramped the vigor of pinion wherewith he was gifted 
 And tarnished his plumage and stifled his song ; 
 
 So I, since the fortunate moment recalled me 
 From tasks ever hated, at liberty soar ; 
 
 And the things which like fetters but yesterday galled 
 me 
 
 Are flung to the winds and remembered no more. 
 
 Necessity — stern and inflexible jailer — 
 
 Has kept me too long and too stringently cooped, 
 Where the eye growing dimmer, the cheek growing 
 paler 
 
 Proclaimed how the spirit continually drooped. 
 
 O freedom ! thou primitive maid of the mountain, 
 Thou art not confined to the land of thy birth. 
 
 The river stays not at the play of the fountain, 
 
 But widens and wanders to gladden the «arth. 
 
 Not the walls of a harem long time should confine me 
 Though filled with the loveliest ensnarers of men ; 
 
 To such a mere phantom the sameness would pine me, 
 I’d slip through the key-hole to freedom again. 
 
96 
 
 TO HARRIET BEECHER-STOWE. 
 
 TO HARRIET BEECHER-STOWE 1 
 
 ON THE PUBLICATION OF HER INFAMOUS BYRON LIBSLu. 
 
 My Shikspere’s curse on clown ani kna' r e 
 Wno will not let his ashes rest. — Tennyson^ 
 
 Though fiction wear angelic grace 
 When in the service of the slave, 
 
 Oh keep the pigment of its face 
 From off the hero-poet’s grave ! 
 
 His hand proud freedom’s flag unfurled — 
 Himself the mark for blight and blame.. 
 
 She yet shall wave around the world 
 Her banner blazoned with his name. 
 
 And you once nobly urged the cause 
 That to the serf his right restored ; 
 
 You spoke the thrilling word which draws — 
 Or drew — the tear, if not the sword. 
 
 When, from the battle-clouds that blazed,. 
 The blast of freedom cleared the skies. 
 
 How many Hagars blessed and praised 
 The angel in the eagle’s guise. 
 
 But you are not the bird of prey 
 That bathes in solar light its wing 
 
 And thunders through the liquid way 
 To pounce upon some living thing. 
 
TO HARRIET BEECHER-STOWE. 
 
 97 
 
 No — you are of the buzzard brood 
 
 That trails a dusk plume o’er the plain 
 
 And ever deems that festering food 
 The choicest Avhich has longest lain ! 
 
 You cannot rend these two apart, 
 
 For both to Byron’s fame belong — 
 
 The true nobility of heart, 
 
 The grandeur of impassioned song. 
 
 You should have wielded, by his side, 
 
 The potent wand of English speech 
 
 To part the modern Bed Sea tide 
 
 That all the promised land might reach. 
 
 Happy his early death which sent 
 
 Regret even through the hostile throng ; 
 
 Wretched the life, however spent, 
 
 Which lasts a single day too long. 
 
 For one and all, whose tender age 
 
 You taught to hate the callous breast, 
 
 Must feel your last and loathsome page 
 Has deeply sullied all the rest. 
 
 The stain is dark. The mousing owl 
 Might imp its wing to tear his wreath \ 
 
 But oh ! the ghoulish deed to prowl 
 An d burrow for the dust beneath ! 
 
 The public odium and the ban, 
 
 If justice live, must light on you. 
 
 ’Twas well to preach that man is man— 
 Shall woman not be woman too ? 
 
 7 
 
APATHES. 
 
 And slander, though it widely roam, 
 
 Is certain to return at last, 
 
 Like vagrant chickens coming home : 
 Even now it travels homeward fast. 
 
 ’Tis strange — but I have heard or read 
 Of visiting a heinous sin 
 Not only on the guilty head 
 
 But on the third and fourth of kin. 
 
 The fates, who seldom judge amiss, 
 Avenge Parnassus on the church 
 And hid a shady Nemesis 
 
 Upon the Brooklyn steeple perch. 
 
 APATHES. 
 
 This world is full of creatures 
 With apathy’s dull seal 
 Upon their very features, 
 
 Which shows their hearts ne’er feel 
 The warmth of kindlier natures 
 For others, woe or weal. 
 
 The greed of gain encumbers 
 
 Their days and nights with care ; 
 Their stolid fancy slumbers 
 As doth the wintering bear ; 
 
 The most enchanting numbers 
 Awake no echoes there. 
 
THE BROOK. 
 
 99 
 
 Oft have I seen them shining 
 In fashion’s trapping decked, 
 Seen empty heads inclining 
 To them in deep respect, 
 While modest worth was pining 
 In want and cold neglect. 
 
 THE BROOK. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE. 
 
 Thou brooklet, silver-bright and clear, 
 
 That boundest on in glad career, 
 
 What wondrous hand thy channel traced 
 And whence and whither dost thou haste 1 
 
 From nooks that never saw the sun, 
 
 O’er moss and matted flowers I run ; 
 
 Amd when in dreaminess I rest, 
 
 All heaven is mirrored in my breast. 
 
 Then joyous freedom bids me speed. 
 
 I know not wither it may lead. 
 
 But he who cleft through rocks my way, 
 Will be my guide where’er I stray. 
 
100 THE FIELD-FLOWER NOVEMBER SONG. 
 
 THE FIELD-FLOWER. 
 
 Behold, by the peasant’s shoon untiod, 
 
 The delicate field-flower blowing. 
 
 It is knitted fast to the stainful sod, 
 
 But it fills its cup from the firmament broad, 
 
 And draws its hues from the light of God 
 Through the boundless aether flowing. 
 
 And so the uplifted heart that strives 
 For the purer modes of existence. 
 
 It is fastened here ’mid the lowly lives 
 Where the ivy creeps and the cockle thrives ; 
 
 But its color and fragrance it derives 
 
 From the height and the depth and the distance. 
 
 NOVEMBER SONG. 
 
 i. 
 
 Night winds of November, 
 
 How dreary they whistle ! 
 
 The leaves are all dead ; 
 
 The birds are all fled, 
 
 And the light-sailing down 
 Has all flown from the thistle. 
 
A MODERN MAXIM. 
 
 101 
 
 II. 
 
 In the hedges and gardens 
 JSb red rose is growing ; 
 
 But one keeps awake — 
 
 And all for my sake — 
 
 In the rosiest hues 
 Of expectancy glowing. 
 
 hi. 
 
 Oh why cannot love 
 
 Make this happy night longer? 
 
 The morning that parts 
 
 Our close-beating hearts 
 Is neither the sweeter, 
 
 The brighter, nor stronger. 
 
 A MODERN MAXIM. 
 
 It sadly deranges one’s business plans 
 
 To admire the Lord’s handiwork rather than man’s. 
 
 Then lift not your eyes with the heavens to converse, 
 But grope on the ground for you might find a purse. 
 
102 
 
 THE CLYDE. 
 
 THE CLYDE * 
 
 Hamilton’s farm, aug. 14 , 1888 . 
 
 i. 
 
 How softly steals adown the glade 
 The crystal Clyde, 
 
 While alternating light and shade, 
 
 Like the changeful glance of a winsome maid 
 Play o’er its tide ! 
 
 ii. 
 
 Here Summer, dainty rural queen 
 Of all the globe, 
 
 Draws round her haunts a leafy screen, 
 
 With this silver thread through the silken green — 
 Her royal robe. 
 
 hi. 
 
 Pure when the dewy eastern skies 
 Are flushed, yet calm ; 
 
 Fair when the noon supinely lies, 
 
 And sweet when the lilies close their eyes 
 And breathe their balm. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Ah me ! the sunny hours are fleet, 
 
 But you are here ; 
 
 And since its banks have kissed your feet, 
 
 Clyde shall be pure and fair and sweet 
 Through all the year. 
 
 *A small stream in Shelburne county, about thirteen 
 miles from Barrington. There is some fine scenery on its 
 banks, especially at the place called Hamilton’s Farm. 
 
EPITAPH WHEREFORE THE PACHYDERMS. 103 
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 ON CAPT. POTTER, OF HULL, G. B. 
 
 The market rose and the mercury fell 
 At the death of Captain Potter. 
 
 ’Twas a cold day for him when he went to Hull 
 For his temper was ten times hotter ! 
 
 WHEREFORE. 
 
 Why like the heron’s stilted brood 
 Are the men of shelves and tills ? 
 Perhaps because they get their food 
 By means of their lengthy bills. 
 
 THE PACHYDERMS. 
 
 Once the bard, stern justice dealing, 
 Held the mightiest rogues in check. 
 
 How they seem devoid of feeling 
 Save perhaps about the neck. 
 
 One is ignorant altogether 
 If he understand eth not 
 
 That the old Behemoth’s leather 
 Will resist the sharpest shot. 
 
 Fusilade the alligator 
 
 Basking on the reedy Nile, 
 
 And the Nubian nutmeg-grater 
 Mocks you with a hideous smile. 
 
104 
 
 SONG. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Come, dearest, come out to the gate, 
 To your sweet little promise be true. 
 The bird nestles dotvn with its mate, 
 And I am still waiting for you. 
 
 I marked, as the sun set this eve, 
 
 How his rays did your window adorn, 
 As if he were taking fond leave 
 
 Of the fairest and best, till the morn. 
 
 No land now enjoying his beams 
 Can boast of a treasure so fair 
 As the shadowy region of dreams 
 Contains when your image is there. 
 
 Come, my rosy-cheeked, violet-eyed muse, 
 With a beauty surpassing the day 
 When it blends with the loveliest hues 
 The delicate odors of May ! 
 
PARTING DISAPPOINTMENT. 
 
 105 
 
 PARTING . 
 
 Vale dulcis, vale cara, 
 
 Hora venit nunc araara ! 
 
 Fare thee well ! This bitter hour 
 Claims me with malignant power ! 
 I have been the roving bee, 
 
 Thou, the only flower for me ; 
 
 All the past a summer noon, 
 Golden-bright, but fled too soon. 
 
 Ah ! I could not keep my eyes 
 On the ever-changing skies, 
 
 But, enchanted to the spot, 
 
 Lapse of time I heeded not 
 Till, for safety all too late, 
 
 Storm and darkness seal my fate ! 
 
 DISA PPOINTMENT. 
 
 Relentless tamer of our pride, 
 
 Stern chastener of our lives, 
 
 Who dost not lay the frown aside 
 While vanity survives, — 
 
 Tis thine when, pleasing to the view, 
 Arise the forms of tempting hue 
 For which ambition strives, — 
 
 ’Tis thine the onward course to bar, 
 Or scatter the delusion far. 
 
106 
 
 DISAPPOINTMENT. 
 
 There is no state attained by man 
 Which thou mayest not invade 
 And mock the most sagacious plan 
 By human wisdom laid ; 
 
 In every prospect and pursuit 
 Are blossoms that produce no fruit, 
 For at thy touch they fade. 
 
 Of common clay thou dost convince 
 Alike the peasant and the prince. 
 
 The great, who seemingly controlled 
 The nations’ destiny, 
 
 Have seen their power relax its hold 
 And bow to thy decree. 
 
 And oh ! the lowly heirs of toil, 
 
 Thou sparest not their hopes to spoil, 
 
 For all are doomed to see 
 Some pleasure, deemed almost possessed, 
 Evanishing at thy behest. 
 
 But all unlovely as thou art, 
 
 Thou comest to undeceive 
 And teach aright the erring heart, 
 Too ready to believe, — 
 
 To raise and rectify the will, 
 Armed with a nobler purpose still 
 Its mission to achieve, 
 
 Ere wooed by pleasure’s siren song 
 And led irrevocably wrong. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 107 
 
 Then peace, sad heart, time is not now 
 For thee to break or faint. 
 
 Recall the shadow from the brow, 
 
 And hush the fond complaint ; 
 
 For still the quenchless soul aspires 
 Above the ashes of desires 
 That leave a mortal taint ; 
 
 And, grown familiar with despair, 
 
 Though keen to feel, can strongly bear. 
 
 The sapling pine, when round are strewn 
 The ruins of the year, 
 
 Is rudely tossed but not o’erblown 
 By winter howling drear, 
 
 And though benumbing frosts have chilled 
 The genial life its veins that filled, 
 
 Its branches are not sere, 
 
 And there again shall music ring 
 When milder skies restore the spring. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 I. THE TRUE POET. 
 
 He was the bard who, as the impulse grew, 
 Upraised his piercing eye and brow august — 
 Least dimmed, least sullied by the sordid dust— 
 And compassed with a clear, exalted view 
 The heavenly and the human. Thence he drew 
 All images of noble, pure and just 
 Within harmonious bond : a sacred trust 
 To teach his race and virtuous life renew. 
 
108 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 How sad, whene’er his brave perverted powers 
 The argument divine do not sustain, 
 
 But, all enamored of earth’s poisonous flowers, 
 
 Imbibe and then diffuse the moral bane ! 
 
 0 thou bright goddess ! in his maddest hours, 
 Thy humblest votary from such deed restrain. 
 
 II. FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 
 
 1 boast not that he taught me how to sing, 
 
 Or trill the sonnet’s full symphonious chime, 
 For that sweet nursling of the Ausonian clime 
 Still shuns the harshness of a Gothic string. 
 
 Yet, if I may the grateful tribute bring, 
 
 It was the flushing of his summer time, 
 Instinct with love and resonant with rhyme, 
 That added warmth to my late northern spring. 
 The gloomy firs, that with the tempest roar, 
 
 Seem myrtles gay by amorous breezes fanned 
 If love be ripening in the bosom’s core. 
 
 In race, in speech and time so far apart, 
 
 The Tuscan’s strain I more than understand, — 
 It sets to music every passionate heart ! 
 
 III. TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 Stupendous thought ! that since my life begun, 
 This rolling sphere, where no men long abide, 
 Where night and day the struggling hours divide, 
 Has sped so many times around the sun ! 
 
 Not so unerringly my life has run, 
 
 Careless of steerage but of lookout wide, 
 
 That has perchance some distant realms descried, 
 Not patent to the gaze of every one. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 109 
 
 In retrospect, some sad emotions rise, 
 
 Unmixed with fruitless longings to return. 
 
 No puerile fears possess me ; though my eyes, 
 
 Clearer than aught beside, this truth discern 
 That the vast flood whereon I sail or drift 
 Becomes more violent as the tide grows swift. 
 
 IV. TO THE SERVIANS, 1877. 
 
 On Servians ! in the name of Czerni George, 
 
 Who fell by treason’s foullest, darkest scheme, 
 Beneath whose banner, like a stormful stream, 
 
 Your hardy sires poured down the mountain gorge ! 
 
 Strike ! .for the chains your Moslem masters forge 
 Both shame your manhood and your faith blaspheme, 
 And, howsoever hearable they seem, 
 
 Their lightest links cut deeper than the sword. 
 
 Your call to arms should ring through Europe’s sky — 
 A trumpet giving no uncertain sound, 
 
 Down with that fierce, aggressive Koreish lie ! 
 
 It shall not take deep root on Grecian ground, 
 
 It must not lift its waning moon as high 
 As that brave standard patriots rally round ! 
 
 v. — ASPIRATION. 
 
 Ay, though no other hand in all the earth 
 Attempt the lyre with tuch discordant sound 
 Amd themes so lowly, thereto am I hound 
 With feelings strong as are the ties of birth. 
 
 Would heaven they showed not such a wintry dearth 
 Of high and good ; hut oft the cause is found 
 Not in the tree hut in the sterile ground 
 That renders fruitage scantfor little worth. 
 
110 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 The olive, sage Athene’s gift of yore, 
 
 Was but hut the veriest wilding of the waste 
 Till, nurture.! on the genial Attic shore, 
 
 The temples of the immortal gods it graced. 
 
 Oh might one wreath of mine — I ask no more — 
 Be for the honor of my country placed ! 
 
 vi. — l’amore e l’amicizia. 
 
 (Sent to the Author hy a Friend.) 
 
 Lorche del serpe ai lusinghieri accenti 
 Eva dik ascolto, ed il fatale frutto 
 Gusth, una atroce eredita di lutto 
 Prepar<5 dessa alle future genti. 
 
 0 colpa pregno d’infiniti stenti 
 
 Per cui fu condannato il mondo tutto 
 Agli affanni e alia morte e fu condutto 
 Ai sospiri, ai pianti ed ai lamenti ! 
 
 Ma sulla terra, si misera, volse 
 
 L’Eterno un sguardo dal celeste trono, 
 
 E pietade di lei nel seno accolse : 
 
 Ed a sollievo d’un stato si rio, 
 
 D’amore e d’amicizia le f^ dono, 
 
 Per cui il mortal pih s’assomiglia a Dio. 
 
 vii. — love and friendship. 
 
 ( Translation of the foregoing Sonnet.) 
 
 When the dire snake’s delusive speech prevailed 
 And guileless Eve partook the fruit forbid, 
 
 A rueful heritage within it hid 
 
 Was then on all the future race entailed. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 O fault, throughout eternity bewailed ! 
 
 Disaster that the infant world undid, 
 
 While pain and death, all-conquering, stalked amid 
 Sighs, tears andgroans which thedread triumphhailed. 
 Yet on the earth, so wretched ’neath the stroke, 
 
 The Eternal looked from his celestial throne 
 And in her plea divinest pity spoke. 
 
 Then first, to mitigate the afflictive rod, 
 
 Were given her love and friendship as her own, 
 
 By which the mortal most resembles God. 
 
 VIII. TO CAPT. H. C. MCWHORTER, VIRGINIA, U. S. 
 
 O friend, with whom I had full many a ramble, 
 
 And pleasant converse, on Kanawha’s bank — 
 Screened from the ardent noon by willows dank, 
 
 Or in retreats close-fenced by flowering bramble, 
 Where moonlit fairies undisturbed might gambol — 
 Your voice and arm were in the foremost rank 
 To bid vile slavery’s chain no longer clank 
 In mockery of that charter’s grand preamble. 
 
 Since, nobly merited, the people’s trust 
 Calls you in legislative sphere to move, 
 
 You will not only hold that axiom just, 
 
 But by a living demonstration prove 
 
 That, though all men are equal by their birth, 
 
 Virtue alone confers superior worth.* 
 
 '* Lea hommes sont egaux ; ce n’est pas la naissance, 
 C’est la vertu seule qui fait la difference, — Voltaire. 
 
112 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 ix. — F rancesco’s lost love. 
 
 0 dark devouring earth ! I envy thee 
 
 The treasure clasped within thy cold embrace ! 
 That loving form and that excelling grace, 
 
 Which I no more, oh ! nevermore shall see ! 
 
 heaven, where, ever pure and free — 
 
 As angels are from any mortal trace, 
 
 Her happy spirit glads the holy place 
 That seems so inaccessible to me. 
 
 1 envy all the sainted throng who share 
 
 Her company and hear her sweetly speak — 
 
 That seraph voice which I so sadly miss ! 
 
 But most I envy death the pleasure rare 
 Of feasting on so delicate a cheek, 
 
 From which my lips have taken the farewell kiss. 
 
 X. MIDNIGHT. 
 
 Stille 
 
 Kuhn oben die Sterne und unten die Graber. — Goethe. 
 
 Tis the dark hour, whose touch has often froze 
 Life’s pulsing fount. Dear God ! I cannot sleep. 
 
 I think upon those cruel wounds and deep 
 From whence the healing of the nations flows. 
 
 “ He giveth his beloved sleep.” They close 
 
 Their eyes in peace while I must wake and weep. 
 The stars, the graves unpitying silence keep : 
 
 I plead in vain — the black air gasps, Who knows ? 
 Oh yet the heart recoils with shuddering chill, 
 
 As vivid thought forecasts the fatal term 
 And shows the clay, mute, pallid, cold and still ! 
 How soon, how sad ! And can the vital germ 
 Survive the worlds eternal space that fill ? — 
 
 Oh let them pass, but let my faith he firm ! 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 113 
 
 XI.— DESPAIR. 
 
 Thou art not all ungracious, wan despair ; 
 
 Although I cannot love the downcast eye, 
 
 From long acquaintance I can testify 
 That that no deception ever lurketh there. 
 
 Beauty is false at heart, or does but wear 
 An evanescent lustre ; riches fly ; 
 
 Ambition falters when the goal is nigh, 
 
 And friendship varies like our northern air. 
 
 But thou, who didst impress my early years, 
 Through every change, art faithful to me yet ; 
 And this I owe thee, that no craven fears 
 Can daunt me now, whatever ills beset. 
 
 Thine is the wisdom pleasure’s pampered dears 
 Can never learn, nor misery’s sons forget. 
 
 XII. — RESIGNATION. 
 
 O mother earth ! to thee I bend my eyes 
 Aching and blinded with their tearful quest. 
 
 I beg thy cold heart for eternal restj 
 For thine is not the worm that never dies. 
 
 Behold how helpless thy lost offspring lies ! 
 
 Behold his hot and wasted cheek is pressed 
 Close to thy frosty, unresponsive breast 
 In agony which mocks the suppliant’s cries ! 
 
 Bid the delirious struggle cease — I yield 
 And strive no longer — passive and resigned 
 To meet the worst that fate may hold concealed :• — 
 No hopes, no fears, no will. — But lo ! I find 
 As quick as light, that the great grief is healed 
 And perfect calm pervades the rescued mind ! 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 XIII. SANTA SELVA. 
 
 0 dim-aisled wood ! no pillared fane so grand, 
 
 So sacred in the old luxurious East 
 
 When cushioned kingship knelt before the priest 
 
 In all the pomp at tyranny’s command ! 
 
 This place is for a loftier worship planned : 
 
 The rites mysterious and the solemn feast 
 Are in their purity where bird and beast 
 Bleed not, but feed from nature’s bounteous hand. 
 Hence, ye profane ones ! This is holy ground, 
 
 Where through each quickened sense we may imbibe 
 The halm, the bloom that make the sick heart sound. 
 
 A thousand leaves here spread their knowledge free, — 
 All undistorted by the meddling scribe, 
 
 All unperverted by the Pharisee. 
 
 XIV. THE DEAD PRINCE. 
 
 [My regret at the tra.ic death of the young French 
 adventurer, killed by the Zulus, June, 1878, was genuine, 
 and for that reason alone, I have retained this sonnet, written 
 at the time. My views concerning princes and republics have 
 since become greatly modified.] 
 
 Mourn for the imperial soldier-son of France ! 
 
 But never can barbarian gore atone 
 
 For that high blood. All nations, even his own, 
 
 May well lament blind war’s accurst mischance ! 
 
 Yet rests the red stain of this sad romance, 
 
 Not on the savage assegai alone, 
 
 But on the edict which against his throne 
 And birthright sternly bent the civil lance. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 115 
 
 Capricious land, divided to deny 
 
 Thy prince the hope he now surrendereth, 
 Unite once more ; his banishment is by ; 
 
 He rules thee in the majesty of death — 
 
 More hearts are moved by his expiring sigh 
 Than by the proud republic’s living breath ! 
 
 XV. TO THE CITY OF HALIFAX. 
 
 She sits not in the splendor of renown 
 
 Nor girt with grandeur, like some cities old, 
 Nor teeming wide with multitudes untold, 
 
 Yet prestige gathers to her granite crown 
 That daunts invasion with a thunderous frown ; 
 While, mantled ’neatli the British banner’s fold, 
 For higher triumph and with fearless hold, 
 Peace waves the olive o’er our mother-town. 
 Nor shall she from that better contest shrink 
 That calls the vigorous mind, the skilful hand 
 To forge in history’s chain the brightest link : 
 The keen-eyed genius of my native land 
 ■Still fosters on this noble haven’s brink 
 Such hearts as filled Cornwallis’ pioneer band. 
 
 xvi. — TO MISS 
 
 Du bist mir nah und donh bo fern. 
 
 Veil not that glance beneath the tender lid ; 
 For in the azure of those queenly eyes — 
 The rarest dowry of indulgent skies — 
 
 I still adore what my repose undid. 
 
116 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 With your dear image in my bosom hid, 
 
 The secret of our mutual passion lies, 
 
 Which time, nor change, the less has made me prize, 
 Nor cold discretion from its place has chid. 
 
 Ah ! ne’er again, as heretofore, we meet ; 
 
 Yet life is not all cheerless and forlorn, 
 
 While oft our fervent looks each other greet, 
 
 As zephyr greets the blushing rose at morn ; 
 
 Full light he passess, but her spirit sweet, 
 
 Caught all unseen, away with him is borne. 
 
 XVII. GRANDEZZA. 
 
 Deh ! foss’ io qualche cosa nello stato 
 Ove si mostra una sontuosa festa, 
 
 Mentre la Nuova Scozia e tutta mesta, 
 
 Almen sarei dal gregge mio lodato. 
 
 Quale un tauro, di notte errando in prato, 
 
 A l’orto viene, e colla sua testa 
 Crollar fa sasso e legno e non s’arresta 
 Finch’abbia ognuno frutto e fior mangiato : 
 
 Cosi, talor, fanno i pih degni eroi — 
 
 II paladin Giovanni e il gran Topero — 
 
 Capaci a spoliar il Canada e poi 
 Rubare questo nobil emispero ; 
 
 Ma tutta volta, viengo innanzi a voi, 
 
 Sprezzando l’opere del serpe nero. 
 
 XVIII. TO A YOUNG LADY. 
 
 How rarely are those precious gifts combined — 
 
 The playful wit and the exalted thought, 
 
 Staid wisdom’s look on brows so smoothly wrought, 
 Like flower and fruitage in one wreath entwined. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 117 
 
 From such united charms of form and mind 
 Methinks the Grecian sages must have caught 
 Their brightest inspiration, when they taught 
 That loveliest spirits loveliest lodgements find. 
 Some happy planet blessed your natal hour 
 With light to cheer misfortune’s cloudy days, 
 Changing, by charity’s benignant power, 
 
 The voice of sadness to the note of praise ; 
 
 As when, uprisen from the crushing shower, 
 
 New beauty blossoms in the vernal rays. 
 
 XIX. THE SAFEST GUIDE. 
 
 No star was lighted in the shivering air ; 
 
 All round was dark as woods at night can be ; 
 And the trees laid their ghostly hands on me, 
 As wondering whether mortal ventured there. 
 My thoughts were all within me, clustering where 
 The blessed dews of human sympathy 
 Had fallen and refreshed abundantly 
 What late had been a desert parched and bare. 
 And I passed onward, though the path was lost — 
 A blackened maze — unto a place secure, 
 
 Nor could discern what served me as a guide. 
 
 So have I learned — but ah, what pain it cost ! — 
 That reason's day cannot my steps assure 
 Like love’s encheering whisper by my side. 
 
 xx. — CARISSIMA. 
 
 Quegli occhi non velino il splendor loro 
 Sotto il bel ciglio, tener come il frondo ! 
 
 Yero e che lor belta caccid dal mondo 
 La mia pace ; anzi caldo l’adoro. 
 
118 
 
 SUPERSTITION. 
 
 Siccome un avaro nasconde l’oro, 
 
 La memoria del nostr’ amor nascondo 
 Colla tua sembianza, si profondo 
 Nel cuor, che niente tocci il gian tesoro. 
 
 Ci manca adora il dolce abbracciamento, 
 
 II bacio piu celeste, ed altra cosa 
 Tanto soave al voler giovenile. 
 
 Il vederti mi gode : sono un vento 
 Chi passa furtivo la fresca rosa 
 E seco porta il suo spirto gentile ! 
 
 SUPERSTITION. 
 
 INSCRIBED TO SWINBURNE. 
 
 The mailed giant stalks the field, 
 
 His ensign pieced with many a pall. 
 
 His greaves, his helmet and his shield 
 Are dismal proofs of reason’s fall. 
 
 His challenge chills the blood of all 
 Till every brow is white and damp, 
 
 And even the goodly frame of Saul 
 Sits cowering in the huddled camp. 
 
 Who is yon supple, ruddy youth 1 
 He comes with laughter on his lip ; 
 
 He brings that pebble, polished smooth 
 By waves of song, within his scrip. 
 
 And, from the sibilant line let slip, 
 
 It parts the spectre’s cloud-built brain. 
 
 Then truth, advancing, smiteth hip 
 And thigh the whole infernal train. 
 
THE HUMBLEIt EGOTISM. 
 
 119 
 
 THE HUMBLER EGOTISM. 
 
 TO 
 
 Since you and I have been so long acquainted, 
 
 It needs no Rafael’s brush, no Dante’s pen 
 To get myself in each particular painted 
 So you will know me when me meet again. 
 
 Too much be-devilled or too sadly sainted 
 
 Are the extremes which mark the sons of men 
 Who rise by notes upon Apollo’s fiddle : 
 
 Now place me anywhere but in the middle. 
 
 I am, in fact, a creature of emotion, 
 
 Earth-born and on her lines exactly planned. 
 Five-sixths of me is feeling’s mobile ocean, 
 
 The other sixth is reason’s solid land. 
 
 Vibrating ’twixt aversion and devotion, 
 
 ’Twixt Greenland’s bergs and Afric’s golden sand, 
 Th’ unstable element’s evaporation 
 Clothes the bare rock with comely vegetation. 
 
 Ah ! this will make their stolid systems prickle 
 Who frown on sentiment, severely grave. 
 
 They know not that the thousand rills that trickle 
 From sympathy, the fainting lives to save ; 
 
 And memory’s lucent and embalming pickle 
 
 Are both distilled from passion’s chainless wave, 
 Which, mild or boisterous in its constant action, 
 Pieserves the whole rank mass from putrefaction. 
 
120 
 
 THE HUMBLER EGOTISM. 
 
 Yet sensibility is but a gift 
 
 Of which posterity alone is proud. 
 
 The darkened dust men once essayed to sift 
 Becomes their desert guide of fire and cloud. 
 
 But life soon grows a grievous load to lift, 
 
 So richly and peculiarly endowed 
 With talents for another’s need available, 
 
 But for your own, uncertain and unsalable. 
 
 Oh yes, unsalable because unbought, 
 
 A gift imparted for the general pleasure ; 
 
 But still ignored, unprized and set at nought 
 
 When gauged and reckoned by the standard measure ; 
 Though all the while the grains of finest thought 
 Line the grey cells like deeply-buried treasure, 
 
 They ne’er attract the world’s witch-hazel rod 
 Which turneth always to the senseless clod. 
 
 I stand sometimes aghast, examining 
 How good and evil in my make unite. 
 
 ’Tis universal, for the mountains fling 
 
 The deepest shadow and the rosiest light ; 
 
 All with the honey is the horrid sting ; 
 
 The mouth is fashioned both to kiss and bite, 
 
 And thus the opposites so meet and mingle 
 That one from t’other I can scarcely single. 
 
 I claim some virtue, though it shine at best 
 
 Like fire though coals which feed the flame, not 
 If I have follies — and it is confessed — [smother. 
 
 They have but cursed myself and not another. 
 
 As for my kindness, let my deeds attest : 
 
 Believe me, I’d call any man my brother. 
 
THE HUMBLER EGOTISM. 
 
 121 
 
 •**#** 
 
 ***** 
 
 As for those mysteries, shaded yet sublime, 
 
 Through which the race prodigiously has striven 
 By pyramid and spire the skies to climb, — 
 
 Weighted with chains not yet entirely riven, 
 Seeking through medium of a real crime 
 To get a suppositious sin forgiven — 
 
 My youth was one long panoramic vision 
 Of both extremes — Tartarean and Elysian. 
 
 Almost as soon as I was born a sinner, 
 
 I fairly overflowed with innate piety, 
 
 But found the dogmas, like the Hidalgo’s dinner, 
 
 Of food too scant, of cloth too much variety. 
 
 And since betwixt the outward man and inner, 
 
 ’Twixt faith and works, I note the contrariety, — 
 
 I am, like Horace, as a natural sequence, 
 
 ■“Parcus deorum cultor et infrequens.”* 
 
 Yet I have shunned the sin of Socrates, 
 
 That grand mistake of all earth’s foolish bold ones, 
 Who seek to introduce new deities. — 
 
 I might have voted to depose the old ones ; 
 
 But need their help against — my enemies 1 
 
 Oh no ; against my friends, those hot and cold ones 
 Who, filling up their jovial hemlock f bowls, 
 
 Press me to drink the health of all their souls ! 
 
 * A scant and rare adorer of the gods, 
 
 t The readers will scarcely need to be reminded that this 
 was the venomous decoction to which the Athenians treated 
 their distinguished townsman. 
 
122 
 
 THE HUMBLER EGOTISM. 
 
 If I have any idol, ’tis not verse ; 
 
 I live not by it and can die without it. 
 
 I don’t want Pegasus to draw my hearse 
 
 Lest tender-hearted folks might talk about it. 
 Whether the beast or I appeared the worse, 
 
 Somebody would be sure to spy and shout it. 
 
 A mortal needs not elegy nor ode 
 To keep the cold from out his last abode. 
 
 And yet to me the muse has not been charmless, 
 
 One of the nine, — I may not tell her name. 
 
 1 thought her lovely and she thought me harmless,. 
 
 And that is how the casual courtship came. 
 
 The rudest swain of any — herdless, farmless, 
 
 I wooed her in a manner, not the same 
 As the Arcadians did to mellow flutes ; 
 
 Yet she consented. What may be the fruits ? 
 
 If they should see the light, I’ll ne’er accuse 
 
 The sovereign public, howsoe’er they treat them. 
 
 If dead-born offspring of the laboring muse, 
 
 No stabs can hurt, no puffs with life can heat them. 
 Nor will the world their burial rites refuse, 
 
 And this were sad, but better than to meet them 
 Ill-mannered vagrants through the country straggling 
 In charity’s thin garb * * * 
 
 Yet fear I not the worst that may betide ; 
 
 My friends, though very few, are kind and trusty. 
 
 I was a child when criticism died — 
 
 Her soul went out with Christopher the crusty.* 
 
 * John Wilson, professor of moral philosophy in Edin- 
 burgh, died 1854. Under the name of Christopher North, he 
 contributed “Specimens of the British Critics” to Black wood*&. 
 Magazine. 
 
THE HUMBLER EGOTISM. 
 
 123 
 
 Some wear her stolen rapier by their side, 
 
 But canuot draw it, ’tis so very rusty ; 
 
 And grave dame Science will not bring the birch in 
 To punish me, who never was her urchin. 
 
 Your random authors surely never should 
 Be judged exclusively by what they write ; 
 
 For all the circumstances understood 
 
 May show them in a higher, happier light. 
 
 Size of the tree or fineness of the wood 
 
 Who can pronounce with but the leaves in sight ? 
 ’Tis not so much the vital inner essence 
 As the vague air that feeds the frail excrescence. 
 
 And those who judge should not be too unsparing, 
 Remembering in the liberties they take, 
 
 They build themselves no monument by rearing, 
 
 For other’s fame, the gibbet and the stake. 
 Besides, how easy ’tis — don’t think I’m swearing — 
 To damn the stanza which they could not make. 
 Yet the true flame, when they would quench it, suffers 
 No more than does the candle from the snuffers. 
 
 “ Oh that mine enemy had writ a book !” 
 
 Cried patient Job in all his sore affliction. 
 (Which, by the way, far better he could brook 
 Than mild reproof and genial contradiction.) 
 
 And what a sweet revenge he could have took, 
 Turning his author’s facts all into fiction, 
 
 His finest fancies into coarsest facts 
 That any simple villager enacts ! 
 
124 
 
 THE HUMBLER EGOTISM. 
 
 Still, watchful criticism has been needed 
 And will be, for the ever-broadening field 
 Of letters must be rigoroursly weeded 
 
 Of all things foreign to its wholesome yield. 
 
 Our present crop of bards is scarce exceeded 
 By twinkling stars on autumn nights revealed ; 
 Their harmony is grand, but cannot reach us 
 Till tuned to something that is fit to teach us. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 We often think we have our eyes on fame, 
 Discovering late in life the silly wrong ; 
 
 For folly, on a dull day, looks the same, 
 
 Most easily mistaken ’mid the throng. 
 
 1 knew a man — he shall be without name — 
 
 Who chased an apparition very long 
 Thinking ’twas she who bears the silver trumpet, 
 And all the while it was the other , 
 
 I, in capacity of man, not poet, 
 
 You as the same, besides a right good fellow, 
 
 “ Have done the state some service, and they know 
 So take the dying words of grim Othello. 
 
 But gratitude — few climates now can grow it 
 Without an early sign of sere and yellow — 
 
 Is always better late than never shown, 
 
 And most appropriate when graven in stone. 
 
THE WISH. 
 
 125 
 
 THE WISH. 
 
 A LYDIAN LEGEND. 
 
 Long ages ago — so the chronicles say — 
 
 The mass of mankind had gone widely astray. 
 
 But the vices that put the pale virtues to rout 
 In a Lydian province broke violently out. 
 
 The church was fenced off in two well-defined groups : 
 On one side imposters, on t’other side, dupes j 
 For the priestly profession was — mark me — was then, 
 The craftiest craft ’mong the children of men. 
 
 The devotee brought them the flower of his flock 
 And the prince of his poultry — a kid and a cock. 
 
 Then the wily old priest, putting up for a wizard, 
 Minutely inspected the liver and gizzard. 
 
 This autopsy done, he proceeded to preach 
 A ghostly harangue in ambiguous speech, 
 
 Then, sly as a fox and sharp-set as a shark is, 
 
 Wound up his devotions and ate up the carcass. 
 
 So some were too feeble and others too strong 
 In opinion — and both sides were equally wrong ; 
 Where some believe all that is taught in the schools 
 And the rest believe nothing, both classes are fools. 
 
 The state was distracted from more than one cause, 
 But chiefly the superabundance of laws ; 
 
 And next, in default of old scutcheons and trophies, 
 The titles bestowed upon people in office. 
 
 In half an hour’s walk half a score could be pointed 
 Out to you, as honored and oiled and anointed. 
 
126 
 
 THE WISH. 
 
 Everv man who was fitted for bribery or barter 
 Might work his way up to a knight of the garter. 
 These knights were not dubbed by a king or a queen ; 
 The job was performed by a patent machine, 
 
 Which ahead of all time kept revolving so fast 
 That every hour counted its “ knight before last.” 
 
 Civic honors were gained not by merit or chance. 
 
 They were sure to the man who had cash to advance, 
 And catching a mackerel by throwing a sprat 
 Was an art that land-fishers were skilfullest at. 
 
 The trader bowed down to a secular god, 
 
 And laid on his altar the firshfruits of fraud. 
 
 And the court-jester larded his rather thin praise 
 With “this marvellous age,” and “these go-ahead days !” 
 
 The hoariest legends located the fount 
 Of learning beyond the Imalian mount, 
 
 But the Lydian masters held all knowledge sprung 
 From Gyges’ good head and Candaules’ smooth tongue. 
 The deepest researches had never yet dived 
 To the source whence the alphabet marks were derived; 
 Some claimed that old Egypt, which idolized beasts — • 
 The founder of caste and the mother of priests — 
 When with writings hieratic her temples were full, 
 Modelled “ A ” off of Apis — her sacroscanct bull. 
 While others (and these were the true orthodox) 
 Swore that “ A ” came from Aleph, the Hebrew for ox. 
 So they argued and wrangled it out, till the seat 
 Of science was warmed with polemical heat, 
 
 And neither the point in dispute would surrender 
 Though it did not amount to a difference in gender. 
 
THE WISH. 
 
 127 
 
 "Their poet was perched in a golden-wired cage 
 And warbled his notes from a black-lettered page, 
 
 Or fluted his fertilised soul through a reed 
 That sprouted coeval with mummy- wheat seed. 
 
 Yet he moulded his flowerets with wax of his own 
 Till they looked like King Tomkins’s blossoms new- 
 blown. 
 
 But all over the country, a numberless horde 
 Twanged loud on the nation’s superb monochord. 
 
 That sorely-rasped wire they had learned to inflect 
 From the bad to the worse, with tremendous effect, 
 Till Orpheus slunk to the pit with his strum, 
 
 And the gods were amazed and the muses were dumb. 
 
 The government’s head was the chief of a ring, 
 
 (The style of republics where money is king,) 
 
 Who, with nursery tales of a kingdom to come, 
 
 Kept his hand in the chest and the crowd ’neath his 
 thumb. 
 
 Adorned and puffed up with his Tyrian vest, 
 
 He would listen to nought but his own little jest, 
 
 Yet every night witnessed his statesman-like tact, 
 
 And morn always blushed on another new act. 
 
 The boors and the burghers were nobly content 
 To be robbed of their living and bribed with a cent, 
 And they truckled before them as if to a god, 
 
 Yea, they put down their breeches and gave him the 
 rod U 
 
 Still yearly did strife and contention increase 
 Till thousands of Clodpates were sworn of the peace, 
 And the judges, unstained by the dust of their shelves, 
 Sold judgment to all and kept none for themselves. 
 
128 
 
 THE WISH. 
 
 Fast life had outstripped the old laws of exchange 
 And given false credit unlimited range, 
 
 Till the men, whose initials were good as a bond, 
 Were the last to pay up and the first to abscond. 
 
 It seems, in this wretched condition of things, 
 
 That Jove was supreme over senates and kings, 
 Whose subjects rebelled, not by lead or cold steel. 
 But by sending to heaven their final appeal. 
 
 He bended his brows o’er that scene of distress 
 And issued a mandate for speedy redress. 
 
 For his ear of compassion no cry is too faint, 
 
 Ho evil so strong as to brave his restraint. 
 
 Then summoning Hermes — his envoy to earth — 
 
 He said, “ I confide in your wisdom and worth. 
 
 Fly down to yon ant-hill and leaven the nations 
 With radical doctrine of wise innovations. 
 
 Apply the same wholesome correctives to all, 
 
 And leave unreformed neither hovel nor hall. 
 
 Here are premiums and pains. Be as tender as just. 
 Bestow where you can, and inflict where you must.” 
 
 Now Hermes, the lively Olympian scout 
 Whose whole occupation was flying about, 
 
 Could accomplish a trip through the heavens as soon, 
 And with far less display than a modern balloon. 
 
 So, willing and prompt, not a meteor more swift 
 When just from the pole it has broken adrift, 
 
 Plumb downward he dived through the ether profound, 
 And ere you could tell it, was safe on the ground. 
 
THE WISH. 
 
 129 
 
 On landing, he cast off all heavenly looks, 
 Assuming the guise of an agent for books, 
 Inasmuch as he hailed every wight on the road 
 And entered unbid every mortal abode. 
 
 He scarcely had broached his diplomacy, when 
 He encountered, one morning, a couple of men, 
 
 Who were going a journey, on business belike, 
 
 For each had a staff" that was shod with a spike. 
 
 With that affable ease that is foreign to art 
 And wins its smooth way to the ruggedest heart, 
 
 He saluted them gracefully, joined in their walk 
 And stirred their dull thoughts with his flood-tide of 
 talk. 
 
 He smiled and he bowed with such elegant curve, 
 
 That they kept on their hats but threw off their reserve ; 
 Though their language was worthy of little regard, 
 Being true to their natures, both barren and hard. 
 
 For one was a miser — -the toughest of nuts, 
 
 Who would cheat you the same as he did his own , 
 
 Who counted as earned every penny he saved 
 Till his wealth was enormous hut less than he craved. 
 The other belonged to that s lenetic tribe 
 So easy to find and so hard to describe, — 
 
 A fellow who sought his own fortune far less 
 Than he pined and complained at another’s success. 
 
 It always would drive him to utter despair 
 To see something good fall to somebody’s share, 
 
 And the tenderest feeling he nursed in his heart 
 Was a yearning desire to he taking your part. 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 THE WISH. 
 
 Keen Hermes had studied the animal man, 
 
 And knew him as only a diplomat can. 
 
 The samples before him he read at a glance : 
 
 Two nuisances clogging the nation’s advance. 
 
 A niggardly miser — an envious churl ! — 
 
 His lip took a merry but mischievous curl. 
 
 “ My comrades,” he said, “ in our brief interview, 
 Yery much have I learned that is useful and new. 
 Allow me to make you a trifling return, 
 
 Since people should pay for whatever they learn. 
 
 Each make a request. I will grant it off-hand 
 With the greatest delight, ; but you’ll please understand, 
 That whatever thing the first speaker may claim, 
 
 The second shall have twice as much of the same.” 
 ’Twas a generous offer — a joyous surprise, 
 
 Which the two stupid visages could not disguise. 
 
 They gazed on him steadily, thinking he must 
 Be an angel rewarding the upright and just. 
 
 ’Twas a generous offer ! but never a word 
 Of thanks or request from the Lydians was heard. 
 Each mentally saw a munificent gift, 
 
 Nor questioned, nor doubted the gentleman’s drift. 
 
 But the envious man had resolved to abstain 
 From asking until he could whine and complain, 
 
 And the miser had hushed up the joy in his breast, 
 Bent on laughing the latest, but laughing the best. 
 
 They stood with impatience, but neither would speak, 
 And there had they stood till the end of the week ; 
 But Hermes declared he must leave them, and prayed 
 That, just to oblige him, the choice should be made. 
 
SWAN-SONG OF TIMON. 
 
 131 
 
 Then the envious gentleman, heaving a sigh, 
 
 Said meekly, “ I wish to be blind of one eye,” 
 
 ’Twas done — and the miser roared out with an oath : 
 “ Oh ! my eyes ! I am blasted in both ! ” 
 
 If you think that this tale is too much to devour, 
 
 I assure you, sweet friends, that I learned it from Gower ? 
 The moral Dan Gower, and he told it for truth 
 When our good Saxon tongue had the vigor of youth- 
 One cannot help liking whatever he says, 
 
 Though he should not be scanned by the light of those 
 days j 
 
 His genius had wings, if his verses lack feet 
 And a moral shines out from his darkest conceit. 
 
 SWAN-SONG OF TIMON. 
 
 [Timon was an Athenian noble of boundless generosity, 
 who feasted his fi iends and other parasites till his own means 
 were exhausted. Then the ingrates expelled him from the 
 city. Sliakspere’s powerful drama, founded on this narrative, 
 has somewhat popularised it among moderns.] 
 
 I heard the mimic Timon’s deep abhorence 
 Of perfidy and wrong, 
 
 Pouring hot curses down in hissing torrents 
 Upon the quaking throng. 
 
 It was enough to fire with kindred passion 
 The features of a saint. 
 
 It was enough to make the face of fa hion 
 Pale through an inch of paint ! 
 
132 
 
 SWAN-SONG OF TIMON. 
 
 And though it pierced the ear of fat contentment 
 Like a demoniac howl> 
 
 To me it sounded like the just resentment 
 Of heartless deeds and foul. 
 
 Strange sympathies my midnight pillow' haunted, 
 And through my broken dream, 
 
 The wronged and ruined benefactor chanted 
 This bitter, mocking theme : 
 
 Mother earth ! to whom such numbers 
 Cling like babies to the pap, 
 
 Let me here in dreamless slumbers 
 Lay my tired head on thy lap ! 
 
 Here beside the fretful ocean 
 Chafing in its sullen mood, 
 
 When my pulses cease their motion, 
 
 Call the vulture’s famished brood. 
 
 Never let the feastful city 
 Find me in my last retreat, 
 
 Lest they mourn with real pity 
 Over what they cannot eat. 
 
 When the soldier’s truceless summons 
 Stun their senate with amaze, 
 
 Let their voices, weak as woman’s, 
 Vainly ask where Timon stays. 
 
SWAN-SONG OP TIMON. 
 
 133 
 
 Luxury of hate I’ve tasted, 
 
 Lone within my forest den, 
 
 When my substance had been wasted 
 On the maws of thankless men, — 
 
 Parasites who drank my living 
 Thirsty as the desert plains, 
 
 Ever taking, never giving — 
 
 Flinty hearts and barren brains. 
 
 Live, Athenians ! till your dealings 
 Fleece each other to the hide. 
 
 You have wounded Timon’s feelings — 
 He has only galled your pride. 
 
 While the fawning instinct leads you, 
 By no principle be swayed. 
 
 Lick the foot of him who feeds you — 
 Bite his hand when stretched for aid. 
 
 Great in arms, in arts and letters 
 Were the men whose light is spent. 
 
 Were they truly your begetters? 
 Heavens ! what a grand descent ! 
 
 “ Ancient virtue,” pipes the poet 
 In the haggling market-place. 
 
 “ Cecrops’ progeny ” — They show it 
 Only by a double face !* 
 
 * Cecrops, the founder of Athens, was represented by a 
 double figure to symbo'ize the fact of his having instituted 
 marriage. 
 
134 
 
 SWAN-SONG OF TtMON. 
 
 Was not Jove the son of Saturn? 
 
 Did he not his sire expel ? 
 
 Tis the sole celestial pattern 
 That my country copies well. 
 
 But your proudest feats recorded 
 Wear a dark, disgraceful stain — 
 
 Brave Miltiades rewarded 
 
 With the dungeon and the chain ! 
 
 Yet the Amphictyonic council 
 From their most exalted post 
 
 Touch their foreheads to the groundsel 
 When th’ avengers touch our coast. 
 
 Zeus ! who could be a scorner 
 In our city’s holy plan? 
 
 Scores of gods at every corner 
 Where ’tis hard to find a man. 
 
 Faith is fled ; she never lingers 
 Where the ways are so corrupt 
 
 That the miser’s crooked fingers 
 
 Choke the friend with whom he supped ; 
 
 Where despite the judge’s ermine, 
 
 And despite the lawyer’s brief, 
 
 Solon’s skill could scarce determine 
 Which is justice, which the thief ! 
 
 Public conscience feels no tension — 
 
 There is nothing of it left ; 
 
 What for statesmen is a pension, 
 
 In their dupes would be a theft. 
 
THE TYRANT OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 135 
 
 Courtesy ? ’tis that creature smirking 
 O’er a counter at the fairs, 
 
 With a spirit in him lurking 
 Just as rotten as his wares. 
 
 0 ye kindlier billows, flinging 
 Round me many a big salt tear, 
 
 Lift your voices, join my singing 
 Till the monster world shall hear. 
 
 Echo Timon’s benediction 
 On the many and the few ; 
 
 That the race, without restriction, 
 Long may live — and die so, too ! 
 
 THE TYRANT OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 When Syracuse in boding hour 
 Beheld with rainy eyes 
 A low-born villain seize the power 
 For sovereign exercise, 
 
 Beneath his thrall she seemed to cower, 
 
 Nor made attempt to rise. 
 
 ’Twas strange that men w r ho. bragged like those, 
 That in the worst attacks 
 By foreign arms, no mortal foes 
 Had ever seen their backs, 
 
 Should meekly bear a despot’s blows 
 And daily-doubling tax ! 
 
136 
 
 THE TYRANT OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 A mercenary mob obeyed 
 
 The tyrant’s dread command, 
 
 And at his bidding, promptly laid 
 His scourges on the land, 
 
 So freedom had to rue a raid 
 If she but raised a hand. 
 
 Truth came not near him, for to thrones 
 The truth could seldom reach. 
 
 Deaf were his ears to pity’s tones 
 But not to flattery’s speech ; 
 
 And, rest assured, he made no bones 
 Of causing bones to bleach. 
 
 Being bent on conquest, he bereft 
 Of life the neighboring states, 
 
 And with ferocious pleasure cleft 
 His luckless captives’ pates 
 
 Which, fixed in ghastly rows, he left 
 To fester o’er the. gates ! 
 
 But here I need not waste a word 
 On Dionysius’ reign ; 
 
 For every one of us has heard 
 Of that outrageous stain ; 
 
 But one small incident occurred 
 That may be told again. 
 
 The tyrant had of self-conceit 
 A most uncommon share. 
 
 Deeming that no one could compete 
 With him in genius rare, 
 
 He valued his poetic feet 
 Above his natural pair. 
 
THE TYRANT OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 137 
 
 Prodigious pains but little art 
 His compositions showed ; 
 
 The silliest freak with him could start 
 A dithyrambic ode, 
 
 Which rumbled like a rustic cart 
 Along a rocky road. 
 
 And yet the whole Trinacrian vote 
 Accorded him renown, 
 
 For when the coteries failed to quote 
 His idyls through the town, 
 
 The tyrant always struck a note 
 That brought their houses down ! 
 
 He had one literary clique 
 To read him and admire — 
 
 His courtier-creatures, mostly Greek 
 And judges of the lyre ; 
 
 But yet the puppets had to squeak 
 Responsive to the wire. 
 
 But when on the Olympic games 
 His verse he did inflict, 
 
 The critics — honorable names — 
 
 A righteous quarrel picked ; 
 
 His poems were given to the flames, 
 His readers hissed and kicked. 
 
 Crestfallen was the monarch then 
 And smitten with the blues ; 
 
 Yet would he not forswear the pen, 
 But daily prayed the muse 
 To help him curse those sons of men 
 Who had no liberal views. 
 
138 
 
 THE TYRANT OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 And then, his courtier-throng before, 
 From morn till day was done, 
 
 He raved his crabbed lyrics o’er, 
 Which, howe’er they might stun, 
 The fawning rascals praised, and swore 
 He was Apollo’s son ! 
 
 But there was one fine man at court, 
 Most frank in all his ways, 
 
 Who, being called on to support 
 The credit of the lays, 
 
 Replied that paeans of that sort 
 Were good — to beg for praise. 
 
 Then Dionysius, raging mad 
 At this unpleasant fact, 
 
 As if his sacred person had 
 Been openly attacked, 
 
 Resolved to spit him like a shad, 
 
 Or have him flayed and racked. 
 
 And thus the frowning tyrant spoke : 
 
 “ Was ever cheek so hard 1 
 Plebeian dog ! dare you provoke 
 To wrath a royal hard 1 
 You’ll see how dear will cost that joke. 
 What ho ! my body-guard ! ” 
 
 Forthwith in rush the menial crew, 
 
 And instantly surround 
 Philoxenus, whom down they threw 
 And firmly gagged and bound ; 
 
 Then, at a word, they bore him to 
 The quarries, underground 
 
THE TYRANT OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 139 
 
 Thereat the citizens rebelled. 
 
 And threatened death and woe, 
 
 Till Dionysius was compelled 
 To let his prisoner go, 
 
 And rank and favor previous held 
 Again on him bestow. 
 
 A short time after this event 
 There was a royal feast 
 To which a host of people went — 
 
 A thousand at the least, — 
 
 Where much old-fashioned merriment 
 The springs of joy increased. 
 
 Just as the banquet-board was spread, 
 The king was pleased to cause 
 His latest poem to be read 
 With proper tone and pause, 
 
 And though it dizzied every head, 
 
 It met with great applause. 
 
 Philoxenus was standing by 
 But no delight betrayed, 
 
 Though in his half-averted eye 
 A smile sarcastic played. 
 
 The king remarked, and asked him why 
 No compliment he paid. 
 
 Was not the ode of that grand kind 
 Which crowned a man with glory 1 
 Philoxenus, with air resigned, 
 
 Yet looking somewhat sorry, 
 
 ♦Said to the guards who stood behind, 
 
 “ Carry me back to the quarry ! ” 
 
140 
 
 ARCHILOCHUS. 
 
 So unexpectedly ’twas said 
 In such a quiet way, 
 
 The tyrant turned extremely red, 
 
 Yet had the grace to say, 
 
 As round the stifled laughter spread, 
 
 “ You’re jjist as good’s a play.” 
 
 Thus may brave hearts in every place 
 To truth give always scope, 
 
 And fear not, though in danger’s face, 
 With giant wrong to cope, 
 
 Till every tribe and every race 
 That in their shackles grope, 
 
 Shall on unbending manhood base 
 Their freedom and their hope ! 
 
 ARCHILOCHUS. 
 
 A TALE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 I will stretch him, he said, on the rhythmic rack 
 And give him a few faint twinges. 
 
 I will make his tough old tendons crack, 
 
 Nor let the iambic engine slack 
 Till every vertebra in his back 
 Is twisted oil the hinges ! 
 
 Archilochus uttered this fiendish threat, 
 
 And for whom, think ye, ’twas intended ? 
 
 The crabbed old sire of his darling pet, 
 
 The girl he wanted but couldn’t get, 
 
 Tor the governor’s heart and foot were set 
 And the match was cruelly ended. 
 
ARCHILOCHUS. 
 
 141 
 
 And no one knew the cause of complaint 
 That had driven the pair asunder. 
 Archilochus had no moral taint 
 That could deepen the hues of beauty’s paint ; 
 He had always been true as a dying saint 
 To the laws he was living under. 
 
 He had no habits of ruinous waste, 
 
 And few young men were wiser. 
 
 In matters of literary taste, 
 
 He knew the real gem from the paste, 
 
 But he ne’er would pronounce with any haste 
 Betwixt a knave and a miser. 
 
 With a generous spirit, a sprightly mind 
 And a body not less active, 
 
 He had, however, been left behind 
 
 In the race for wealth ; he had felt inclined 
 
 More strongly to something more refined — 
 
 To metal more attractive. 
 
 But no one so deftly could sweep the string 
 That thrilled to his heavenly lyrics ; 
 
 And sweet as the wild-bee’s murmuring, 
 
 They settled over each blossoming thing, 
 
 But sharpened into a deadly sting 
 When dealing with empty empirics. 
 
 He could work such wildfire into his theme 
 As to set their nerves to prickling, 
 
 And daze them into the nightmare dream 
 That a million metres of solar beam 
 Were focussed into a half-inch stream 
 And through their anatomy trickling ! 
 
142 
 
 ARCHILOCHUS. 
 
 So the ode was written. Oh cruelly rough ! 
 
 Oh piercingly keen and provoking ! 
 
 The critics all hailed it with “ Good enough,” 
 But the old man styled it the wretch edest stuff, 
 And vowed that he “ wasn’t going to suff ” 
 
 But here he was taken with choking. 
 
 He groaned a most unearthly groan 
 And began to look despairing. 
 
 Next morning they found him all alone, 
 Hanged by the neck and dead as a stone, 
 
 For rage, like love, is commonly prone 
 To end in some dire ensnaring. 
 
 The Delphic priesthood hallowed the verse 
 And hung it up over the altar. 
 
 ’Twas sung to frighten the babe at nurse, 
 
 And grave historians stooped to rehearse 
 How a few strong lines of a poet’s curse 
 Were twisted into a halter ! 
 
 There is no moral for modern times, 
 
 Young man, in a tale so tragic. 
 
 ’T would be the blackest of social crimes 
 To taunt her papa with the jingle of rhymes, 
 But tickle his ear with the jingle of dimes, 
 And ’twill act on his heart like magic ! 
 
RECONSTRUCTION NERO II. 
 
 143 
 
 RECONSTR UCTION. 
 
 IMPROMPTU AT A MEETING OF THE DIRECTORS OF A 
 CERTAIN JOINT STOCK COMPANY. 
 
 The scriptures affirm when a man lias got through 
 With the demon by which he was haunted and curst, 
 Then ships him with seven other demons anew, 
 
 The last situation is worse than the first. 
 
 The truth of that text I have reason to know. 
 
 My board of directors again is enrolled, 
 
 Composed of the mystical seven, and lo ! 
 
 The new set of devils are worse than the old. 
 
 NERO II. 
 
 [These stanzas were sent to an ancbnt teacher, of great 
 self-importance, who having through carelessness, burned 
 down a new school house, wrote to the papers an account of 
 the disaster, bewailing the loss of his own “ terrestrial globe 
 and valuable Latin works which could not be replaced. ” He 
 had once been suspended for being oxer fond of the violin.] 
 
 Despite the terrors of your frown, 
 
 Despite your threatened lashes, 
 
 An urchin, then, has brought you down 
 To sackcloth and to ashes. 
 
 That cruel flame, which knew no law 
 When this old world was younger, 
 
 Still lies in wait for men of straw 
 To satisfy its hunger. 
 
144 
 
 NERO II. 
 
 Such ruin fell but once before : 
 
 Old Nero twanged bis fiddle 
 When Rome, red-ripe from husk to core, 
 Was hissing like a griddle, 
 
 With flames which did her marrow melt 
 And into bone-dust crackle 
 The wall that to the savage Celt 
 Flung back their answering cackle. 
 
 It seized the conqueror’s side-tracked car, 
 And climbed the upper story : 
 
 It made the old S. P. Q. R.* 
 
 Sure-Pop. Quick Road to* glory ! 
 
 It ran the golden chair to dross 
 Which bloated Lollio sat in, 
 
 And lank Orbilius mourned the loss 
 Of all except his Latin. 
 
 Fate folded up that fiery robe 
 To wrap it second-handed 
 Around the whole terrestrial globe 
 Which you alone commanded. 
 
 And like the bolts Jove used to launch 
 With direful consequences, 
 
 It burned your Latin, root and branch, 
 Prefixes and pretences. 
 
 * The letters in the Roman standard, for Senatus populus- 
 qae Romani, that is, the senate and people of Rome. 
 
NERO II. 
 
 145 
 
 Henceforth within some rural grot 
 The banished muse must lull us ; 
 
 Since you have made the town too hot 
 For Ovid and Catullus. 
 
 Alas for learning, when her torch, 
 That warmth and light afforded, 
 
 Must to a blackened cinder scorch 
 The temple where she boarded ! 
 
 And oh what poignant sorrow lurks 
 Within this sad reflection : 
 
 The martyrdom of heathen works 
 Can have no resurrection ! 
 
 I’ve heard of words congealed by frost 
 In polar air that hovered, 
 
 But tongues by burning ash-tuhs lost 
 Can never be recovered. 
 
 Yet fate propounds a golden rule 
 For every tribulation, — 
 
 (Except for those still keeping school) 
 The law of compensation. 
 
 Fame’s temple must be widened now 
 By two more fire-new niches, 
 
 Since you and Dame O’Leary’s cow* 
 Are added to its riches ! 
 
 * The cause of the great Chicago fire. 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 SAILING IN SUMMER. 
 
 SAILING IN SUMMER. 
 
 Impelled by sails in steady trim 
 And strength of limb, 
 
 As gaily o’er the tide we skim 
 As through the air, the swallow. 
 
 Old Nereus and the scaly train 
 In his domain 
 
 May ply their membrane fans in vain 
 Our joyous course to follow. 
 
 The ash is pliant in our grip 
 With measured dip, 
 
 And curling like a maiden’s lip 
 When love may pass for scorning, 
 
 The tiny ripples dash astern, 
 
 Then circling turn, 
 
 As if enchanted to discern 
 Our boat the waves adorning. 
 
 How furl the sail, suspend the oar ; 
 We touch the shore, 
 
 Which summer reigns serenely o’er 
 In undisturbed seclusion : 
 
 Here love might pitch his leafy tent 
 On pleasure bent, 
 
 With heaven’s full and free consent — 
 Without the world’s intrusion. 
 
MY AMERICA. 
 
 147 
 
 MF AMERICA. 
 
 Steure, muthiger Segler — Schiller. 
 
 Ay, though the social martyr-stake 
 Be planted for opinion’s sake, 
 
 It is not self-deceiving 
 To hold, unawed, unrecompensed, 
 Despite a thousand creeds incensed, 
 One simple steadfast faith against 
 A whole world unbelieving. 
 
 Before the true-souled Genoese 
 There rolled the most unknown of seas. 
 
 All other shipmen shunned it. 
 
 Dark mystery on its outmost edge 
 Lay like an adamantine hedge. 
 
 His bold prow cleft it like a wedge, 
 
 And found a world beyond it. 
 
 Thus must I too pursue alone 
 A course peculiarly my own 
 Far in the dangerous distance. 
 
 I heed not warning, threat or sneer, 
 While conscience whispers, Do not fear, 
 For thy America is here, 
 
 Or nowhere in existence. 
 
148 
 
 THE ORATOR. 
 
 THE ORATOR. 
 
 OLD SCHOOL. 
 
 Oh what a rarity on earth is he 
 
 Who can command the full flood-tide of speech, 
 Which rolling on, resistless as the sea, 
 
 With grandest thunders marks its utmost reach ! 
 
 In vain the drowsy dons essay to teach 
 The modulated yet impetuous swing 
 
 Of Athens’ spokesman standing to impeach 
 The foxy motives of the Emathian king ! — 
 
 That has the perfect pitch, that has the rousing ring. 
 
 Yes, proudest of the proud Hellenic arts 
 Was eloquence, when Athens gifted son 
 With lofty speech could fire ten thousand hearts 
 And make them in their fury beat as one. 
 
 Each rounded period — not too finely spun — 
 Gleamed fiercely as a falchion from its sheath ; 
 
 And Philip, ere the day on which Bull Run* 
 
 Was antetyped on Chaeronea’s heath, 
 
 Even Philip feared that tongue more than the 
 dragon’s teeth. 
 
 * The place of the first encounter between the Union and 
 the Confederate forces in the great Southern rebellion. The 
 stampede of the former was notorious. The route of the 
 Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea, which made the power of 
 Philip supreme, was not less complete. 
 
THE ORATOR. 
 
 149 
 
 Again, behold the greatest Roman stand 
 In the dense forum or the senate room ; 
 
 His words more dexterous than the headsman’s hand 
 To strip the dark-souled traitor for his doom. 
 
 His mighty breath fanned into lasting bloom 
 The name of some whom no one else would praise, 
 
 And blasted Verres’ fortunes. But the gloom 
 Of exile fell. He fled between two days, 
 
 And from the closing scene we turn away our gaze ! 
 
 Who now can speak with such sublime effect ? 
 
 Or where can such true eloquence be heard ? 
 The heart uniting with the intellect, 
 
 A passion and a purpose in each word, 
 
 Till all the listening energies are stirred 
 And firmly centred in the coming deed, 
 
 Though danger, death, destruction be incurred, 
 The high, the low rise, answering to the need 
 Of men, heroic men, to follow and to lead ! 
 
 NEW SCHOOL. 
 
 Make way there, Tully and Demosthenes ! 
 
 And let that candidate in broadcloth coat, 
 (Which can be turned, as often as ye please,) 
 Usurp the rostrum and unvalve his throat ! 
 
 Not to fight Philip, but to win a vote 
 He storms the startled air with tongue and fist. 
 
 Has that man brains 1 — No, but he has a note 
 For fifty dollars on his private list — 
 
 That is the eloquence few moderns can resist. 
 
150 
 
 AGARISTE. 
 
 Behold the preacher, who from foreign soil 
 Digs up a subject of the buried past, 
 
 Its fossil joints worked smooth' with midnight oil 
 And polished like a stately plaster cast — 
 
 Some warrior, laying with a ram’s-horn blast 
 In shapeless heaps a wicked city’s walls ; 
 
 And so he batters nature till at last 
 Her sweet restorer on his audience falls — 
 
 That is the eloquence which earns the highest calls 
 
 AGARISTE. 
 
 (extract from a suppressed poem.) 
 
 ***** 
 
 Her face, with youth and animation glowing, 
 Was like the sea-shell delicately tinted ; 
 
 Her tresses, in their natural freedom flowing, 
 More golden than the royal fillets glinted. 
 Nought but an angel’s pure caress had printed 
 The cunning dimples in each laughing cheek 
 Where all the loves were playing hide and seek. 
 
 Even such a jewel shone before their eyes ; 
 
 Enough to make the saintliest man forget 
 His home on earth and that beyond the skies, 
 
 Or barter both without the least regret, 
 
 Or pawn a mitre or a coronet 
 To purchase what 1 — a rapturous gasp — a kiss, 
 Which must be stolen to yield its perfect bliss. 
 
NOCTURNE. 
 
 151 
 
 Oh blessed madness ! envied, blamed and pitied, 
 If sober judgment does not call a halt, 
 
 After the happy culprit has committed 
 A thousand follies to one graver fault. 
 
 Sure, love was given in order to exalt 
 Our fallen natures with its heavenly glow, 
 
 But ah ! how oft it lays our best hopes low ! 
 
 Still, it attains the goal for which it panted ; 
 
 And how exultant in life’s fervid season 
 Its crimson banner is unfurled and planted, 
 Passion rebelling ’gainst imperial reason. 
 
 What shall we term it ? High and holy treason, 
 Which conquers and then peoples its domain 
 With several thousands for each thousand slain ! 
 
 NOCTURNE. 
 
 The fields and meadows lie forsaken, 
 
 In stillest midnight they repose. 
 
 My better life begins to waken, 
 
 The desert blossoms like the rose. 
 
 The stormy passions now are sleeping, 
 With every thought that is not good ; 
 While heaven o’er silent earth is keeping 
 The starry bond of brotherhood. 
 
152 
 
 NOCTURNE. 
 
 Here in my humble study seated 
 
 Where sheds the lamp its friendly light,. 
 The search for truth seems half completed ; 
 The heart discovers what is right. 
 
 Here reason low but clear is speaking. 
 
 Hope plumes again its cherub wing, 
 And, not in vain, the soul is seeking 
 Fresh life at its perennial spring. 
 
 Alas ! almost as soon as tasted, 
 
 The fount of peace is dried and wasted. 
 
 My new-born energy has slackened, 
 
 My lips with thirst are parched and blackened ; 
 
 Dear God ! what fearful alternation ! 
 
 My steps, so near the skies attaining, 
 
 The fiowerless, flinty earth is paining — 
 
 So falls my fairest expectation ! 
 
 Cold moon, thou lost illumined child 
 Of earth, that scorn’st the misty air, 
 Thy brow is still serenely mild, 
 
 But neither warmth nor life is there. 
 How like the student in despair ! — 
 How like, and yet how different, 
 
 For thou canst wander everywhere, 
 While he is fettered to a chair, 
 
 And in a gloomy dungeon pent ! 
 
TO FLOAREA. 
 
 153 
 
 TO FLOAREA. 
 
 On roseate pinions came the lusty morn 
 The blushing flowers to woo ; 
 
 And in that hour, one blissful thought was born, 
 
 One fair ideal did my song adorn, 
 
 And that was you. 
 
 The sun, ascending to his summer height, 
 
 A glory round me threw. 
 
 My spirit, revelling in warmth and light, 
 
 To one dear object only took its flight, 
 
 And that was you. 
 
 When dewy evening over hill and plain 
 In grateful silence drew, 
 
 I only saw, amid the twilight’s wane, 
 
 One picture dominating heart and brain, 
 
 And that was you. 
 
 When from the East night’s deepening shadows flocked, 
 A vision on me grew 
 Of being in a maid’s embraces locked, 
 
 Aud on her breast to heavenly slumbers rocked, 
 
 And that was you. 
 
 The sweet delusion fled with too much haste, 
 
 But we can make it true : 
 
 Oh let me, while awake, that rapture taste, 
 
 And I shall know, in pressing lip and waist, 
 
 That it is you ! 
 
154 
 
 THE TOKEN. 
 
 THE TOKEN. 
 
 WRITTEN BT FLO ARE A. IN ONE OF THE AUTHOR’S BOOKS. 
 
 L’amant que j’ adore 
 Pret a me quitter, 
 D’un instant encore 
 Voudrait profiter. 
 
 F&icit6 vaine, 
 
 Qu’ on ne peut saisir ; 
 Trop pr&s de la peine 
 Pour etre un plaisir ! 
 
 The man I adore 
 Being ready to leave, 
 
 Just one token more 
 
 Of my love Avould receive. 
 
 Oh happiness vain, 
 
 In a moment destroyed ! 
 Too near unto pain, 
 
 To be fully enjoyed ! 
 
RESPONSE. 
 
 155 
 
 RESPONSE. 
 
 Oh no, it was not all in vain ; 
 
 The happiness was fleet, 
 
 But 'twas the near approach of pain 
 Which made it doubly sweet. 
 
 The winter winds blew cold and bleak 
 Across the fields of snow ; 
 
 They could not banish from her cheek 
 Affection's vivid glow. 
 
 Her hair in many a silken mesh 
 About my neck was blown, 
 But closer * * * 
 
 * * * * 
 
 And yet there flowed more lasting bliss 
 From love’s delicious wine : 
 
 The soul, transfused through that warm kiss, 
 Is still inspiring mine. 
 
156 
 
 THE FAITHLESS FLOAREA. 
 
 THE FAITHLESS FLOAREA. 
 
 “Chante, rossignol. cbante, 
 
 Toi, qui es toujours gai.” 
 
 Sing on, 0 little bird ; 
 
 Pour forth those notes divine, 
 
 It suits thee to be gay, 
 
 While I in sadness pine. 
 
 It suits thee to be gay 
 While I in sadness pine. 
 
 Thou hailest now the ray 
 Which I have seen decline. 
 
 Thou hailest now the ray 
 Which I have seen decline. 
 
 My mistress is estranged, 
 
 But for no fault of mine. 
 
 My mistress is estranged, 
 
 But for no fault of mine : 
 
 Because for some one else 
 I did a wreath entwine. 
 
 Because for some one else 
 I did a wreath entwine — 
 
 I wish those faded flowers 
 Were growing on their vine. 
 
 I wish those faded flowers 
 Were growing on their vine, 
 
 And that my mistress’ heart 
 Were joined as close to mine ! 
 
FAREWELL TO FLOAREA. 
 
 157 
 
 FAREWELL TO FLOAREA. 
 
 Not one brief month has flitted by 
 Since love awakened from delusion ; 
 
 Indeed the ink is scarcely dry 
 Upon its last refined effusion ! 
 
 Yet the perpetual vows we swore 
 
 With such luxuriant wealth of diction 
 
 Read like a page of ancient lore 
 
 Writ in the style of modern fiction. 
 
 How strange that late — so very late — 
 
 A point, though slightly stretched, would screen us. 
 
 And now the period seems as great 
 As is the yawning gulf between us ! 
 
 How curious that the merest chance 
 Involved me in a dream so deeply — 
 
 A sort of yellow-leaved romance, 
 
 That cost too dear, though offered cheaply. 
 
 Our choicest feelings, pleased and pained, 
 
 Long underwent the sorest tension, 
 
 And, struggling for expression strained, 
 
 The last resources of invention. 
 
 My phrases worshipped on their knees, 
 
 While yours, more heavenly, took to flying, 
 
 Like seraph bands that soar at ease, 
 
 With all the natural grace of lying. 
 
158 
 
 FAREWELL TO FLOAREA. 
 
 The little naked god, of whom 
 
 The amorous Greeks were wont to fable, 
 
 Forsaking fields of vernal bloom, 
 
 Besieged me at the dinner table. 
 
 Although his wings were hid from view — 
 The hour, indeed, was somewhat prosy — 
 
 I recognised his proper hue 
 
 Which Milton calls celestial rosy.* 
 
 Ours was a most ethereal feast 
 
 That pampered up our ghostly tenants 
 
 Without the blessing of the priest, 
 
 But kept our bodies doing penance — 
 
 A festival which might uncork 
 The best that ever won the laurel, 
 
 But, like the dinner of the stork, 
 
 It yielded nothing but a moral : 
 
 Your poet learned that nature’s harp 
 Has yet untested sweeps and ranges ; 
 
 That she can shift from flat to sharp, 
 
 And ring the most astounding changes. 
 
 His planetary soul, that spins 
 
 In endless cycles, glowing, warming, 
 
 Through the bright zodiac of sins, 
 
 Is never wholly past reforming. 
 
 ‘blushing 
 
 Celestial rosy red, love’s proper hue . — Paradise Lost. 
 
FAREWELL TO FLOAREA. 
 
 159 
 
 Unlike the earth, which could not live 
 Without the charm the sun has lent her, 
 He wastes the warmth he has to give, 
 Revolving round a common centre. 
 
 .But when some new repellent force 
 
 Has snapped the golden chains asunder, 
 He safely steers a tangent course 
 
 And sets the co-sine down a blunder. 
 
 And though at first it bites like grief, 
 This sudden frosty change of season, 
 There comes a feeling of relief 
 
 In lapsing from romance to reason. 
 
 Each hour that you were out of sight 
 Was like a glacial period reckoned, 
 And ’twas the longest Lapland night 
 To do without you half a second. 
 
 But since we fall on April days 
 
 With such capricious freaks of weather, 
 I may, by fast and prayer and praise 
 Even do without you altogether ! 
 
160 
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 
 
 THE HOLOCAUST. 
 
 floarea’s love letters burned. 
 
 Those letters, innocently bold 
 In all their tender yearning, 
 
 Must now be tried like virgin gold ; 
 Yea, let this mass of wealth untold 
 Be purified by burning. 
 
 There lies the substance and the sum 
 Of deathless love recorded ! 
 
 ’Tis not the first time faith has come 
 From lock and key to martyrdom 
 And gone to get rewarded. 
 
 Its body in the fire must die 
 Without a drop to drench it. 
 
 The flame must riot red and high : 
 The tear founts’ rather scant supply 
 Can lend no aid to quench it. 
 
 That sweet, confiding, melting style, 
 Oh how I once enjoyed it ! 
 
 Now, as I light the funeral pile 
 It would be sacrilege to smile, 
 
 Yet how can I avoid it ! 
 
THE FURIES OF THE FEAST. 
 
 The smile which I cannot control 
 Is less profane than stupid. 
 
 It issues from an honest soul 
 That sees its incense upward roll 
 As nonsense burned to Cupid. 
 
 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ! 
 
 And now my heart is lighter. 
 
 Did not those traitorous scrolls combust, 
 They might some day betray my trust, 
 As did their pretty writer ! 
 
 THE FURIES OF THE FEAST L 
 
 Once I read with boyish wonder 
 Deepening to romantic awe, 
 
 Of ^Eneas and his band 
 Voyaging slow towards Hesperland, 
 What mishaps they labored under, 
 
 An d what prodigies they saw. 
 
 ’Twas like looking on and seeing 
 Swelling sail and bending oar, 
 
 When they left the Thracian coast 
 Warned by Polydorus’ ghost, 
 
 Or in consternation fleeing 
 From the pestilential shore. 
 
 11 
 
162 
 
 THE FUIilES OF THE FEAST. 
 
 I beheld their navies standing 
 
 Through the storm that raved around 
 Towards an island fair and green ; 
 
 And anon the crews are seen 
 In a sheltered haven landing, 
 
 Drenched and worn, but safe and sound. 
 
 Glad from peril and from suffering 
 To escape so well at last, 
 
 Soon they pile the slaughtered game, 
 Soon the turf-dressed altars flame — 
 
 To the gods a grateful offering, 
 
 Then a bountiful repast. 
 
 Hark ! a sound like thunder’s muttering 
 Spreads along the darkened skies ! 
 
 ’Tis the Harpies’ monster brood ; 
 Flocking at the scent of food, 
 
 Down they swoop with fiercest fluttering 
 And a burst of hideous cries. 
 
 Harpies ! more abhorrent creatures 
 Never did man’s peace assail : 
 
 Winged and armed with crooked claws, 
 Filling, emptying their maws 
 Both at once — their flaccid features 
 With eternal hunger pale ! 
 
 And the Trojans, terror stricken, 
 
 Huddle into shivering groups ; 
 
 They, who on Scamander’s banks 
 Broke the serried Grecian ranks, 
 
 Now are timid as the chicken 
 When the pirate falcon swoops. 
 
THE FURIES OF THE FEAST. 
 
 163 
 
 From the pests no place secure is, 
 
 Not the cove o’erhung with trees ; 
 Thither, as the Trojan crew 
 Seek their banquet to renew, 
 
 Rush the semi-human furies 
 And th’ untasted viands seize. 
 
 Fight them ! At the signal sounded, 
 Hissing flies the arrowy hail, 
 
 To the mark all vainly sent. 
 
 Swords are dinted, javelins bent, 
 Arrows blunted and rebounded 
 As from off thrice-proven mail. 
 
 Launch again the shattered shipping, 
 
 Let the cursed island sink ! 
 
 All on board confusedly leap, 
 
 Loose their sails and tempt the deep, 
 Trembling till the isle is dipping 
 ’Neath the far horizon’s brink. 
 
 Such the legend weirdly charming, 
 Which Yirgilius Maro sings ; 
 
 But the sapient Pecksniff Smith 
 Says the Harpies are a myth, 
 
 For in reading and in farming 
 He has never met such things. 
 
 Shall old fame he contradicted ? 
 
 True, the fires of song are spent, 
 
 But the Harpies still survive, 
 Propagate their breed and thrive, 
 Not to one lone isle restricted, 
 
 Nor the eastern continent. 
 
164 
 
 TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 Floods of scorn with laughter rippled, 
 Diamond-pointed darts of wit 
 Never daunt them in the least ; 
 
 Still they fasten on the feast, 
 
 And, instead of being crippled, 
 
 Never know that they are hit ! 
 
 Better face the warring weather, 
 
 North and South and West and East; 
 Better Syrtis, shifting grounds. 
 Better Scylla’s barking hounds — 
 Better all of them together 
 Than one fury of the feast ! 
 
 TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 In these pages my aim was to give, as nearly as possible, a 
 literal translation of the third book of Virgil’s /Eneid. I began 
 the work in boyhood, and abandoned it when, on becoming 
 better acquainted with the Latin language, I realised my 
 inability to perform the task. The following is part of the 
 story related by .Eneas, the leader of the exiled Trojans, to 
 Dido, queen of Carthage. 
 
 After it pleased the gods to overthrow 
 
 The power of Asia and the race of Priam, — 
 
 Unmerited their doom — when Ilium fell 
 
 And all Neptunian Troy smoked on the ground ; 
 
 To distant exile and to desert shores 
 
 Directed by the gods, we build a fleet 
 
 Close by Antandros, ’neath the Phrygian hills, 
 
TROT AFLOAT. 
 
 165 
 
 And knowing not where fate may bid ns rest, 
 
 Collect our men. ’Twas early summer time ; 
 
 My sire Anchises bade the sails be set ; 
 
 With tears we leave the coasts and those dear fields 
 Where Troy once stood. An exile sailed I forth 
 With but my son, my comrades and the gods. 
 
 There is a far off land whose ample fields 
 The Thracians till, once ’neatli Lycurgus’ laws ; 
 Friendly to Troy, and holding kindred faith, 
 
 While happier days were ours. I thither steer, 
 
 And on the curving shore, though fate opposed 
 I lay the first foundations of a city, 
 
 And from my name ^Eneadse call the place. 
 
 To my Dionean mother and the powers, 
 
 Who looked auspicious on my work begun, 
 
 I sacrificed ; and to the king of heaven 
 I slew upon the strand the struggling bull. 
 
 It chanced a mound was near, upon whose top 
 The cornel twigs grew close, and myrtle shoots 
 Rose thickly-clustering, all like pointed spears. 
 
 I went, and strove to pluck up from the ground 
 The verdant laurel-wood that I might deck 
 The altar with its fresh and leafy boughs, 
 
 When lo ! a wonder fearful to relate ! 
 
 For, from the torn roots of the sprig first plucked 
 Oozed slowly forth and fell dark drops of blood 
 And stained the earth with gore. A shudder seized 
 My limbs, and chilly horror froze my veins ! 
 
 Again I plucked another tender shoot 
 The hidden and mysterious cause to find ; 
 
 Again from out the bark the black blood streamed. 
 
166 
 
 TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 In wonder deep, I prayed the woodland nymphs 
 And father Mars, who o’er those fields presides, 
 
 That they might turn this prodigy to good. 
 
 Then for the third time did I seize a shoot, 
 
 Bending, for stronger grasp, my knees to earth. 
 
 (Shall I proceed ?) A deep groan from the mound 
 Arose, and thus a voice my ears bespake : 
 
 “ Why tear a wretch, HEneas ? Spare the dead, 
 
 Nor sully pious hands. To thee in Troy, 
 
 I was no stranger ; and this blood is mine. 
 
 Oh fly this cruel land, this greedy shore ! 
 
 For I am Polydorus. Here transfixed, 
 
 This iron growth of arrows covered me 
 And grew in course of time to pointed spears.” 
 
 Then, all bewildered with perplexing fears 
 I stood, with stiffening hair and powerless tongue. 
 
 This Polydorus, with vast stores of gold, 
 
 Had been confided by his father Priam 
 IJnto the Thracian king to be brought up, 
 
 When first the Dardan arms began to yield, 
 
 And when the foe our city held besieged. 
 
 His host, when fortune left the Teucrian arms 
 And followed Agamemnon’s conquering bands, 
 
 Broke all restraint, and, murdering Polydorus, 
 
 Seized on his wealth. (What will not mortals do 
 Through cursed thirst of gold 1 ) My dread subsiding, 
 To our elected chiefs — my father first — 
 
 I tell this miracle and ask their minds. 
 
 All counsel me to leave this wicked land 
 And spread our canvas to the southern gales. 
 
TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 167 
 
 But first we celebrate the funeral rites 
 Of Polydorus, heaping for his tomb 
 A goodly mound, with altars to his shade ; 
 
 The Trojan ladies mournful gather round 
 With sombre fillets and sad cypress crowned, 
 
 And with loose-flowing locks, in manner due. 
 
 Then bring we cups of warm and foaming milk 
 And bowls with blood of recent victims filled ; 
 
 We lay his soul to rest within the tomb, 
 
 And with united voice bid him farewell. 
 
 Soon as the deep assumed a safer look, 
 
 O’er its smooth waves the south winds rustling soft, 
 My comrades launch our navies from the beach. 
 Forward we move — town, shore and hills recede. 
 
 In mid sea lies a very pleasant isle 
 Sacred to Neptune and the Nereids, 
 
 Which, floating long around the shores and coasts, 
 The god who bears the bow first stationed firm, 
 
 To high Gyarus and Myconus bound 
 Immovable to mock the burly winds. 
 
 Arriving there, its placid haven received 
 Our wearied crews. Landing, we venerate 
 The city of Apollo, while the king, 
 
 Anius, — both king of men and priest of Phoebus — 
 His temples wreathed with sacred bays, drew near 
 And recognised an old friend in Anchises. 
 
 We join right hands, and enter ’neath the roof. 
 
 I reverence deep the temple of the gods, 
 
 The sacred fane, of ancient stones constructed. 
 
 0 Thymbrian Apollo ! grant, I cried, 
 
 A dwelling for our own ; grant sheltering walls, — 
 
168 
 
 TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 A race and lasting city. Oh preserve 
 This second Pergamus of Troy, escaped 
 The Grecian sword and furious Achilles. 
 
 Whom shall we follow ? whither go? or where 
 Fix our abode ? 0 father, deign 
 To send an omen and direct our minds ! 
 
 Scarce had I spoke, when suddenly all things 
 Began to tremble, doors and sacred laurels, 
 
 And even the mountain, while a murmuring sound 
 The tripod gave, in its recess disclosed. 
 
 Humbly we bow to earth and hear this voice : 
 
 “Ye brave Dardanians, that same land which bore 
 Your parent race, shall to her joyous breast 
 Receive you back ; your ancient mother seek ; 
 
 Then shall th’ Hhiean line extend its rule, 
 
 Your children’s children and their progeny.” 
 
 Thus Phoebus, and a mighty shout of joy 
 Arose ; and all inquire what land is meant, 
 
 Or whither Phoebus would our wanderings lead. 
 
 My sire, then, thinking on the legends old, 
 
 Cried, “ Hear, ye chiefs, and learn your future hopes ! 
 In ocean lies the Cretan isle of Jove, — 
 
 Mount Ida there, the cradle of our race. 
 
 This fertile realm a hundred cities holds ; 
 
 Thence Father Teucer, our great ancestor, 
 
 If memory serves, first sought the Rhcetian coast 
 And fixed his kingdom. Ilium was not yet, 
 
 Nor tovvery Pergamus ; men dwelt in valleys low. 
 Thence Cybele, the mother goddess, and 
 The brazen cymbals of the Corybantes 
 And the Idsean grove ; hence, too, those rites, 
 
TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 169 
 
 Mysterious, faithful kept, and the yoked lions 
 That drew the splendid chariot of the queen. 
 
 The gods direct us, therefore let us go, 
 
 Appease the winds and seek the Gnosian realm. 
 
 Nor is it distant : if Jove will, our fleet 
 
 Shall on the third morn touch the Cretan strand.” 
 
 Thus spoke he, and upon the altars slew 
 
 The usual victims, offering first a bull 
 
 To Neptune, and another to Apollo ; 
 
 A. black sheep to the scowling storm-wind, and 
 A white one to the mild propitious zephyrs. 
 
 Report said that the chief, Idomeneus, 
 
 Expelled the kingdom of his sire, had left 
 All uninhabited the shores of Crete ; 
 
 Its tenantless abodes no foemen held. 
 
 We leave th’ Ortygian port, and o’er the sea 
 We s; eed, along the coast of Naxos where 
 Each hill-top echoes to the sport of Bacchus ; 
 
 Past the fair shores of green Donysa, past 
 Olearos and Paros’ snow-white cliffs, 
 
 The Cyclades, all scattered o’er the main, 
 
 And through unnumbered straits thick-sown with isles. 
 The seamen gaily sing amid their duties ; 
 
 Cheerful we seek our own ancestral Crete ; 
 
 A favoring wind our onward course still urges, 
 
 And soon we reach the old Curetan land. 
 
 Then eagerly I set about to build 
 A city which I re-name Pergamea ; 
 
 My people, whom the name pleased, I exhort 
 To love their homes and rear a citadel. 
 
 Now were our ships drawn mostly on the beach, 
 
170 
 
 TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 Our youth engaged in tilling their new fields 
 And choosing wives ; I gave them laws, and fixed 
 Their portions of the land ; when suddenly 
 From the infected skies, a pestilence, 
 
 Most dire and grevious, fell on men and trees 
 And on our crops — a season fraught with death. 
 
 Men died or dragged their feeble frames around ; 
 
 The dogstar also scorched our barren fields ; 
 
 All green things withered, and the sickly crop 
 Refused us food. My sire advised to cross 
 The sea again, and at th’ Ortygian shrine 
 Implore great Phoebus to remit our fault, 
 
 To show our weary journey’s end, what aid 
 
 Our toils should have, and whither we should turn. 
 
 ’Twas night, and slumber soothed all living things 
 The imaged gods and the penates brought 
 With me from ’midst the ashes of old Troy 
 Rose on my vision while in sleep I lay, 
 
 Seen clearly in the paley light which streamed 
 From the full moon through windows in the wall. 
 And thus they seemed to speak and soothe my cares : 
 “ That which Apollo would have told thee when 
 Thou left’st Ortygia, he repeats, unasked, 
 
 And lo ! he sends us hither to thy house. 
 
 We, who have followed both thee and thy arms 
 Since fair Dardania blazed ; we, who have crossed 
 With thee and in thy ships the swelling deep, 
 
 Will raise even to the stars thy future sons 
 And give thy city power. Thou shalt prepare 
 For a great race ; yet must thou wander long. 
 
 Change this abode. Apollo bids thee not 
 To settle on these shores, nor yet in Crete. 
 
TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 171 
 
 There is a land (called by the Greeks Hesperia), 
 
 An old land, strong in arms and rich in soil : 
 
 Th’ CEnotrians dwelt there once, but moderns call 
 The present race Italians, from their chief. 
 
 Those are our seats, and thence Dardanus rose, 
 
 And Father Iasus. from which prince ye sprang. 
 Therefore arise, and to thy aged sire 
 This sure announcement tell. Then let him seek 
 Corythus and the Ausonian land, for Jove 
 Denies to thee the fair Dictaean fields.” 
 
 Moved by this vision and the voice of gods 
 (It was no dream, for I appeared to see 
 Their faces and their wreath-encircled hair, 
 
 And all their features plain before my view, 
 
 While chilly drops upon all my forehead stood) 
 
 Up from my couch I sprang, with lifted voice 
 And hands to heaven ; then pour I mingled gifts 
 Upon the hearth. This glad devotion done, 
 
 I told Anchises all in full detail. 
 
 He knew the race, from its twin sources sprung, 
 And owned himself misled by modern fame 
 Concerning ancient places. Then he said : 
 
 “ Son, by the destines of Troy controlled, 
 
 Cassandra sang to me those very things. 
 
 I recollect that these things were foretold 
 Unto our race, and that those realms were called 
 Sometimes Hesperia, sometimes Italy. 
 
 But who then thought that to the Hesperian shores 
 The Teucrians were to come 1 or who was moved 
 By fair Cassandra, as a prophetess 1 
 Yield we to Phoebus then, and thus advised 
 
172 
 
 TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 A better course pursue.” He said, and we 
 With glad alacrity his voice obey. 
 
 Leaving our settlement and some few men, 
 
 We spread our sails, and in our hollow barks 
 Speed o’er the boundless deep. — 
 
 Our ships were out at sea ; no longer land 
 Was seen, hut sky above anil waves around ; 
 
 When o’er our masts a gloomy storm-cloud hung 
 With tempest charged ; the darkened sea grew rough 
 The winds piled up the rolling waves, and huge 
 The billows rose ; all scattered, we were driven 
 O’er the wide surface of the boiling main. 
 
 The clouds wrapped in the sun, damp night obscured 
 The heavens, fierce lightnings burst the sullen clouds. 
 Far from our course we stray on seas unknown. 
 
 Even Palinurus could no longer tell 
 The day from night or ascertain the way. 
 
 Thus sailed we, in blind darkness, on the deep 
 During three sunless days, three starless nights ; 
 
 At length on the fourth morn the land was seen, 
 
 With distant rising hills and curling smoke. 
 
 We lower the sails and grasp the oars ; in haste, 
 
 The sailors, with their vigorous strokes, turn up 
 The foaming brine and sweep the azure plain. 
 
 The Strophades received us to their shores, 
 
 Saved from the waves : these islands called 
 In Greek the Strophades, rise boldly in 
 The great Ionian sea ; here dire Celseno 
 And other Harpies dwell, since Phineus’ house 
 Was closed against them, and through terror, they 
 Were forced their former tables to abandon. 
 
TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 173 
 
 No monster dread as they, no fiercer pest 
 Can rear its head above the Stygian flood : 
 
 Huge birds with female faces, and with hands 
 Like claws ; their fearful visages are pale 
 With lasting hunger. — 
 
 When we the harbor here had entered, lo ! 
 Spread o’er the plains we saw the goodly herds 
 And flocks of goats that browsed at will the grass. 
 We give them chase, and vow to offer up 
 A portion of the game to Jove himself 
 And to the other gods. Then on the beach 
 We strew our couches and commence our feast. 
 
 But sudden, with a fierce swoop from the hills, 
 
 The Harpies come, and flapping loud their wings, 
 Seize on our viands with tlieir loathsome clutch, 
 While ’mid the foul stench rise their hideous cries. 
 Again far off, beneath a shelving rock 
 Shut in by thickest trees and gloomy shades, 
 
 We lay our tables and our altar fires. 
 
 Again, swift swarming from their lurking place, 
 The noisy flock with piercing claws surround 
 The feast, polluting everything they touch. 
 
 I order now my men to grasp their arms, 
 
 And wage strange warfare with the brood accurst. 
 Tis done : they hide their swords among the grass, 
 And carefully conceal their shields from sight. 
 Then, as again the Harpies downward glide, 
 
 Their pinions sounding o’er the curving strand, 
 Misenus gives the signal by a blast 
 Upon a trumpet, from his look-out high. 
 
 My comrades rise, and in close fight engage 
 
174 
 
 TROY AFLOAT. 
 
 With naked steel those vile birds of the sea. 
 
 But not the slightest wound in wing or breast 
 Do these receive, but soaring high in air, 
 
 Leave their rank traces on our feast despoiled. 
 
 Then by herself upon a lofty rock 
 
 Celseno perched, and cried with ominous croak : 
 
 “ Spawn of Laomedon ! suffices not 
 
 Our slaughtered herds, but will ye war on us, 
 
 And drive us, harmless, from our rightful seats ? 
 Let these, my words, sink deep into your souls : 
 What the almighty father first disclosed 
 To Phoebus, and the latter showed to me, 
 
 I, foremost of the furies, tell to you. 
 
 Ye seek the Italian coast ; the winds, implored, 
 
 At length may suffer you to reach its ports ; 
 
 Yet ere ye gird with walls the destined city, 
 
 Fierce famine, for the injury done to us, 
 
 Shall force your bands to gnaw with wolfish teeth 
 Their very tables, in default of food ! ” — 
 
GLORY. 
 
 175 
 
 TRAN SLA TIONS. 
 
 GLORY. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF LA MARTINE. 
 
 Ye generous favorites of the heavenly muse, 
 Two different courses open on your view : 
 Glory and wealth invite ; ye wisely choose 
 The nobler of the two. 
 
 Thy choice, O Manuel, was early fixed ; 
 
 Its promptings bade thine infant pulses leap. 
 But with thy glory woe is intermixed, 
 
 And we behold thee weep ! 
 
 Yet blush to envy, as a thing of worth, 
 
 That sterile ease which sluggish souls desire. 
 To them belong the treasures of the earth, 
 
 To us belongs the lyre. 
 
 Thy country is the world, the centuries thine ; 
 For when this generation is no more, 
 Successive ages, at the golden shrine, 
 
 Thy memory shall adore. 
 
 Yes, glory waits thee. But how hardly, and 
 At what a cost her sacred court we gain ! 
 
 See dire misfortune at the portal stand 
 
 To dash our joy with pain. 
 
176 
 
 GLORY. 
 
 Heartless Ionia saw her mighty bard — 
 
 Stooping with blindness and the weight of years — 
 Hold in his wasted hand (oh sad reward !) 
 
 A breadcrust wet with tears ! 
 
 Then think of Dante — proudest of his race — 
 Begging an alms, his latest refuge gone, 
 
 His spirit tortured till his once sweet face 
 Grew fierce to look upon. 
 
 And Tasso, burning with a fatal flame, - 
 In prison dreamed of beauty and renown ; 
 
 His brows received too late the wreath of fame, 
 
 And were too soon crushed down. 
 
 See pale Cervantes crouching on his knees 
 Within a dungeon, feeble, stricken, maimed, 
 
 His genial humor which a world could please, 
 
 The dull king’s wrath inflamed. 
 
 How many victims live from hope apart, 
 
 Striving with fate or with some tyrant’s will ! 
 
 Dear God ! it seems as if the greatest heart 
 Were doomed to deepest ill. 
 
 Yet silence every murmur of the lyre ; 
 
 Let weaker spirits wail their lot forlorn. 
 
 Thee, crownless king, such injuries should inspire 
 With strength and lofty scorn. 
 
GLORY. 
 
 177 
 
 Be like the eagle, that sublimely soars, 
 
 Piercing all space with strong, undaunted eyes ; 
 When round his native cliff the thunder roars, 
 
 He seeks the upper skies. 
 
 What matter if their barbarous decree 
 To foreign shores devote thy weary tread ? 
 
 What matter if the desert sands should be 
 Thy last intended bed 1 
 
 Nor chains, nor exile, nor the despot’s rage 
 Can quench the ardor of a noble mind. 
 
 Lisbon shall claim the eternal heritage 
 
 Thy genius leaves behind. 
 
 Thou to a nation’s love shalt be restored — 
 
 Athens her banished patriot did recall : 
 
 When Coriolanus fell, the Roman sword 
 
 Was first to avenge his fall. 
 
 And gentle Ovid, though he died exiled, 
 
 With suppliant hands stretched towards his distant 
 home, 
 
 Bequeathed his ashes to the Scythian wild, 
 
 His glorious song to Rome ! 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 THE DYING POET. 
 
 THE DYING POET. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF MILLEVOYE. 
 
 The poet sang : his lamp burned low 
 The shadows deepened in his room, 
 
 As listening to these notes of woe, 
 
 Which stirred the midnight’s heart of gloom. 
 
 The flower of my life is all faded — 
 
 Too early ’twas rent by the thorn ; 
 
 My day has been darkly o’ershaded, 
 
 And night follows close on the mom. 
 
 A strife betwixt passion and duty, 
 
 A thirst for the wild and the free, 
 
 A vision of wonderful beauty, 
 
 A dream of things never to be ; 
 
 A landscape where broad-spreading meadows 
 Were wooed by the amorous skies; 
 
 A desolate region of shadows 
 
 Where hope grows bewildered and dies ; 
 
 A clear brook, whose dimples of gladness 
 White lilies leaned over to kiss ; 
 
 A turbid stream, whirling in madness 
 Right over the fearful abyss. 
 
 A brief space of love and caresses — 
 
 A moment that shook every trust ; 
 
 An hour of remorse and distresses, 
 
 Then downward to darkness and dust ! 
 
THE DYING POET. 
 
 179 
 
 In a distant land there grows a tree 
 
 By pleasure and by pale death haunted ; 
 
 Sweet rest is fatal ’neath its boughs enchanted : 
 Delight of love, that plant resembles thee. 
 
 Thy mortal shade has waved o’er me, 
 
 Where, lulled in treacherous repose, 
 
 Fond wretch ! I well have merited these woes. 
 
 Break, lyre beloved ; thou canst not share 
 With me the darksome vault and chill ; 
 
 But all thy notes, once free as air, 
 
 Must be forever hushed and still. 
 
 Posterity may never own 
 My name, when judging from her throne 
 Kenown that never fades ; 
 
 As Egypt judged, in days of yore 
 Fast by her lone lake’s mystic shore, 
 
 Her kings’ departed shades. 
 
 And yet ye few with hearts sincere — 
 
 Friends, ever firm and ever dear, 
 
 My dying pain is less 
 That some imperfect lays of mine 
 You will preserve on mem’ry’s shrine 
 From cold forgetfulness, 
 
 And you, with whom my soul was twined 
 From childhood — lovely womankind ! — 
 
 Even now your features seem 
 Before my wavering sight to glide 
 Like sun-bright things in autumn-tide, 
 
 Or like a morning dream. 
 
180 
 
 THE HERO’S BATTLE-PRAYER. 
 
 Sweet phantoms ! come ; my shade demands 
 One last sad offering at yonr hands — 
 
 When generous spring, returning, weaves 
 The golden thread of lengthening days 
 Then, while the dewy twilight st°ys, 
 
 Come, strew upon my humble tomb 
 Fresh roses — flowers of briefest bloom — 
 
 As emblems of my early doom ! — 
 
 The poet sang : as ceased the hymn, 
 
 His icy hand let fall the lyre. 
 
 His lamp, his life at once grew dim — 
 
 One moment saw them both expire. 
 
 THE HERO’S BATTLE-PRAYER. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF KORNER. 
 
 Father, I call on thee ! 
 
 Wrapt in the battle’s Aery-bosomed cloud, 
 Amid its thunderbursts so fierce and loud, 
 Disposer of events, I call on thee 
 Father, thou leadest me. 
 
 Father, thou leadest me ; 
 
 And whether death or victory be mine, 
 
 I yield to the inscrutable design ; 
 According to thy will, so lead thou me. 
 And I acknowledge thee. 
 
THE HERO’S BATTLE-PRAYER. 
 
 181 
 
 Yes, I acknowledge thee, 
 
 Both in the spring-time’s vivifying breath, 
 
 And in the war-storm’s sulphurous blast of death ; 
 Great source of being, I acknowledge thee. 
 
 Father, thou guardest me. 
 
 Father, thou guardest me, 
 
 And to thy sovereign care my life I trust. 
 Thou may’st reclaim it from the gory dust, 
 
 For thine own purpose still Thou guardest me ; 
 All praise give I to thee ! 
 
 All praise give I to thee ! 
 
 Since, not for mad ambition’s vain reward, 
 But in a holy cause we draw the sword, 
 
 Bid triumph chant a hymn of praise to thee. 
 My God, and smile on me. 
 
 My God, smile thou on me, 
 
 For freedom’s sake ; and if my veins must flow 
 To seal the deathless record — be it so. 
 
 For freedom’s sake, more dear than life to me, 
 Father, I call on thee. 
 
182 
 
 CALUMNY. 
 
 CALUMNY. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH. 
 
 Punish calumny, ye kings ; 
 
 For its poison breath 
 Into peaceful places brings 
 Trouble, strife and death ! 
 
 How it seeks to blast the name 
 Of dove-like innocence ! 
 ’Gainst its sly, assassin aim 
 Be a strong defence. 
 
 ’Tis a monster in disguise, 
 Covering hate with art ; 
 
 On its tongue are honeyed lies — 
 Murder in its heart. 
 
 Follow not its subtle course, 
 Sown with specious flowers. 
 In its footsteps comes remorse 
 And the whole devours ! 
 
WOMAN. 
 
 183 
 
 WOMAN. 
 
 FROM ANACREON. 
 
 Great nature, at time of creating, assigned 
 Most suitable gifts to each various kind : 
 
 A model of strength on the bull she conf err’d 
 With a frontlet that crowned him the king of the herd. 
 Then the lion came forth with a terrible dower — 
 
 The union of majesty, fierceness and power. 
 
 The timorous hare and the proud-prancing steed 
 She fitted expressly for wonderful speed ; 
 
 And she gave to the bird, with its plumage so fair, 
 Those wings that can traverse the regions of air ; 
 
 To the fish, fins and tail, that at will it might sweep 
 For pastime or food through the limitless deep. 
 
 On man she bestowed, for a dignified use, 
 
 A mind that can pierce through the dark and abstruse, 
 But when she formed woman — her crowning intent — 
 Nature, finding such gifts as the first, had been spent, 
 En dowed her with beauty’s celestial charms, 
 
 As the brightest and most irresistible arms. 
 
 And the woman, to whom these sweet blessings belong. 
 Can humble the haughty and vanquish the strong ; 
 Controlling the wild, and refining the rude, 
 
 One smile from her lips, and the world is subdued ! 
 
184 
 
 TO ANNIE. 
 
 TO ANNIE. 
 
 (See Horace’s well known Ode to Pyrrha.) 
 
 Come, Annie, to my wish disclose 
 What stripling, decked with many a rose 
 The April air perfuming, 
 
 Now courts you ’neath the grotto’s shade, 
 
 For whom those auburn locks you braid 
 So neatly unassuming. 
 
 Ah ! soon he’ll mourn the broken vow, 
 
 And blame the gods who change allow 
 In words of solemn sweetness. 
 
 Wonder and grief shall fill his eyes 
 When rude waves heave and black storms rise 
 With unexpected fleetness. 
 
 He now believes you void of wiles, 
 
 All golden with enduring smiles, 
 
 All amiable and tender, 
 
 Nor yet suspects deceitful gales : 
 
 How wretched they with whom prevails 
 Your seeming placid splendor ! 
 
 For me, the votive tablet shows 
 My pictured ship in safe repose — 
 
 An offering of devotion 
 To heaven, by whose kind aid I shaped 
 A wiser course, and death escaped 
 Upon love’s treacherous ocean.* 
 
 * A man who had escaped perils on the ocean was bound 
 to hang up in the temple a picture of his ship as a thank- 
 offering to the sea-god. 
 
THE RICHEST RULER. 
 
 185 
 
 THE RICHEST RULER. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN. 
 
 Sat full many German princes 
 In the imperial hall of Worms : 
 Each his land, its wealth and numbers 
 Boasted in exulting terms. 
 
 ■** Glorious,” spoke the kingly Saxon, 
 “ Is my land in wealth and might ; 
 Every hill within its bosom 
 
 Hoards a mine of silver bright ! ” 
 
 * f Smiles my land in gay abundance,” 
 Said the Elector from the Rhine ; 
 “ Golden grain in valleys growing — 
 On the slopes, the blushing vine.” 
 
 Giant cities, stately convents,” 
 Ludwig of Bavaria cried, 
 
 ■“ Stand to prove I rule the grandest 
 Realm in Germany so wide ! ” 
 
 Eberhard, the grey and bearded, 
 Wiirtemberg’s beloved lord, 
 
 Said, “ My land has no great cities, 
 Ho vast hills with silver stored. 
 
186 
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 “ Yet it holds some hidden treasures — 
 Not a man beneath my sway 
 But my head I might securely 
 On his lap confiding lay.” 
 
 Then the Saxon, the Bavarian 
 And the Rhenish prince declare : 
 
 “ Noble count, you are the richest 
 For your land has jewels rare ! ” 
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF BERANGER. 
 
 0 Christian ! nightly place for me 
 A cup of water at your door ; 
 
 1 am that wanderer, doomed to be 
 The whirlwind’s sport forevermore. 
 
 Not growing old through time so vast, 
 
 Its end my only hope forlorn ; 
 
 Each night I pray may be the last, 
 
 But ever comes the hated morn. 
 
 Ever, ever, 
 
 Turns the world and I am hurled, 
 
 On forever and forever ! 
 
 While eighteen centuries have rolled, 
 
 O’er Greek and Roman grandeur gone,. 
 O’er wrecks of mighty realms of old 
 The fearful whirlwind drives me on. 
 
THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 187 
 
 I’ve looked on good which did not thrive, 
 While evil grew — a spreading tree — 
 I’ve seen (the old world to survive) 
 
 A new world rise from out the sea. 
 Ever, ever, &c. 
 
 If ’neath the arbutus in flower, 
 
 On grassy sward or by the wave, 
 
 I seek to rest one little hour, 
 
 I hear the furious whirlwind rave. 
 What boots it that the sullen sky 
 A moment wears its sombre vest 1 
 Could less than all eternity 
 
 Afford from such a journey rest 1 
 Ever, ever, &c. 
 
 Ah ! many children, fair and gay 
 
 As once were mine, my sight engage ; 
 
 But while I glance upon their play, 
 
 The whirlwind bursts with double rage. 
 
 Ye aged men ! grieve not that time 
 Bends earthward every hoary head. 
 
 Look on those children — for my crime 
 My foot upon their dust shall tread ! 
 
 Ever, ever, &c. 
 
 When of the walls where I was born, 
 
 I find some trace — a crumbled mass — 
 
 In vain I strive to stop and mourn, 
 
 The sudden whirlwind bids me pass. 
 
188 
 
 GENIUS. 
 
 And cries a voice from out the gloom, 
 
 “ Live on till all things cease to be ! 
 
 Here sleep thy sires, but in their tomb 
 There is no place, no rest for thee ! ” 
 Ever, ever, &c. 
 
 With brutal jeers 1 did deride 
 The man-god in his agony — 
 
 I feel the ground beneath me glide, 
 Again the whirlwind seizes me ! 
 
 0 ye who feel not pity’s touch 
 Go tremble at a doom so strange ; 
 
 Not wronged divinity so much 
 
 As human wrongs doth God avenge. 
 Ever, ever 
 
 Turns the world, and I am hurled, 
 
 On forever and forever. 
 
 GENIUS. 
 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 Woe to that child of tenderness 
 
 Who in this world of fraud and force 
 Bears in his soul companionless 
 A ray from truth’s eternal source ! 
 Yes, woe ! for envy’s venomed tooth 
 Shall fasten on the unwary youth, 
 
 And like the fabled vulture dire, 
 
 As maddened by his happy song, 
 Torture the new Prometheus long 
 For having stolen the heavenly fire. 
 
GENIUS. 
 
 189 
 
 Or pleasure to his view reveals 
 Her charms to flatter and beguile ; 
 
 Well may he tremble when he feels 
 The power of that insidious smile. 
 
 Even as the glamored bird essays 
 To fly the serpent’s glittering gaze 
 That lures the singer to destruction, 
 Awhile from bough to bough he flies 
 Irresolute, then yielding, dies 
 A victim to the bright seduction. 
 
 But if he compass his design 
 
 By forms of fadeless beauty led, — 
 
 If round his living brow they twine 
 
 The leaves which grow but for the dead, 
 Then, error, ignorance and hate — - 
 Unholy traitors — lie in wait 
 
 To make the fond enthusiast falter ; 
 Even fame, his goddess, does not spare ; 
 She leads him to her temple fair 
 And immolates him on her altar. 
 
 Yet though misfortune ever kept 
 
 In store for such the scourge and chain, 
 Who would not joyously accept 
 Bright genius at the price of pain ? 
 What mortal, feeling through his frame 
 The thrill of that mysterious flame 
 Which lights afar the flood of time, 
 Would to the voice of caution hark, 
 
 And doubtful, think the future dark, 
 Whose very shadows are sublime ? 
 
190 
 
 HAPPINESS. 
 
 HAPPINESS. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN. 
 
 A fleeting thing is happiness, 
 It will not long remain ; 
 But they follow afar 
 Its delusive star 
 To find increasing pain. 
 
 Lay you down on the fragrant sward 
 And sing the sunny hour ; 
 
 From the broad blue skies 
 Your half-shut eyes 
 May drink its silent power. 
 
 Then cherish it tenderly, secretly, 
 
 And speak not of the charm, 
 
 For song may allure 
 A spirit pure 
 
 That our common speech would alarm. 
 
THE BALLAD OF THE BODENSEE. 
 
 191 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE BODENSEE. 
 
 SCHWAB. 
 
 (The tradition is that, during a winter of unusual severity 
 in Switzerland, Lake Constance, (der Bodensee ) was firmly 
 frozen over, and that a traveller at nightfall, wishing to reach 
 the opposite side, actually rode over the ice, mistaking its 
 •surface for a level plain.) 
 
 A horseman rides down the valley low 
 In a glimmering wilderness of snow. 
 
 Through the cold deep drift he speeds away 
 To reach the lake ere the close of day. 
 
 For his steed and he must be ferried o’er 
 This very night to the farther shore. 
 
 Away over buried bush and stone, 
 
 On a path untrodden, he rides alone. 
 
 The hill is past, and the level land 
 Stretches w'hite and wide, like a plain of sand. 
 
 Far, far behind him are hamlet and town, 
 
 An d his road leads neither up nor down. 
 
 And so for a mile or two he flies, 
 
 While the snow-birds shriek in the dusky skies. 
 
 The startled black-ducks flutter around, 
 But his ear can catch no other sound. 
 
192 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE BODENSEE* 
 
 His eye can discern no living wight 
 To guide his doubtful course aright. 
 
 At length through the slowly deepening night 
 Shines out in the distance a twinkling light. 
 
 Then tree after tree the prospect fills, 
 
 And beyond them faintly rise the hills. 
 
 Over stock and stone with eager speed 
 He spurs more sharply his panting steed. 
 
 The watch-dogs soon at his coming hark, 
 
 And the village hearth-fires gladden the dark. 
 
 “ Ho there ! at the window, my little maid, 
 
 How far is it hence to the lake 1 ” he said. 
 
 There was wonder on the maiden’s brow 
 
 As she answered, “ The lake is behind you now 1 
 
 “And were it not for the ice afloat 
 On its tide, I should think you were just from 
 the boat.” 
 
 The stranger he shuddered, he breathed with pain. 
 “ I have ridden hither across yon plain.” 
 
 Then the maiden she lifted her hands and spake, 
 “ Great God ! you have ridden across the lake ! 
 
 “You have dinted the thin and brittle roof 
 Of the bottomless pit with your horse’s hoof. 
 
THE BALLAD OP THE BODENSEE. 
 
 193 
 
 “ Did the water not gurgle beneath your track 1 
 Did the ice give forth no warning crack ? 
 
 “ ’Twas a miracle doomed you not to sleep, 
 
 The fishes’ prey, in the chilly deep.” 
 
 She rouses the village, — she calls aloud, 
 
 And the staring people around him crowd. 
 
 They give him their blessing, each gossip and wife • 
 “ Dear man you may thank your stars for life ! 
 
 “ Come in by the fire, the table is spread, 
 
 You shall have the best of our beer and bread.” 
 
 But the horseman neither spoke nor stirred, 
 
 “ Across the lake ” was all he had heard. 
 
 His heart stopped beating, his liair rose straight, 
 Around him seemed yawning the jaws of fate. 
 
 He saw the floods beneath him gush, 
 
 And his spirit sank in the icy crush. 
 
 A cold sweat drenched each powerless limb, 
 
 His glaring eyes grew fixed and dim. 
 
 He fell from his horse — one gasp he gave, 
 
 And that friendly shore was his frozen grave. 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 SPRING SONG. 
 
 SPRING SONG. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN. 
 
 The earth reposes, and the chill 
 Of winter lingers over all ; 
 
 She is not dead, she slumbers still 
 To wake at springtime’s cheery call. 
 
 And as the babe, untouched with grief, 
 Sleeps on the fond maternal breast, 
 So sleep the embryo flower and leaf 
 Encradled in their silken nest. 
 
 They dream of mild and fragrant air, 
 
 Of jewelled eve and golden dawn ; 
 They see, rejoicing everywhere, 
 
 The deep green wood, the grassy lawn. 
 
 They hear the merry birds aloft, 
 
 The brooklet close beside them, sing ; 
 The butterflies caress them soft, 
 
 The murmuring bees unto them cling. 
 
 Then ope the flowers their wondrous eyes 
 To view the splendor far and near ; 
 
 The glimmering dream that instant flies — 
 Behold the spring already here. 
 
195 
 
 THE DESERTER’S FRIEND. 
 
 THE DESERTER’S FRIEND. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN. 
 
 The drum’s dull beat and the signal gun 
 Announce the hour of the sentenced one. 
 
 Oh hasten the deed for the dear Lord’s sake — 
 But let me not see it. My heart would break ! 
 
 My comrade he, and my firmest friend 
 From our first proud march till this awful end. 
 Alas ! am I ordered among the rest 
 For a deadly aim at his living breast ? 
 
 He lifts for a moment his last sad gaze ; 
 
 His face is bright with the sun’s soft rays. 
 And see ! how they cruelly bandage his eyes. 
 God open them quickly in Paradise ! 
 
 Nine rifles sharp and shuddering speak ; 
 
 Eight bullets have left each a bloody streak ; 
 Not one of them in a fatal part, — 
 
 Thank God, it was mine that pierced his heart ! 
 
196 
 
 CUPID. 
 
 CUPID. 
 
 FROM ANACREON. 
 
 Cupid, as he softly lay 
 On a bed of roses gay, 
 
 By a bee, concealed among 
 The blushing flowers, was deeply stung. 
 Wild with pain, he straight withdrew 
 And to lovely Venus flew ; 
 
 Wailing out in piteous cry 
 Mother ! see, I faint, I die, 
 
 For that little winged thing, — 
 
 Insect with a serpent’s sting, 
 
 Called by shepherd swains a bee — 
 Hath severely wounded me. 
 
 Then with looks and accents mild 
 Answered she the suffering child : 
 
 If so slight a thing can give 
 Anguish thus to make thee grieve, 
 Think how feels the wretched heart 
 Which thou piercest with thy dart. 
 
COUNTRY LIFE, 
 
 197 
 
 COUNTRY LIFE. 
 
 HORACE, EPODE II. 
 
 How blest, remote from business strife, 
 Is be w T ho leads a quiet life, 
 
 As did our sires — the happy dwellers 
 In cots with large potato cellars,— 
 Entirely free from all the din 
 Of this eternal age of tin ! 
 
 No fire-alarms disturb his sleep — 
 
 He has no venture on the deep ; 
 
 The midnight storm without may roar, 
 And hurl huge breakers on the shore, 
 They cannot even drown his snore ! 
 
 The air he breathes is free from taint ; 
 He lives unknown to pride’s restraint. 
 He wisely shuns the courts of law 
 As he would shun a tiger’s paw. 
 
 He has no money to invest, 
 
 So never has a hollow chest ; — 
 
 He melts not down o’er cards and wine, 
 Nor heeds if shares and stocks decline. 
 With limbs inured to honest toil, 
 
 He cultivates paternal soil, 
 
 And many a busy hour devotes 
 To barley, turnips, beans and oats, 
 
 And sees his broad fields sprinkled over 
 And blushing rich with scented clover. 
 ***** 
 
198 
 
 THE FRIGHTENED FAWN. 
 
 THE FRIGHTENED FAWN. 
 
 IMITATION OF HORACE. 
 
 “ Vitas hinnuleo me sirmlie,” &o. 
 
 Stay, dearest, girl, nor longer shnn 
 His look whom thine has wholly won ; 
 But tell me what the cause can be 
 Why thus thou dost my presence flee. 
 So flies the fawn from fancied ills 
 To seek the lone and woody hills, 
 
 And till her watchful parent’s near, 
 Will not relinquish idle fear. 
 
 And thou, while all secure from harm, 
 Art just as quick to take alarm ; 
 
 The fawn though danger be not found, 
 Is frighted still by every sound : 
 
 The slightest rustle of the trees, 
 
 When moving to the fitful breeze 
 Each little moment, makes her start 
 With trembling limbs and beating heart. 
 
 Oh let my ravished eyes at least 
 
 Upon thy peerless beauty feast 
 
 Till thou had’st learned from vows as true 
 
 As ever pure affection knew, 
 
 To cast reserve and fears aside 
 And in a manly heart confide. 
 
THE POWER OF THE POETS. 
 
 199 
 
 THE POWER OF THE POETS. 
 
 This is the rankest of heresies 
 
 The world ever harbored : Who told her 
 The poet’s mission w r as only to please, 
 
 With his rouge and his roses for fashion and ease, 
 
 A creature whose milky veins would freeze 
 At a glimpse of her dread cold shoulder ? 
 
 The bard is no growth like the slender vine 
 That graces a fashion journal, 
 
 All delicate, dainty and tinted fine — 
 
 But like the cedar, the oak and the pine, 
 
 He rises to grandeur which may not shine, 
 
 But which, nevertheless, is eternal. 
 
 His touch on the lover’s lute is light, 
 
 But a stronger spirit teaches 
 His hands to war and his fingers to fight, 
 
 And his scorn to wither and blast and blight, 
 
 And when he stands up in his wrath and his might, 
 God pity the king he impeaches ! 
 
 He is not moulded by any school, 
 
 Or marred by the critic’s sentence ; 
 
 His pen is the only efficient tool 
 To file and polish the public fool, 
 
 And carve the throne to a cutty stool 
 For a monarch’s sore repentance. 
 
200 
 
 THE POWER OF THE POETS. 
 
 How a guilty land from its luxury starts 
 When his warning note is sounded ! 
 
 In royal cities and crowded marts, 
 
 His verses are javelins, arrows and darts 
 Tipped with Greek fire, — his targets are hearts 
 And thousands fall down wounded ! 
 
 The firmest heart and the finest brain 
 The holiest message carry ; 
 
 And they hear a voice, like a deep refrain, 
 Saying : “ Write the vision and make it plain, 
 Then watch and wait ; it is not in vain, 
 
 It shall come ; it shall not tarry.” 
 
 Then the man, so strange to the common crowd, 
 Came forth from his desert-dwelling 
 And shook false peace, as a thunder-cloud 
 Shakes the languid air in its fury loud, 
 
 To leave the earth with new life endowed 
 And with purer currents swelling. 
 
 Wide sovereignty does the poet wield 
 O’er every tribe and nation ; 
 
 The truth to his ardent eyes revealed 
 Is a fountain closed and volume sealed 
 To men whose frittered lifetimes yield 
 But a moment’s recreation. 
 
 Yes, there were giants in ancient Greece, 
 
 But the poet still governed each quarrel 
 Concerning a crown or a golden fleece, 
 
 And blood would flow or the combat cease 
 As he counselled war or commanded peace, 
 
 For the sceptre was less than the laurel ! 
 
THE POWER OF THE POETS. 
 
 201 
 
 ’Twas then Archilochus’ fiery zeal 
 The foot of Iambus, shod with steel, 
 
 Invented that terrible measure, 
 
 For crushing the hydra with its heel, 
 
 "Compared with which the screws and the wheel 
 Were a positive kind of pleasure. 
 
 And little Tyrtseus, at first ignored 
 
 In his countrymen’s martial muster, 
 
 By the patriot fire through his idyls poured, 
 Gave a firmer front to their ranks restored, 
 
 A keener edge to the Attic sword — 
 
 To his name undying lustre. 
 
 When the banished Dante’s resentment woke 
 And summoned the shadowy legions, 
 
 He reigned supreme — ’neath his master-stroke 
 The purple robe and the scarlet cloak 
 And the capo cornuto all vanished in smoke. 
 Consigned to the lower regions. 
 
 Piers Plowman,* tending his flocks in the dell, 
 Was a innocent object surely ; 
 
 But he chanted his rapt prophetic spell, 
 
 He flung one jeer and the giant fell, 
 
 * Robert Langlande, (1300,) wrote the Visions of Piers 
 Plowman, a scathing satire on the religious orders. Those 
 who have the gift, not of prophecy, but o‘ discovery, think 
 "the suppression of the monasteries is foretold in these lines : 
 “ Then shall the abbot of .Abingdon, 
 
 And all his issue forever, 
 
 Have a knock of a ring 
 And incurable the wound.” 
 
202 
 
 THE POWER OF THE POETS. 
 
 And superstition was chased from her cell 
 Where she long had lurked securely. 
 Another thorn in the flesh of the clergy. 
 
 Young Skelton, too, when the sham devout 
 For the uppermost seat was struggling, 
 Right deftly laid the poetical knout 
 On the sheep-skinned shoulders of Colin Clout,. 
 And turning his wolfish inside out, 
 
 Abolished his pastoral juggling. 
 
 Such is the poet’s legitimate dower, 
 
 They are stupid who question it longer. 
 But the graces never forsake his dower 
 In his maddest moment or hottest hour, 
 For, though his hate has a terrible power, 
 His love is ten times stronger. 
 
 The world needs him now, and whether he springs 
 From the race-stock of Japhet or Simeon, 
 
 He shall come to his throne, not by blowing up kings, 
 But by sending the truth through our deep bosom- 
 strings, 
 
 With his singing robes made of more beautiful things 
 Than the filigree dress of Endymion.* 
 
 * Alluding to D 'Israeli's fustian novel of that name, then, 
 lately published. 
 
NOEL AN ODE. 
 
 203 
 
 NOEL— AN ODE. 
 
 [A tradition fondly preserved in the early church set forth 
 that about the time of the birth of Christ a mysterious 
 lamentation for ti e god Pan was heard all over Greece one 
 calm evening. This omen was explained to mean the speedy 
 extinction of the old Olympian faith.] 
 
 I. 
 
 LAMENT OF THE MUSES. 
 
 Phoebus car no longer shimmered 
 On the smooth Ionian hrine, 
 
 Pale the star of evening glimmered 
 Over Delphi’s darkened shrine. 
 
 Hellas, beautiful as ever, 
 
 Brooded in that twilight still ; 
 
 But the soul of high endeavor 
 
 Moved no more her nerveless will. 
 
 Then, like ghostly garments trailing, 
 
 Al l the purple air was stirred 
 
 By a mystic sound of wailing 
 Deeply felt, hut faintly heard. 
 
 Downward from the eagle’s eyrie, 
 
 Upward from the Nereid’s cave, 
 
 Joined in concert weird and dreary 
 Mourning sky and murmuring wave. 
 
 Till the multitudinous city 
 And the solitary plain, 
 
 Touched with awe and moved by pity, 
 
 Echoed back the sad refrain : 
 
204 
 
 NOEL AN ODE. 
 
 Pan is dead ! The life once throbbing 
 With the beautiful, is fled ! 
 
 All the myrtle groves are sobbing 
 Pan is dead, is dead, is dead ! 
 
 Ai ! for every sweet wild measure 
 
 Which the smooth-limbed graces led ! — 
 
 Hushed is every sound of pleasure — 
 
 Pan is dead, great Pan is dead ! 
 
 Ai ! for jocund hours once strewing 
 Gaia’s lap with roses red. 
 
 Black the cypress-shade is growing — 
 
 Pan is dead, is dead, is dead ! 
 
 Ai ! for lips that used to warble 
 Songs for Psyche’s nuptial bed 
 
 Cold and silent is the marble — 
 
 Pan is dead, great Pan is dead ! 
 
 Ai ! for Hebe bright and cheerful 
 
 When the Olympian feast was spread, 
 
 Dim her eyes are now and tearful, 
 
 Pan is dead, is dead, is, dead ! 
 
 Ruthless fate descends to banish 
 Golden days and glorious lives. 
 
 See, they falter, fail and vanish, 
 
 Leaden grief alone survives ! 
 
 Long had the sylvan god reigned. 
 Empires had flourished and waned ; 
 Pan and Apollo remained. 
 
NOEL AN ODE. 205 
 
 Now was their glory withdrawn. 
 
 Now were they vanished and gone. 
 
 Blindly the days must roll on ! 
 
 Men were bewildered — hut some 
 Asked whence the hero should come — 
 
 Asked of their oracles dumb. 
 
 Only the bard understood 
 How the Most Beautiful should 
 Dawn and abide with the Good. 
 
 ii. 
 
 ANTHEM OF THE ANGELS. 
 
 Hark ! a paean that surpasses 
 What the stars of morning sung, 
 
 When they flamed in liquid masses 
 From the fount of glory flung. 
 
 Christ is born ! The simple peasants 
 On the lonely Syrian hill 
 Felt the everlasting presence 
 In the message of good-will. 
 
 Sinai’s voice was superseded 
 By the volant choir of love 
 In that highest service, needed 
 By the lowly, from above. 
 
 Vainly golden censers, swinging, 
 
 Fed the placid skies with balm ; 
 
 Sweeter was the anthem bringing 
 To the troubled earth a calm. 
 
206 
 
 NOEL AN ODE. 
 
 Thrones had fallen, systems crumbled, 
 Fragile as the hnman clay ; 
 
 Brightest minds had groped and stumbled 
 Lacking love’s divinest ray. 
 
 Now the hoary Eastern sages 
 Bade the nightly vigils cease, 
 
 As the altar-fires of ages 
 
 Paled before the dawn of peace. 
 
 Am i the rarest diamond-cluster 
 That imperial pomp adorns, 
 
 Lost the magic of its lustre 
 
 ’Neath the cruel crown of thorns. 
 
 This fair triad still abideth 
 Faith and Hope and Charity 
 
 And for aye the last presideth 
 As the greatest of the three. 
 
 All the wild and wicked legions 
 Lurking still in fairest regions, 
 Startled, read their final summons 
 In the bright, auspicious omens, 
 Warning them to quit possession : 
 
 Heartless power and stern oppression, 
 Bigotry and superstition — 
 
 Grisly primates of perdition — 
 
 Private feud and public quarrel, 
 Murder, with the victor’s laurel, 
 
noe: 
 
 ■AN ODE. 
 
 207 
 
 Flaunting pride and mad ambition, 
 Smooth-tongued fraud and dark suspicion, 
 Avarice, ign’rance, hate and error, 
 
 Routed from their reign of terror, 
 
 To their speedy doom are trooping 
 With their sable pennons drooping ! 
 
 m. 
 
 THE HUMAN HYMN. 
 
 Hail to the morning awaited so long ! 
 
 Spirit of gladness, attune every voice. 
 
 Discord shall never be heard in the song 
 
 Warm from the heart when the people rejoice. 
 
 Even the northwind is carolling loud 
 
 Over good wishes, glad greetings and gifts. 
 
 Earth has no cavern and heaven no cloud 
 But the pure sunshine is piercing its rifts. 
 
 While the dear folk-song is floating around 
 Every soul be like the musical glass— 
 
 •Crystal and clear and alive with the sound, 
 Growing more sweet as the centuries pass. 
 
 Myrtle and bays with the holly shall twine, 
 
 As the old legends in harmony blend ; 
 
 Friendly and freely, the land of the vine 
 
 Warmth to the land of the may flower shall lend. 
 
 ■Oh, the world’s faith is like that of a child, — 
 Fervent and firm in its dream-haunted prime, 
 
 Ripening to all that is joyous and mild, 
 
 As the red vintage is mellowed by time. 
 
208 
 
 THE REVERSION. 
 
 Fill, then, to feelings so generous and kind, 
 Cheering the old and inspiring the youth. 
 
 Fill to the perishless triumphs of mind — 
 
 Fill to our guests at the banquet of truth. 
 
 Not one bleak shade on our feast be allowed 
 
 From the green vales to the white-spreading drifts 
 Gilding the cavern and brightening the cloud, 
 Sunshine and melody flow through the rifts ! 
 
 THE REVERSION 
 
 NEW year’s NIGHT, 1885. 
 
 “ Is there no bright reversion in the sky 
 For those who nobly live or bravely die ? ” 
 
 ’Twas when time’s ceaseless surge, 
 
 On which all empires drive, 
 
 Was whitening on the verge 
 Of eighteen eighty-five • 
 
 I sate as in a dream 
 
 With darkness all around, 
 
 When lo ! a ghostly gleam 
 
 Shot through the gloom profound. 
 
 It bridged the eternal sea, 
 
 It cleft night’s ebon throne, 
 
 And opened even to me 
 A glimpse of the unknown. 
 
THE REVERSION. 
 
 209 
 
 Far down it I could see 
 A landing dimly vast, 
 
 Filled full as it could be 
 With shadows of the past. 
 
 It was that river’s hank 
 
 That chills our journey hence, 
 Where power of purse and rank 
 Lose all pre-eminence. 
 
 Unearthly, wild and weird 
 
 Was that same shivering press, 
 While teasing sprites appeared 
 To heighten the distress ; 
 
 For, ever drawing near, 
 
 Some victim they would grab, 
 
 Like, at a New York pier, 
 
 The imps of hack and cab_ 
 
 Something was at my side-. 
 
 And whispered, * Look and see-- 
 The men who stemmed the tide 
 Which founders scores like thee, — 
 The men who won the race 
 Of glory and of gain, 
 
 Who in their time and place 
 Did much, but did in vain/ 
 
 With sudden impulse seized, 
 
 I cried ‘ How ill or well 
 They did, I would be pleased 
 Could they approach and tell..” 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 THE REVERSION. 
 
 Then did the shape retire 
 To bear them my request, 
 
 Swift as that magic wire 
 
 Throbs through the Atlantic’s breast. 
 
 Instant there rose in air 
 A very numerous host, 
 
 Like gulls when gales severe 
 Drive them to throng the coast. 
 
 Each wore a convict’s suit, 
 
 Each face was grimly stern, 
 
 And while I listened mute 
 
 Thus spoke they — each in turn : 
 
 ‘ I was a monarch once — 
 
 A monarch ruling wide, 
 
 By that collective dunce, 
 
 My subjects, defied. 
 
 All pandered to my lust 
 
 While servile courtiers strove 
 To prove that my vile dust 
 Would outweigh mighty Jove. 
 
 But what prerogative 
 
 ’Heath Pluto’s iron reign 
 (Except his own) can \ive 1 
 So all my power was vain.’ 
 
 ‘ I was a warrior bold. 
 
 The gaping world still reads, 
 
 In ponderous volumes told, 
 
 My superhuman deeds. 
 
THE REVERSION. 
 
 211 
 
 The peaceful village life, 
 
 Where hungry bale-fires roared, 
 Reddened that butcher-knife 
 Which glory calls a sword. 
 
 Did earth the current drink 1 
 Behold my doom of pain 
 Writ with that crimson ink ; — 
 Worse lived I than in vain.’ 
 
 * I flourished in the schools. 
 
 My study was to bring 
 Out of ten thousand rules 
 One good and perfect thing. 
 Fool ! that I never saw 
 
 With rapt, unlettered eyes, 
 Out of love’s perfect law 
 Ten thousand joys arise ! 
 
 I scanned night’s page outspread 
 Above the Egyptian plain 
 And left my heart unread — 
 
 So I but lived in vain.’ 
 
 * I reigned in beauty’s bower — 
 The minion of delight, 
 
 Made by my very power 
 The slave of appetite. 
 
 But pleasure, like the spark, 
 Dies blackening to a stain. 
 Ah ! death is doubly dark 
 When life has been in vain.’ 
 
21 1 
 
 THE REVERSION. 
 
 ‘ I read the stellar signs 
 
 And gave their mysteries out 
 In enigmatic lines, 
 
 Yet made it death to doubt. 
 
 But bondage of the mind 
 Is always insecure. 
 
 The spells that loose and bind 
 But for a night endure. 
 
 My cruel altar-fires 
 
 Were quenched by heaven’s sweet rain, 
 And men who are not liars 
 Declare I lived in vain.’ 
 
 ‘ A legislator I, 
 
 Chief of the numerous tribe. 
 My place was very high — 
 Proportioned to the bribe. 
 
 The simplest law I made 
 Took ten men to explain, 
 
 And not one soul obeyed — 
 
 Both life and work were vain.’ 
 
 ‘I, even I, was one 
 
 Of those same jurists, hired 
 To make the statutes run 
 As interest most required. 
 
 I bore the golden fleece 
 
 Across law’s treacherous main. 
 But death has closed the lease, 
 And I have lived in vain.’ 
 
THE REVERSION. 
 
 213 
 
 Then beckoned me a wight 
 All different from the rest 
 With locks of silvery white, 
 
 And hollow cheeks and chest ; 
 And with a faltering pause, 
 
 He said, ‘ You could not guess 
 How opulent I was 
 
 To see me in this dress. 
 
 A thousand tenements 
 
 Ill-lodged the squalid souls, 
 Whose hard-extorted rents 
 Adorned my lengthy rolls. 
 
 I waxed so gross and great 
 I found I could not squeeze 
 In through the pearly gate, 
 
 Hot even on knees. 
 
 My millions I bequeathed 
 Not to the needy train, 
 
 But mortal never breathed 
 
 The last of life more vain ! ’ 
 
 Then that sad multitude 
 Together spoke and fast ; 
 
 All had great things pursued 
 But here they were at last. 
 And with a wild adieu, 
 
 Chorused by many a groan, 
 They with their guide withdrew 
 And I was all alone. 
 
214 
 
 THE REVERSION. 
 
 Till, as approaching day 
 The new year onward led, 
 
 A voice from far away 
 In dulcet accents said : 
 
 ‘ I was a bard by birth. 
 
 While strong hands made a prize 
 Of the fair spots of earth, 
 
 I pondered on the skies. 
 
 My soul was its own law — 
 
 No rulable machine — 
 
 I read in all I saw 
 
 A transcript of th’ unseen 
 The vague idea wrought 
 
 Within me, keen and strong, 
 
 Till moulded into thought 
 
 And murmured out in song — 
 That deep but subtle power 
 Which on your lives may fall 
 And speed the heavy hour, 
 
 The lightsome one recall. 
 
 ‘Great nature’s touches played 
 On all the finer chords. 
 
 While they the music made, 
 
 ’Twas she supplied the words, — 
 Words, which by day and night 
 On viewless currents drift, 
 
 And to a safer height 
 
 Some drowning soul may lift, — 
 
THE REVERSION. 
 
 215 
 
 That neither pit nor cope 
 
 Shall press earth’s surface near, 
 
 But leave firm ground for hope 
 Heavens-high, around the sphere. 
 
 ‘ Where misery moaned unheard, 
 
 I soothed the aching sense ; 
 
 Where causeless anger stirred, 
 
 I made it less intense. 
 
 What pained the tender lid 
 I tempered with a tear ; 
 
 And what the clouds had hid 
 My fancy rendered clear. 
 
 ‘ I urged the laggard mind 
 The hardest tasks to meet ; 
 
 Where pleasure’s path inclined, 
 
 I stayed the hasty feet. 
 
 I trained the silent bard 
 To strike an emulous note ; 
 
 Where cruel discord jarred, 
 
 I stopped the brazen throat. 
 
 ‘ I strewed my mental stores — 
 
 I had no stores but these — 
 
 And brought from foreign shores 
 The richest argosies. 
 
 What further need I tell ? 
 
 Earth’s most triumphant strain 
 
 Had been fair freedom’s knell 
 If I had lived in vain ! ’ 
 
216 
 
 TO MISS HATTIE E. HOMER. 
 
 TO MISS HATTIE E. HOMER. 
 
 ONE YEAR OLD TO-DAY, FEB. 24 , 1891 . 
 
 February never looked 
 
 Half so brilliant, half so gay ; 
 For a little prize he’s booked, — 
 This Hattie’s natal day. 
 
 Nothing happier can be found, 
 Prettier than a fairy elf ; 
 Known to all for miles around, 
 Yet a stranger to herself. 
 
 'This is being born to fame 
 
 Better than most lives have bought — 
 To be loved and known by name 
 Far beyond her world of thought ! 
 
 '.She must also be, I think, 
 
 By the laughter-beaming eyes, 
 
 .By the budding white and pink, 
 Quite a favorite with the skies. 
 
 ;So this morn, the royal sun, 
 
 When he started towards the west 
 .Ordered all the hours to run 
 .Gleeful as the summer’s best. 
 
TO MISS HATTIE E. HOMER. 
 
 217 
 
 Fleets of clouds that floated high 
 Had commands to sail and dip 
 All their pennons, passing by, 
 
 To her little ladyship. 
 
 And the waves of upper air 
 
 Hush each sound of wintry strife, 
 Only breathing out a prayer 
 For this opening voyage of life. 
 
 Heaven itself, now bending low, 
 Lets her touch with tiny hand 
 All the jewels in the bow 
 Glittering over baby-land. 
 
 I would like to mark the day 
 For this queen of little girls 
 With the brightest laureate lay 
 Polished as a string of pearls, 
 
 With such splendor in the words, 
 With such music in the tune, 
 
 As the sunshine and the birds 
 Lavish on a morn in June.* 
 
 * This very interesting child, daughter of Mr. A. C. 
 Homer, of Barrington, died on the 16 th of the May following. 
 
218 
 
 THE SEA IN SUNSHINE. 
 
 THE SEA IN SUNSHINE. 
 
 CAPE SABLE LIGHT STATION, MAY 24 , 1887 
 
 How calm is the measureless sea 
 That brightly and silently flows ! 
 
 How dreadful its aspect can be 
 
 When aroused from deceitful repose ! 
 
 Now tempting the tiniest sail 
 To follow the sunbeams afar ; 
 
 Now mustering the merciless gale 
 To shiver the loftiest spar. 
 
 The brow of the sand-hill shows yet 
 The furrows deep-plowed by the storm 
 
 Where the two warring elements met 
 Over death in its dreadfullest form. 
 
 When the ocean uplifted its hand, 
 
 Its bosom with rage boiling o’ei, 
 
 And smote the white lips of the land 
 Till they answered with angriest roar. 
 
 And after the fury was spent, 
 
 And the ripples played light with the foam. 
 
 How sad was the lasting lament 
 In many a desolate home ! 
 
 Thus, after the passions subside 
 
 And our treasures lie shattered and torn, 
 
 As gaily our lives seem to glide, 
 
 But as deeply in secret we mourn. 
 
cupid’s career. 
 
 219 
 
 CUPID’S CAREER. 
 
 Floating through the May-sky mild, 
 Stirring all the leaves with glee, 
 On a cloud I saw a child, 
 
 And he, laughing, said to me : 
 
 ‘ Sing a song about a maid.’ 
 
 So I sang with merry cheer. 
 
 ‘ Sing another song,’ he said ; 
 
 1 Tell them who is reigning here.’ 
 
 Then right loyally I wrought 
 
 Out the theme in rhymes uncouth, 
 Clothing every happy thought, 
 
 Not in poesy, but truth. 
 
 I. IN THE LAND OF DELIGHT. 
 
 Where burning Sappho loved and sung. — Byron . 
 
 On a day of orient splendor, 
 
 Little Love, inclined to rove 
 Through the foliage fresh and tender, 
 Fluttered on from grove to grove. 
 
 All was beautiful and sunny. 
 
 Vineyard slope and garden fair 
 Breathed their lavish wine and honey 
 Through the bright ambrosial air. 
 
220 
 
 cupid’s career. 
 
 ’Twas a fertile laud and pleasant, 
 Bosomed in eternal spring, 
 
 Where the unmolested peasant 
 Dreaded neither mob nor king. 
 
 There were peaceful views of tillage 
 And of pastoral pursuits, 
 
 To the olive-girdled village 
 
 Leading through umbrageous routes. 
 
 Peacocks, in full glory blazing, 
 Ornamented park and lawn ; 
 O’er the lake, superbly gazing 
 At her shadow, sailed the swan. 
 
 Oreads, on the purple highlands, 
 Roused the echoes with their play; 
 Nereids, round the fairy islands, 
 Revelled in the silvern spray. 
 
 In the boscage, faun and satyr 
 Footed many a merry jig, 
 Shaking down with ceaseless patter 
 Showers of apricot and fig. 
 
 And with sunlight on their faces, 
 Such as might the gods entrance, 
 Hand in hand, the lissome graces 
 Floated in the mazy dance. 
 
cupid’s career. 
 
 221 
 
 With a slumbrous sound, the runnel, 
 
 From a far-off mountain source, 
 
 Slid along its tortuous tunnel 
 To the river’s freer course. 
 
 O’er the velvet meadow whirling, 
 Bacchants held their roaring game, 
 
 Oft the tufted thyrsus hurling 
 To the mark with faultless aim. 
 
 Bands of youth and maidens, meeting 
 Where the smooth Eurotas ran, 
 
 Set its tremulous pulses beating 
 Faster, to the pipes of Pan. 
 
 0 the pleasure in the sporting 
 Of this flower of Aryan folk ! 
 
 0 the rapture in the courting 
 
 Where nor vows nor hearts were broke ! 
 
 Yet Love left the groves enchanted, 
 
 And the ever-happy fields. 
 
 Oh his silly bosom panted 
 
 For the joys new conquest yields ! 
 
 Sometimes soaring, sometimes dancing, 
 Fearlessly he onward pressed ; 
 
 Sometimes on a sunbeam glancing 
 Far along the loomy west. 
 
 OfteD in his airy motion, 
 
 Darting through some hazy wreath, 
 
 Knew he not if land or ocean 
 Towered or tumbled underneath. 
 
222 
 
 cupid’s career. 
 
 II. IN THE REGION OF UNREST. 
 
 In which it seemed always afternoon. — Tennyson. 
 
 Presently the scene grew rougher. 
 
 He was getting far astray, 
 
 And his plumes began to suffer 
 From their contact with the clay. 
 
 Rueful apprehensions filled him. 
 
 What departure had he made ? 
 
 Whence the bustling breeze that chilled him ? 
 Could it be the northern trade ? 
 
 Then he turned to seek his mother— 
 
 He was heedless, never blind — 
 
 But on this way and the other, 
 
 Home again he could not find. 
 
 In his sore-bewildered flying, 
 
 Oftentimes his track he crossed, 
 
 OXXviu, V7] Aia'1 crying— 
 
 Doric for * oh dear, I’m lost ! ’ 
 
 Nothing like his native Cyprus 
 
 Looked the landscape, though in spring ; 
 Mists from rushy fens and viperous 
 Drenched the purple from his wing. 
 
 ’Twas a champaign flat and dreary 
 Where he heard at close of day 
 No fond shepherd piping cheery, 
 
 No fair milkmaid’s answering lay. 
 
cupid’s career. 
 
 223 
 
 Every flying thing was nested, 
 Every creeping thing was housed, 
 But his wings, which never rested, 
 Not one touch of pity roused. 
 
 He was troubled and with reason ; 
 
 He would perish in a year 
 Should it smite him with a season 
 Either sultry or severe. 
 
 Should he shiver, should he swelter 
 In the March or August air, 
 Nothing rose to promise shelter — 
 Scarce a friendly bush was there. 
 
 Eor the sad forsaken willow, 
 
 That had vainly wept and sighed, 
 On a thistle-padded pillow 
 
 Leaned its palsied limbs and died. 
 
 Doleful firs at distance scattered 
 Lodged the black ill-boding bird, 
 Where no vaulting squirrel chattered, 
 And no mottled partridge whirred. 
 
 He was tangled ’mid the branches 
 With the hammocked ravens round ; 
 Nettles speared his naked haunches 
 When he bent them to the ground. 
 
224 
 
 cupid’s career. 
 
 III. IN THE SEAT OF SCIENCE. 
 
 Worm laiift das Volk so und schreit. — Goethe . 
 
 Midnight round the pole was muffled, 
 Darkness buried hill and wood, 
 
 When he came all limp and ruffled 
 Where a noble city stood. 
 
 He could see the hand of culture 
 That each stony structure crowned; 
 
 But he could not see the vulture 
 Pecking at Prometheus hound. 
 
 Here he surely thought to flourish 
 On an aliment refined, 
 
 But fair science had to nourish 
 Thousands who were really blind. 
 
 Here no poet, child of passion, 
 
 Moulded from chaotic strife 
 
 Beauty, and in godlike fashion 
 Filled it with the breath of life. 
 
 Hot one champion literary 
 
 Would Love’s praises celebrate, 
 
 But would laud a dignitary 
 At the advertising rate. 
 
 Hung with chaplets, hailed with cheering; 
 Many a public pillar stood ; 
 
 All without was thin veneering, 
 
 All within was rotten wood ! 
 
cupid’s career. 
 
 225 
 
 Here the highest education 
 Wedded with the finest art ; 
 
 But they had no registration 
 In the archives of the heart. 
 
 Solitude came not to sweeten 
 
 Breasts that long had ceased to feel, 
 Like the pavement, worn and beaten 
 By the crush of fortune’s wheel. 
 
 Men who low to Mammon truckled, 
 Laughed Love’s sanctity to scorn ; 
 And the plutocratic cuckold 
 Gored him with a gilded horn. 
 
 Yet no foreign grace was wanting ; 
 
 Stately dame and maiden fair, 
 
 In the gaudiest garments flaunting, 
 Haunted avenue and square. 
 
 Love of gold beside his locker, 
 
 Seeing the rival imp draw near, 
 Flung at him a cradle-rocker, 
 
 Broke his how and drove him clear. 
 
 Soon he met another rival, 
 
 Painted to conceal a stain — 
 
 ’Twas that lightning scarred survival 
 From the Cities of the Plain. 
 
 But no snares could intramural 
 Sirens ever round him weave, 
 
 He, as primitive and. rural, 
 
 If not innocent, as Eve. 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 cupid’s career. 
 
 IV. IN THE BOWER OF BLISS. 
 
 Whaur luve shall still be lord of a *. — Scottish Song . 
 
 Past the villa, past the mansion, 
 
 Past the trim suburban pale, 
 
 Sped he under heaven’s expansion 
 To a Nova Scotian vale. 
 
 There the dandelions twinkled 
 In the golden morning light ; 
 
 And the skies their diamonds sprinkled 
 In the limpid pool at night. 
 
 There sometimes was heard the flowing 
 Of the gentle summer sea, 
 
 Boft as when o’er violets blowing 
 Drifts the murmur of the bee. 
 
 There the mossy fountain bubbled 
 ’Neath the alders, clear as glass ; 
 
 There the brooklet wound and doubled, 
 Bordered close with ribbon-grass. 
 
 There the orchard thick together 
 Wove and waved its blossoms gay, 
 
 As the emerald billows feather 
 Into snowy flakes of spray. 
 
 There, when labor’s task was over, 
 
 Grateful was the hour of rest, 
 
 Solaced by the scent of clover 
 
 From the fields that heaven had blessed. 
 
cupid’s career. 
 
 There the broad moon rose defining 
 Grassy slope and wooded height, 
 
 And the sinuous cove outlining 
 With its mildly-pencilled light. 
 
 There the honey-suckle, wreathing 
 Even the rock’s forbidding brow', 
 
 From the red-lipped blooms were breathing 
 Incense sweet as girlhood’s vow. 
 
 There the damsels, plump and pretty 
 As the rosebuds in the hedge, 
 
 Chanted many an artless ditty 
 
 That contained the dearest pledge. 
 
 There Rock Cottage, neatly modest, 
 
 Held within its snow-white walls 
 Rest the sweetest, peace the broadest 
 And the grace of lordly halls. 
 
 There the breast of lovely Jennie 
 Bade the vagrant fold his wing, 
 
 Grander now he reigns than anj r 
 Mortal conqueror or king. 
 
 How his double bow is bended 
 
 From that more than queenly brow. — 
 All my loving days are ended, 
 
 I’m his happy subject now ! 
 
228 
 
 ARION. 
 
 ARION. 
 
 Whoso offendeth one of these little ones * 
 it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his 
 neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 
 Holy Writ. 
 
 To every master of chord and pipe 
 
 In a world new-risen from out the sea, 
 
 ’Neath every star and every stripe 
 
 And the brave. red-cross of the isle first free — 
 All loyal to sovereign harmony, — 
 
 I send this allegory ; a type 
 
 From the land of immortal thought and deed, 
 The fruit of whose marvellous mind was ripe 
 Two thousand years ere the winged steed 
 Prepared the American wilds for its seed. 
 
 Briskly the evening gale, sweet from the orange-vale, 
 Piped to the dancing sail 
 Of the Greek trader. 
 
 Broadly the billows laughed, chasing the little craft, 
 Pressing her fore and aft 
 Only to speed her. 
 
 Dimly as on they bore, sank the Italian shore 
 Whence with his treasure-store 
 But with fame grander, 
 
 Dainty Arion then messed with those merchantmen, 
 Wishing to greet again 
 Brave Periander. 
 
ARION. 
 
 229 
 
 Long had his famous lyre, envy of Phoebus’ choir, 
 Gilded like ^Etna’s fire 
 What the night darkened. 
 
 Long had its wizard strings ravished from lords and kings 
 Gewgaws and diamond rings 
 While they had hearkened. 
 
 Oh ! it was great to see how its careering glee, 
 
 Buoyant and bounding free, 
 
 Captured the Stoic ; 
 
 How the staccato pitch made the lean muscles twitch — 
 Those facial muscles which 
 Posed for heroic ! 
 
 Oft did its touch allure even the Epicure, 
 
 Leaving his turbot-skewer 
 Only half eat out, 
 
 Sorely perplexed to tell how such delights could dwell 
 Inside a turtle-shell 
 With all the meat out ! 
 
 Every distinction sank, levelled was every rank ; 
 
 While the rich stream they drank, 
 
 Nobles and peasants, 
 
 Owning the minstrel’s power, thronged him in hall and 
 bower, 
 
 Thick at his feet to shower 
 Honors and presents. 
 
 Still did Arion long after the home of song. 
 
 Corinth, the fair and strong, — 
 
 Glory had planned her ; — 
 
230 
 
 AKION. 
 
 Corinth, how proud she was under a ruler’s laws 
 Foremost in freedom’s cause, 
 
 Wise Periander ! 
 
 He was the singer’s friend. He would his hand extend. 
 Scorning the knees that bend 
 Only to flatter. — 
 
 Friendship which, high and warm, genius is led to form 
 Over the common swarm, 
 
 Nothing can shatter. 
 
 Then the dear Lesbian strand, where the disrobing sand 
 Let the sea’s jewelled hand 
 Toy with its treasures ; 
 
 Oft ’neath the western star thrumming on reef and bar 
 As on a broad guitar 
 Soft-lulling measures. 
 
 Thence was Arion’s art. Nature’s full-beating heart 
 Formed the great music chart 
 Which he had pondered. 
 
 Thither, as flies the bird, every fond feeling stirred, 
 Daily his thought recurred 
 While he had wandered. 
 
 Softly he sank to rest, rocked in that ocean-nest, 
 Served as a welcome guest, 
 
 Not as a stranger. 
 
 Through the gold haze of dreams, there were no dagger- 
 gleams, 
 
 There were no gaping seams — 
 
 There was no danger. 
 
AEION. 
 
 231 
 
 II. 
 
 But ah ! when daylight hides its face, 
 
 Crime creeps from out its lurking place. 
 
 There rose that night a ghastly deed 
 
 From the skulking, black, cold heart of greed. 
 
 Both watches that night at once were ‘kept. 
 
 The crew conspired. The victim slept. 
 
 “ Is it not a most unnatural thing,” 
 
 They said, “for a poet to live like a king? 
 
 What practical talent has he displayed ? 
 
 What has he done for promoting trade ? 
 
 Is not the solid tact for gain 
 A higher gift and worth as much 
 As the flimsy substance they call the brain 
 When it runs to a delicate taste or touch ? 
 
 Yes — the primitive law of nature’s reign 
 Is the brightest prize to the strongest clutch. 
 Durable things, but void of beauty, 
 
 Fulfil the most important duty. 
 
 The Illyrian pines for ages last 
 Without one blossom of their own, 
 
 In rifted granite anchored fast, 
 
 With bristly bough and bur-like cone. 
 
 They form the oar, the keel, the mast — 
 
 They keys that open every zone. 
 
 While the flowers that morbid mildness please, 
 Those bubbles of earth by the young spring blown,. 
 Dance in the sunlight, but break in the breeze, 
 Least fitted by nature to hold their own.” 
 
232 
 
 ARION. 
 
 This is the way their comment ran, 
 
 Lower and deeper from man to man. 
 
 How broad is the interval between 
 Them and the modern merchant marine, 
 
 The men whom danger has rendered brave, 
 
 By whom Britannia rules the wave. 
 
 Whose sails, like the olive branch of peaee, 
 
 Are fluttering over the golden fleece ; 
 
 In whose tossing argosies, foreign lands 
 With friendliest greeting are shaking hands. 
 
 To alien interests so faithful and just, 
 
 The lives ’neath their charge are a sacred trust. 
 
 But those ancient pests of each neighboring shore 
 Were maritime pedlars, and nothing more, 
 
 Of whom the apostle might truly speak 
 
 That there was no difference ’twixt Jew and Greek. 
 
 By the shortest route to the basest ends, 
 
 They plundered the strangers and cheated their friends. 
 The venture they carried was wholly their own, 
 
 And they wrangled about it like dogs o’er a bone, 
 
 ’Till the wealth of another attracted their eyes, 
 
 Then a combine soon bound them in brotherly ties, 
 
 As a high tariff trust to its principle cleaves — - 
 Such is the honor still found among thieves ! 
 
 But who had surmised that the captain, too, 
 
 Would aid and abet his assassin crew 1 
 He held himself at the loftiest worth, 
 
 Both as salt of the sea and as salt of the earth. 
 
 For fifty years in harness and straps, 
 
 And half of that period in gold-laced caps, 
 
 He had navigated, with one slight lapse, 
 
ARION. 
 
 233 
 
 The greyhound of the blue Ionian. 
 
 Surely he would not kill or steal, 
 
 Lucre he loved but he hated theft, 
 
 Still there was something made him feel 
 Once Arion had stepped aside — 
 
 Once he was safely under the keel, 
 
 Himself and the company might divide 
 The trifles and trinkets that might be left. 
 
 In the midnight watch, in the dark profound, 
 They began to whisper these thoughts around, 
 
 But the east to an ashen grey had changed, 
 
 Ere their purpose was fixed and the plot arranged. 
 The morning crept o’er its threshold red, 
 
 With a sombre canopy overhead ; 
 
 From its open portal there issued a flaw 
 Preceded by vague airs, rude and raw. 
 
 Blackly it moved on its western course 
 Till the galliot shivered to feel its force. 
 
 First gracefully onward she glided and heeled, 
 Then as the ridges arose more steep, 
 
 Faster and wilder, she plunged and reeled, 
 
 Like a hunted elephant over a field 
 With a pitfall yawning at every leap. 
 
 Yet the gale which quickened the galliot’s speed, 
 But hastened the pirates’ dastardly deed. 
 
 Arion awoke at their stealthy tread ; 
 
 His fate in their wolfish looks he read. 
 
 But oh ! it was harsh when the sentence severe 
 Beat a death-drum in his musical ear ! 
 
 Instead of the plaudits that formerly rose, 
 
 Echoing every harmonious close, 
 
234 
 
 ARION. 
 
 Curtly the awful change was rung 
 Up to the clouds that menacing hung, 
 
 Bidding him take from their hands his doom, 
 
 Or find at the bottom a self-sought tomb. 
 
 Only one moment the fell disclosure 
 Ruffled the singer’s divine composure ; 
 
 Then his clear spirit, so proudly serene, 
 
 Killed, in its dignity, feature and mien. 
 
 Thus, a fish hawk’s swoop for an instant may shake 
 The pictured heaven in a summer lake ; 
 
 But quickly the ripples are smoothed away, 
 
 Leaving no trace of the bird of prey. 
 
 Nothing was granted but five minutes’ leave 
 For him to dress in his finest array 
 Ere the rank weeds of the bottom should weave 
 Round him a mantle that never gives way. 
 
 Soon he emerged from the cabin beneath, 
 
 Wearing his singing robes, crowned with a wreath 
 Fashioned like laurel, but wrought of pure gold ; 
 Loose around forehead and cheek and neck 
 Floated the auburn curls, fair to behold ; 
 
 Firmly he trod o’er the tilting deck, 
 
 High on the quarter taking his stand, 
 
 Holding the wonderful lyre in his hand. 
 
 Majestic soul that will not stoop 
 
 To the king of terrors ! He stood in splendor, 
 
 Facing the cursed, compassionless group, 
 
 The Nile-horse less horrid, the jackal more tender. 
 Brute meanness looked from the lower flat 
 Of the lumpish cranium, stolidly fat ; 
 
ARION. 
 
 235 
 
 From the cat-like optic that shuts at the light, 
 But widens and watches and preys in the night ; 
 From the soulless orb in a formless waste — 
 
 The great dull seal of a sordid taste ; 
 
 From the snaky lights ’neath the jutting brow, 
 Outstaring the Gorgon upon the prow. 
 
 Arion gave them a look to chill 
 Their blood into something icier still ; 
 
 Then, with the grandeur that peril inspires 
 In a brave bosom, he touched the bright wires ; 
 But soft as a lover’s caress was the stroke 
 Which the prime outgush of melody woke. 
 
 hi. 
 
 At the first quaver, the dismal scud 
 
 Stopped in its flight and began to unfold, 
 Like a huge tree-flower bursting its bud, 
 Overlapped petals of carmine and gold. 
 
 Fell on the waves an ominous calm, 
 
 And the tall mast on the lonely main 
 Stood like a solitary palm 
 
 Rooted fast in a boundless plain. 
 
 But a creeping vapor, chill and dim, 
 
 Seemed slowly to rise from the surface dark. 
 Wavering o’er the horizon’s rim 
 
 And draping the hull of the hellish bark. 
 
236 
 
 ARION. 
 
 IV. 
 
 With rising power and with billowy swell 
 The lyre exerted its marvellous spell ; 
 
 And the waters, to starboard, to port and astern, 
 And ahead,— as far as the eye could discern, 
 
 Were dimpled and rippled and ruffled and splashed 
 By a thousand fins that thronged and flashed 
 Through the gloom, like the spears of a body-guard 
 Summoned by Neptune to shield the bard. 
 
 v. 
 
 ’Twas the moment supreme ; 
 
 Eternity called him, 
 
 Dispelling the dream 
 
 That long had enthralled him. 
 
 So savagely torn 
 
 From the summit of pleasure ; 
 
 So proudly upborne 
 
 By a strength beyond measure. 
 
 As the terrible force 
 
 Which the firm mountain shivers 
 Un prisons the source 
 Of the mightiest rivers, 
 
 So the heart undergoes 
 The cruellest spasm, 
 
 But fuller life flows 
 
 From the desolate chasm. 
 
 Confronting stern fate 
 
 In that dread moment lowering, 
 
 Erect and elate, 
 
 Arion stood towering. 
 
ARION. 
 
 The shadow it flings 
 
 O’er his countenance flitted ; 
 
 The rush of its wings 
 
 From his lyre was emitted. 
 
 As the mind overstreams 
 The vast spaces that sever 
 
 The hidden extremes 
 Of the awful forever, — 
 
 The fear-haunted deep 
 Its harmony sounded ; 
 
 With confident sweep 
 
 To the heavens it bounded. 
 
 The sombre skies flushed 
 At its pathos controlling; 
 
 The tempest was hushed 
 
 In the distance down-rolling ; 
 
 The clouds made a pause 
 While the music ascended, 
 
 To thunder applause 
 As soon as it ended. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Arion ceased ; the wires were stilled, 
 
 Their vibrant waves the vault yet filled, 
 With infinite eddying echoes whirled 
 Round the sapphire cliffs of the upper world. 
 
 As a spiral column of water lifts 
 Its head at the touch of the dread cyclone 
 High in the air, and wavers and shifts 
 And spreads to a mammoth inverted cone, 
 
238 
 
 ARIOtf. 
 
 Then while it rapidly revolves, 
 
 The mighty spectacle dissolves 
 In a sky-Niagara roaring loud 
 From a riven continent of cloud ; 
 
 So the masterful strain, that seemed to float 
 As if from the final trumpet’s throat, 
 
 In a gathered volume, returning, fell 
 On the craven souls like their own death-knell. 
 Then, clasping his instrument close to his heart, 
 Of which it was really the resonant part, 
 
 And casting towards Corinth a farewell look, 
 
 The minstrel took 
 A fearless leap 
 
 Into the breathless and shuddering deep ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 Oh ultimate horror and anguish — to drown ! 
 
 Sinking and deepening, down, down, down ! 
 
 To see the green deluge above you curled, 
 
 Thrusting you down from the light of this world, 
 
 Till the stifling weight of the deep is pressed 
 On the straining sight and the laboring breast, 
 
 And the deafening surf of a hundred shores 
 On the tense and bursting ear-drum pours ; 
 
 To feel, in the sea- weeds that round you float, 
 
 Death’s icy clutch on your panting throat, — 
 
 The deeds of a life-time, so horribly plain, 
 
 All focussed and flashed through the quivering brain ; 
 To struggle so madly, with nothing to grasp, 
 
 While the cry at your heart bubbles forth in a gasp ; 
 
ARION. 
 
 239 
 
 Then the flickering sparks in tne darkness dense 
 That slowly envelops the swooning sense, 
 
 And, merging the present, the future and past, 
 Drowsily drifts to the void and the vast, 
 
 And still more dizzy, more dim, more deep, 
 
 To shudder and lapse into endless sleep ! 
 
 ■Grim gateway of silence, — it makes the flesh creep ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Ah ! little those sons of rapacity cared 
 
 For the life of the bard or his final repose. 
 
 They swore by the Styx when the treasure was shared, 
 They would never one word of the secret disclose. 
 
 The ominous frown from the sky soon cleared ; 
 
 The west wind came singing, so cheerful and soft ; 
 Before it the vessel in safety careered, 
 
 And ere sundown the land was descried from aloft. 
 
 The shipmen were glad as they entered the bay, 
 
 And vowed that as soon as the frolicsome sod 
 Was pressed by their innocent feet, they would slay 
 A black sheep and lamb to the surly sea-god. 
 
 IX. 
 
 That sacrifice was never made. 
 That pious vow was never paid. 
 The sea-god pressing for his due, 
 Soon had a capias on the crew. 
 
240 
 
 ARION. 
 
 As folds the circling gull its wing 
 And settles on the bastioned rock, 
 
 With handed sail and easy swing 
 The galliot grounded in her dock. 
 
 Invited then to make report 
 Forthwith at Periander’s court, 
 
 Thither the mariners repaired 
 With blushless brows politely bared. 
 
 They found the chief in lordly state ; 
 
 He bade them all their voyage relate, 
 
 And asked, with tenderest concern, 
 
 What of Arion they could learn. 
 
 “ He lives,” broke forth the vocal chime, 
 
 “ He flourishes in myrtle-glades 
 Enamored of the lazy clime 
 And of the lively Tuscan maids, 
 
 Too great to feel himself exiled 
 From Corinth.” Periander smiled. 
 
 “ He lives — he loves ; then all is well,” 
 
 He said, and touched a silver bell. 
 
 Uprolled the rich-embroidered baize — 
 
 Arion stood before their gaze ! 
 
 Effulgent in his court attire, 
 
 With golden crown and rose-wreathed lyre. 
 
 They would have fled, but seized and chained 
 By terror, motionless remained, 
 
 With palsied limb and vacant stare 
 Of guilt, surprise and blank despair ; 
 
 Tasting the bitterness of death, 
 
 Indrawn with every jerky breath. 
 
ARION. 
 
 241 
 
 And silence like the tomb prevailed 
 Till Periander said : 
 
 “ Falsehood and murder hand in hand, 
 
 How has your dastard purpose failed ! 
 
 Behold the deed in darkness planned 
 To open justice led ! 
 
 Ye could not to the deep consign 
 This favorite of the skies ; 
 
 Smit with his melody divine, 
 
 The very monsters of the brine 
 In his defence arise ! 
 
 And, fleet as ever courser speeds 
 To bring the news of mighty deeds, 
 
 The heaven-deputed dolphin bore 
 Arion safe to Corinth’s shore : 
 
 For him the proudest honors wait — 
 
 For you the felon’s gloomiest fate ! ” 
 
 When next the grey dawn scaled the steep 
 It saw in the west, like a faint white cloud 
 Vanishing over the tremulous deep, 
 
 An outbound ship. The piratical crowd 
 Lay on her deck in a helpless heap, 
 
 Shackled and rigid with mortal fear ; 
 
 For the black-robed pilot had orders to steer 
 As close as he might to the very spot 
 Which had witnessed their own infernal plot ; 
 And that piece and their doom were drawing near. 
 How chilly, how different ran their blood 
 From the genial current they would have spilt ! 
 Their plunge in the cold eternal flood 
 Was to whiten their bones but not their guilt* 
 
 16 
 
242 
 
 THE CLERICAL QUACK. 
 
 And of what did their ornament consist 
 As they were dipped from the quarter deck t 
 A bracelet of iron around each wrist, 
 
 And a millstone ruffle around each neck ! 
 
 THE CLERICAL QUACK. 
 
 When is forbearanee no longer a virtue 1 
 
 Not when leagued slander leads on the attack, 
 
 Not when mean malice is trying to hurt you, 
 
 But when you’re bored by a clerical quack. 
 
 What ! are there many such characters, turning 
 Fact into fable and white into black ? — 
 
 Yes ; this old planet is still young in learning 
 How to distinguish a clerical quack. 
 
 Oh he is known by the brimstone aroma 
 Rising without any limit or lack. 
 
 Such a man never is worth a diploma, 
 
 He is at best but a clerical quack. 
 
 Show me a parson who twisteth the letter 
 Of the old law into thumbscrew and rack, 
 
 As the best method of making men better — 
 Then I shall show you a clerical quack. 
 
 When he is itching to set on his forehead 
 Aaron’s tiara that fitteth him slack, 
 
 Labelled with “ holiness unto the Lorrud,” 
 
 That is the badge of a clerical quack. 
 
THE CLERICAL QUACK. 
 
 243 
 
 Soon as he telleth with fervor and unction 
 How his pure message was mighty to crack 
 All the hard heads in the purlieus of Moncton, 
 Mark him right down for a clerical quack. 
 
 Soon as you hear him, whose pillow is watered 
 Over the soul of the savage Kanak,* 
 
 Singing Te Deums o’er Soudanese slaughtered, 
 Brand him at once as a clerical quack. 
 
 Perched on the chariot of Zion on Sunday, 
 Cursing the sinner who taketh a hack, 
 
 Walking in faith with the pure Mrs. Grundy, 
 That is the style of the clerical quack. 
 
 When the poor jack-daw parades as a Greekling 
 Publicly boasting his classical knack, f 
 Pluck but a plume from the garrulous weakling, 
 Then you behold him — a clerical quack. 
 
 When our green crop of wild oats he is firing, 
 Even as a tramp setteth fire to a stack, 
 
 Watch him ; there’s no other creature requiring 
 Such a stern check as the clerical quack. 
 
 Give your last dime to the sharper who robs you, 
 Pocket an insult and fling it not back, 
 
 Turn t’other cheek to the rowdy who mobs you, 
 Still declare war on the clerical quack. 
 
 * It is a sad mark of consistency when good men rejoice 
 at the massacre of semi-civilized Arabs, and yet offer them- 
 selves as ragouts to the South Sea cannibals. 
 
 + The difference, however, between Graculus and Graeculus 
 is only that between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. 
 
244 
 
 TO COUNT TOLSTOI. 
 
 TO COUNT TOLSTOI. 
 
 [These stanzas are supposed to be addressed to Count 
 Lyof N. Tolstoi, the distinguished Russian writer, and author 
 of the “ Kreutzer Sonata.” This work, though full of tragic 
 interest and powerfully written, does the noble count no 
 credit. Its object was to show by a series of revolting 
 incidents, ending in a horrible domestic tragedy, that love 
 between the sexes is in any case immoral, and marriage a 
 certain calamity.] 
 
 Touch glasses, most unknightly count, 
 But touch them from the shoulder ; 
 Mine brimming from Castalia’s fount, 
 Yours filled with something colder. 
 
 It glistens much like Arctic brine ; 
 
 You may as well withdraw it. 
 
 The nectar is not quite divine — 
 
 It needs a hell to thaw it ! 
 
 It bled not from the glowing grape ; 
 
 It breeds no dreams Elysian ; 
 
 Its vapors take a goblin shape 
 That kills the beauteous vision ! 
 
 Poor Posdnicheff,* it makes him look 
 A thousand times absurder 
 To feel its climax when he took 
 His first degree — in murder ! 
 
 * The hero, or rather, the criminal of the story. 
 
TO COUNT TOLSTOI. 
 
 245 
 
 Nor heart, nor soul his life adorns 
 Through all the sad narration, 
 
 But he excels in fancied horns 
 The beast in Revelation. 
 
 And can you take the madman’s part, 
 Or share his crude convictions, 
 
 So lacking in the lover’s art, 
 
 So full of contradictions ? 
 
 Yet every voice in nature’s choir, 
 
 To gentle measures heated, 
 
 Must celebrate that blessed tire 
 Of which the gods were cheated. 
 
 Tor this is nature’s noblest, this 
 Her Eden education, 
 
 Which flashes pure electric bliss 
 Through cycles of creation. 
 
 Thus love, although on earth it glows, 
 Is heaven-ward in direction — 
 
 A Sacred flower whose fruitage shows 
 In conjugal affection. 
 
 Love, that has ruled this world so long, 
 Is neither stale nor stealthy, 
 
 It keeps the vital current strong, 
 
 The moral fibre healthy. 
 
 No language frames a sweeter word ; 
 
 No theme is more alluring ; 
 
 No lofty soul was ever stirred 
 By pleasure more enduring. 
 
246 
 
 TO COUNT TOLSTOI. 
 
 No nation, entered for the race 
 Of glory, ever halted 
 
 While female modesty and grace 
 Were to the heavens exalted. 
 
 That fire, which for the kneaded dust 
 Prometheus stole from heaven, 
 
 May never penetrate the crust 
 Of Pharasaic leaven. 
 
 In many a cottage home it smiles 
 By winter drifts surrounded ; 
 
 It adds a charm to palmy isles 
 On coral fret- work founded. 
 
 That gentle flame ! for low and high 
 I recognise its fitness, 
 
 As were I not extremely shy, 
 
 My constant song should witness. 
 
 Oh flute it, while the mist upcurls 
 From morning’s pure carnation 
 
 Which every flowering slip ‘impearls 
 In nuptial decoration. 
 
 Oh chant it in the ardent noons 
 
 When heaven and earth are wedded 
 
 In forests hung with gay festoons, 
 
 On verdant mosses bedded. 
 
 And trill it when the evening skies 
 Restore to full dominion 
 
 The dimpled god with starry eyes, 
 Keen shaft and purple pinion ! 
 
TO COUNT TOLSTOI. 
 
 247 
 
 Once, when Aurora’s tears were wiped 
 By radiant-faced Apollo, 
 
 I won their favor while I piped 
 The artless notes that follow : 
 
 SONG. 
 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine 
 Hold empire o’er this heart of mine, 
 Which in its rebel mood defies 
 All, all except the tenderest ties. 
 
 The choicest of poetic themes, 
 
 The sweetest of romantic dreams 
 Are blended in this single line — 
 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine ! 
 
 When destiny first parcelled earth 
 In liberal shares to wealth and birth, 
 
 The meanest creatures got some taste 
 Of happiness that flowed at waste. 
 
 But when the loitering bard arrived, 
 
 Of earthly heritage deprived, 
 
 She gave, to crown the whole design, 
 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine. 
 
 They are the two enchanting things 
 That steal the down from pleasure’s wings, 
 Alike to stay its rapid flight 
 And spread the couch of soft delight. 
 Without their presence to inspire, 
 
 How dull the lute, how dumb the lyre 1 
 What made Anacreon’s song divine 1 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine. 
 
248 
 
 TO COUNT TOLSTOI. 
 
 What force of wisdom or of arms 
 Is proof against their honeyed charms? 
 The wisest king that ever ruled, 
 
 In piety and prudence schooled, 
 
 Could never tune his harp above 
 The cooing of the turtle-dove, 
 
 Xor place below the golden shrine 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine ! 
 
 The matchless Macedonian boy, 
 
 Whose soul was steeled to vulgar joy, 
 Stood on the heights of dread renown 
 And trampled mightiest monarchs down. 
 But Thais’ lovely bust outshone 
 The ivory of the Persian throne, 
 
 And still above its ruin shine 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine ! 
 
 The peasant hard, (forgive this tear), 
 
 To Scotland and to nature dear, 
 
 Was born with sweetest spell to bind 
 The captive souls of all mankind. 
 
 The wreath which Coila’s hand bestows 
 With never-dying lustre glows, 
 
 But brightest where these two entwine — 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine ! 
 
 When England’s strongest noble swept 
 The chords where love and terror slept, 
 And roused them to a loftier tone 
 Than e’er before or since was known ; 
 
AT SEA. 
 
 249 
 
 His genius, paling from the skies, 
 
 Illumined for admiring eyes 
 
 Those twin stars o’er a sun’s decline — 
 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine ! 
 
 O genius ! how superbly near 
 It brings the ploughman to the peer, 
 
 Till worlds that glimmered on the sight 
 Receive from them full warmth and light. 
 And yet its most resplendent ray 
 Would fail to animate the clay 
 Without those founts of all that’s fine — 
 A mistress fair, a glass of wine. 
 
 AT SEA. 
 
 The darkened sea before us lies, 
 
 The coast-lights far away receding ; 
 The mist is gathering to my eyes 
 And my lone heart is inly bleeding. 
 
 ’Tis not that fate with frown severe 
 Pursues me with its wonted malice ; 
 ’Tis not for dangers gathering near — 
 ’Tis leaving thee, my darling Alice. 
 
250 
 
 DARWIN. 
 
 No harsher doom the bell could speak 
 Above the stony dungeon pealing ; 
 
 No deeper vengeance hate could wreak 
 Upon the quivering chords of feeling. 
 
 When death, the last of many a pain, 
 Holds to my lips its icy chalice, 
 
 Less bitter will it be to drain 
 
 Than leaving thee, my darling Alice. 
 
 DARWIN . 
 
 [Charles Robert Darwin, author of the “ Origin of 
 Species,” the foremost scientist of modern times, died at his 
 home in Down, Kent, April 19, 1882. 44 On the Wednes- 
 
 day morning next after his death, his remains were borne 
 with unwonted marks of respect and ceremony, in the assem- 
 bled presence of all that was noble and good in Britain, to an 
 honored grave in the precincts of the great Abbey (West- 
 minster). Wallace and Huxley, Lubbock and Hooker, his 
 nearest peers in the domain of pure science, stood among the 
 bearers who held the pall. Lowell represented the republic 
 of America and of letters. Statesmen and poets, philosophers 
 and theologians mingled with the throng of scientific thinkers 
 who crowded close to the venerated bier. No incident of 
 fitting pomp or dignity was wanting, as the organ pealed out 
 in solemn strains the special anthem composed for the 
 occasion to the appropriate words of the Hebrew poet, 
 44 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom.” Even the narrow 
 Philistine intelligence itself, which still knew Darwin only as 
 the man who thought we were all descended from monkeys, 
 was impressed with the sole standard of greatness open to its 
 feeble and shallow comprehension by the mere solemnity and 
 ceremony of the occasion, and began to enquire with blind 
 wonderment, what this thinker had done whom a wholes 
 people thus delighted to honor.” — Grant Allen.] 
 
DARWIN. 
 
 251 
 
 The abbey lays him with the mitred dead, 
 
 Among her treasured relics not the least. 
 
 The holy earth, which has such discords bred, 
 
 Unites at last philosopher and priest. 
 
 The work which he was born to do is done. 
 
 The long-sought light is breaking by degrees. 
 
 Can life not bring all issues out of one, 
 
 When death can blend such opposites as these 1 
 
 The noble-minded group around the bier 
 In mournful silence pay the last respects, 
 
 While even the masses have no ear to hear 
 The loud-mouthed leaders of the narrow sects. 
 
 No fierce anathema, no spiteful ban 
 
 Disturbs his dust with breath of sulphurous fire ; 
 
 But sweetly solemn “ Happy is the man 
 
 That findeth wisdom ” chants the sacred choir ! 
 
 He brushed the cobwebs of caprice and chance 
 
 From nature’s dome, and showed that order reigns 
 
 But to be known, while leaden ignorance 
 A miracle unto itself remains. 
 
 He rolled the cloudy bounds of chaos back 
 Farther than inspiration ever saw 
 
 And reared o’er Being’s multifarious track 
 The luminous banner of unswerving law. 
 
 No greater spirit was the Genoese 
 
 Flying his ensign o’er a deep uncrossed, 
 
 While saintship pointed to the grim decrees 
 And friendship, weeping, gave him up for lost. 
 
252 
 
 DARWIN. 
 
 Before him lay a new world, and behind 
 
 The theosophs who swore the earth was flat, 
 
 But he had seen a shadow-sphere defined 
 Upon the moon, and based his hope on that. 
 
 He looked to heaven, and his words were bold — 
 Flashing that light which guides all glorious search — 
 
 He cried : “ The church condemns me, hut I hold 
 By such a shadow more than by the church ! ”* 
 
 Our own discoverer dared and did as much. 
 
 No common merchandise his voyage sought ; 
 
 And after him, our feebler minds may touch 
 A virgin continent of endless thought. 
 
 Thus truth advances, and our faith grows firm 
 To see one cosmic principle displayed, 
 
 Even from the faintest infusorial germ 
 
 To the full man in God’s own image made. 
 
 Hail, then, the upward tendency of life ! 
 
 Far better than in dolorous tones to tell 
 
 That man through centuries of pain and strife 
 Has not yet struggled up to whence he fell ! 
 
 Finding its bond with every sentient thing, 
 
 The immortal intellect is throned and crowned 
 
 To raise men nearer to the skies and brings 
 The Ephesian workshop nearer to the ground. 
 
 * I believe this remark was made by Magellan, the 
 Portuguese navigator, and not by Columbus, to whom I have 
 here attributed it. Had the Genoese really been guilty of 
 such irreverence, he would scarcely have been canonized, even 
 at this late day. 
 
SUNRISE. 
 
 253 
 
 SUNRISE. 
 
 The age of the gods is past, 
 
 The reign of man is begun ; 
 
 And the spectres are vanishing fast 
 ’Neath the still ascending sun. 
 
 The apostles of fear and of force, 
 Though armed with celestial might, 
 Have finished their infamous course — 
 Have lost the unnatural fight. 
 
 Opinions, once rooted so deep, 
 And over-shadowing all, 
 
 Have felt the morn-breezes sweep 
 And are swaying to their fall. 
 
 Old power, once held to be firm 
 As the everlasting hills, 
 
 Is reluctantly nearing its term 
 As the popular mandate wills. 
 
 Less bitter the sectary’s strife, 
 
 More wholesome the social breath 
 As the growing hope in life 
 
 Is supplanting the hope in death. 
 
254 
 
 ORIENTAL. 
 
 No tyrant’s mock-thunder has stilled 
 The watchword hy liberty given, 
 
 But her mission will not he fulfilled 
 Till the last ancient fetter is riven — 
 
 Till not one heart that has bled 
 Shall longer be trodden down, 
 
 And not one human head 
 
 Shall put itself up for a crown. 
 
 ORIENTAL. 
 
 JULY, 1876. 
 
 O’er the vineyards of the east, 
 
 Hounding to the bloody feast, 
 
 See the turbans and the crescent 
 Throng and wave ; 
 
 Hear the yells of Allah rise 
 Mingled with the victims’ cries — 
 
 And is there no succor present, 
 
 Is there no strong arm to save 1 
 
 Where is the avenging sword 
 When the ruthless Tartar horde 
 On each undefended village 
 Wreak their rage ; 
 
 When, in hellish triumph bold, 
 
 Hard by freedom’s seat of old 
 
 Murder, leagued with rape and pillage, 
 Stains the earth and shocks the age ? 
 
ORIENTAL. 
 
 255 
 
 Ruin crushes down the land 
 With a red, relentless hand ; 
 
 Ghastly trophies of the slaughter 
 Mark its way ; 
 
 Turks exult, while angels weep 
 Over many a festering heap — 
 
 Age and childhood, mother, daughter, 
 Mangled like the tiger’s prey ! 
 
 By their fierce and sensual creed, 
 
 In each fiendish murder-deed 
 They are sure of upper glory 
 Who excel. 
 
 Shall they flaunt that Arab lie 
 In the face of freedom’s sky, 
 
 That the unsparing blade and gory 
 Is the key of heaven and hell 1 
 
 Can the nations, trained to know 
 Right from wrong, be slack and slow 
 And divided in opinion 
 Of the case ? 
 
 Heaven’s everlasting laws 
 Justify that people’s cause 
 
 Rising ’gainst the vile dominion 
 Of a cruel Tartar race. 
 
 How the free, enlightened soul 
 Spurns the thought of such control ! 
 Mussulmans, as tame as camels 
 To the rod 
 
 Which some pampered eunuch wields, 
 
256 
 
 ORIENTAL. 
 
 They despoiling Europe’s fields 
 
 To enforce their odious trammels — 
 Oh forbid it, Europe’s God ! 
 
 N ot in vain shall misery plead, 
 
 And not long shall Servia bleed. 
 Armed, decisive intervention 
 Is at hand, 
 
 And the sultan soon must seek 
 Friendship with some wandering sheik,. 
 With his empire’s full extension 
 By a desert tent-cloth spanned. 
 
 England, to the victim’s aid, 
 
 Prone beneath a barbarous raid, 
 
 Let the war trump’s throat of thunder- 
 Call thy bands, 
 
 Aud while Coeur-de-Lion’s shade 
 Waves the heaven-annointed blade, 
 
 Drive the Asian beast of plunder 
 Backward to his native sands ! 
 
JOHN BURNS, OP LONDON. 
 
 25 
 
 JOHN BURNS, OF LONDON. 
 
 Defender of down-trodden right, 
 
 Strong both to act and speak, — 
 
 The hireling arm of ruling might, 
 Uplifted yet, forbears to smite 
 You on the other cheek. 
 
 Now blessings on the wider range 
 And keener touch of thought ! 
 
 To this is due the sudden change, 
 
 This modern miracle as strange 
 As ever wizard wrought. 
 
 The name of Burns, the socialist, 
 
 So late with terror heard — 
 
 A day star dimmed by London mist, 
 
 By law and gospel loathed and hissed, — 
 Becomes a household word ! 
 
 0 happier tribune of the plebs 
 Than chaste Cornelia’s sons,* 
 
 Who tore the social spider-webs, 
 
 For here no vein of valor ebbs, 
 
 Nor red with slaughter runs. 
 
 * Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, tribunes of the people in 
 old Rome, were both murdered for advocating the popular 
 cause against the tyrannical aristocracy. 
 
 17 
 
258 
 
 JOHN BURNS, OF LONDON. 
 
 Authority has now on tap 
 
 Hei soul’s most generous wine ; 
 With batons dangling to the strap, 
 Her servants lift to him the cap 
 That bears the civic sign. 
 
 She hears the famished cry for bread 
 Nor will she give a stone ; 
 
 Nor see the leader captive led, 
 
 Nor club an unoffending head, 
 
 And haply risk her own. 
 
 That land is sown with dragon’s teeth 
 Where wealth alone is great, 
 
 And millions, toiling far beneath, 
 Own nothing that they can bequeath, 
 But blind and bitter hate. 
 
 Learn, Britain, to avert such ill ; 
 
 The world’s best future turns 
 On hands that heavy tasks fulfil 
 With cheerful mind and earnest will — 
 On workingmen like Burns. 
 
THE PEOPLE FIRST. 
 
 259 
 
 THE PEOPLE FIRST. 
 
 i. 
 
 Far as the bright sun gilds 
 The lowly cot, or builds 
 The seven-hued arch, 
 W e celebrate and toast 
 The great victorious host 
 Who do and suffer most 
 In life’s grand march. 
 
 ii. 
 
 We raise no murder-shout, 
 
 We fling no banners out 
 O’er mobs accursed ; 
 
 But to each continent 
 O’er ocean’s vast extent, 
 
 This greeting shall he sent : 
 
 The people first ! 
 
 hi. 
 
 For them, and them alone, 
 
 And not for any throne 
 Superbly carved, 
 
 Shall heart and hand and brain 
 The ordered state maintain 
 Without one foeman slain, 
 
 One subject starved. 
 
260 
 
 THE PEOPLE FIRST. 
 
 IV. 
 
 True lordship of the soil 
 Is in the drops of toil 
 That gem the brow, 
 And in such arms as broke 
 The galling feudal yoke 
 And made the common folk 
 What they are now. 
 
 v. 
 
 The truly royal dames 
 From no emblazoned names 
 Derive their worth. 
 
 Where love has crowned them queens 
 Of sweet domestic scenes 
 They nurse untitled weans 
 To govern earth. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Then fill the social bowl 
 To every generous soul 
 Born to be free ; 
 
 While we behind us cast 
 The ducal lines long past 
 With hope set firm and fast 
 On those to be. 
 
THE DOOM OF ROMANOFF. 
 
 261 
 
 VII. 
 
 King, emperor, sultan, czar, 
 And each attendant star 
 Pale from the skies ; 
 While o’er the palace wall 
 There runs the fateful scrawl 
 Foredooming it to fall 
 That man may rise ! 
 
 THE DOOM OF ROMANOFF. 
 
 ALEXANDER II. OF RUSSIA, KILLED MARCH 13, 1881. 
 
 Hark ! what was that terrific jar 
 That shocked the steadfast northern star, 
 
 And rattled hell both bolt and bar 1 
 “ The Nihilists have killed the czar ! ” 
 
 And fast and faster 
 
 Through teeming, turmoiled Europe spreads 
 That thunder-crash for kingly heads : 
 
 “ The Nihilists, the rampant Reds, 
 
 Have blown to atoms, torn to shreds 
 Their lord and master ! ”* 
 
 * Swinburne rather savagely imprecates the same awful 
 visitation on the hopeful seed thus : 
 
 “ God or man, be swift ; hope sickens with delay. 
 
 Smite, and send him howling down his father’s way. 
 Down the way of czars, so long in vain deferred, 
 
 Let the second Alexander light the third ! ” 
 
262 
 
 THE DOOM OF ROMANOFF. 
 
 Ye guardians of the royal lair, 
 
 Turn out and form a hollow square 
 Around your broken idol there ! 
 
 Beat back the haggard hordes that stare, 
 Both man and woman. 
 
 Ay, shower them with metallic grape 
 Lest this foul secret should escape : 
 
 The autocrat, that tried to ape 
 The immortal gods, has lost the shape 
 That marked him human ! 
 
 Ay, they had fenced with stone and steel 
 The man who knew not how to feel 
 For millions ’neath his iron heel ; 
 
 But spite of mercenary zeal, 
 
 The deadly nitre 
 
 That fills the whistling little sphere 
 And blanches twenty thrones with fear, 
 Has stopped the despot’s high career 
 And stretched him on a snowy bier 
 With features whiter. 
 
 Pity and horror on us seize. 
 
 Behold the royal remnants ! — these : 
 
 The shredded flesh, the shattered knees, 
 The rivulets of blood that freeze 
 Along the gutters, 
 
 And whilst they trickle warmly still, 
 
 Are trodden in, and send a chill 
 Through fur-clad minions trained to kill, 
 Who bend to catch the sovereign will 
 He feebly utters ! 
 
THE DOOM OF ROMANOFF. 
 
 263 
 
 Is there a mortal eye that can, 
 
 Unmoist, the ghastly havoc scan 1 
 Poor Romanoff ! our fellow man ! 
 
 His pride disdained the equal plan, 
 
 His power o’erleaped it. 
 
 How grimly shows this gruesome deed ! 
 And yet his sires had sown the seed, 
 
 His own hand hade the harvest speed ; 
 
 It ripened where his victims bleed, 
 
 And he has reaped it ! 
 
 Say, shall the muse of history crown 
 The banded patriots with renown 
 Who struck imperial Julius down 1 ? 
 
 And shall she wear the censor’s frown 
 When desperation, — 
 
 Long gagged because of groans and cries — - 
 Reveals to startled earth and skies 
 What cunning art of warfare lies 
 Within its reach ? One murderer dies 
 To save the nation 
 
 Will any plead that this was he 
 Who hade the cowering serfs go free ? 
 
 Alas ! there lurked in that decree 
 A deeper gulf of misery 
 
 For them to plunge in. 
 
 The lordlings, grown too great and rich, 
 Their human cattle must unhitch, 
 
 While manv an Ivan Loukovitch, 
 
 Deluded, leaped from out a ditch 
 Into a dungeon. 
 
264 
 
 THE DOOM OF ROMANOFF. 
 
 His hoof had crushed in embryon 
 Full many a Sclavic Washington 
 Who might have showed the glorious sun 
 To caverned wretches, washed and won 
 From stripes and slavery. 
 
 But no — broad Russia had but room 
 For power’s proud seat and freedom’s tomb, 
 While only glistened through the gloom 
 The headsman’s ax, that brought swift doom 
 On deeds of bravery. 
 
 Late had that man of awe 
 Spoke — and his word was law : — 
 “ Every free breath they draw 
 Now must be baffled. 
 Take the seditious lot, 
 
 Here in this hour and spot 
 Let all the heads that plot 
 
 Roll on the scaffold. 
 
 “ As for that traitor chief, 
 
 That bloody Solovieff, 
 
 Not to a pang so brief 
 
 Treason has led him ; 
 These are my strict commands : 
 Load him with iron bands, 
 
 Lop off his feet and hands 
 
 Ere you behead him ! ” 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 265 
 
 The wheel of fate, sublimely vast, 
 
 Has come full circle, sure and fast ; 
 
 The myth of right divine is past. 
 
 The right of man rolls up at last 
 And men embrace it. 
 
 How tremble, ye tyrannic school ; 
 
 The rod of iron wherewith ye rule 
 Is potter’s clay. Go drop the tool 
 Down through the black Tartarean pool 
 Where none can trace it ! 
 
 GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 [Giordano Bruno was a Dominican friar in the latter part 
 of the sixteenth century. He was far in advance of his age, 
 both in intellect and moral courage. His discoveries in the 
 natural sciences were considerable ; among other things, he 
 announced his belief that the fixed stars were suns. He was 
 persecuted and imprisoned for heresy, and finally burned at 
 Rome, Feb. 16, 1600. His statue was unveiled in that city 
 in June, 1888, in the presence of 30,000 people, including 
 -students, authors and scientists from every country in 
 Europe.] 
 
 At night Giordano Bruno stands 
 With lifted brow and folded hands, 
 While though his mental vision runs 
 The radiance of a million suns. 
 
 Above his head the skies unroll 
 Their vast illuminated scroll, 
 
 Which fills him with a deeper awe 
 Than all the prophets and the law. 
 
266 
 
 GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 The vesper song is hushed ; he hears 
 The music of the marching spheres ; 
 
 His thoughts have burst tradition’s bars, 
 He drops the heads to count the stars. 
 
 This hour, all Europe’s vacant stare 
 Is sealed in sleep or shut in prayer, 
 
 But Bruno’s penetrating eyes 
 
 Have caught the gleam that never dies. 
 
 From bright infinitude he reads 
 The secret of the atomic seeds — 
 Eternity of star-mist whirled 
 Self-operant to mould a world. 
 
 The universe, without a flaw, 
 
 Moves to its own inherent law ; 
 
 The clod beneath his feet is rife 
 With all the pledge and power of life. 
 
 And though the intellectual sleep 
 With faith for nurse is long and deep. 
 
 His bold words break the central dream — 
 That baseless, vague creative scheme. 
 
 And then through foreign lands to range 
 A friendless exile, and to change 
 The blue dome with its myriad lamps 
 For noisome dens and prison-damps ! 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 267 
 
 How firm Giordano Bruno stands 
 How free, although with fettered hands ! 
 His doom is fixed. The heaven he paints. 
 Outrages all the ruling saints. 
 
 All champions of the sacred cause, 
 
 Ho heathen such as Pilate was ; 
 
 In all that council there is none 
 To ask, What evil hath he done ? 
 
 They only know him too remote 
 From what the holy fathers wrote ; 
 “Damnation to the men who teach 
 Of worlds beyond salvation’s reach ! ” 
 
 The Nubian cave, the Indian fen 
 Are safer than the haunts of men, 
 
 Who make their meek phylacteries broad 
 And judge and punish for their god. 
 
 How calm Giordano Bruno stands, 
 Breast-deep amid the hissing bands ! 
 
 How fiercely, through the stifling reek, 
 Those tongues of fire have leave to speak ! 
 
 Boll sky-ward, crimson-bordered cloud ; 
 Skulk home, hyena-hearted crowd ; 
 Bequeath your sons that deed of shame, 
 And give to dogs that noble name ! 
 
268 
 
 GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 The student’s daring voice is hushed, 
 But lo ! night’s drooping front is flushed 
 With hues that indicate the morn — 
 With pangs whereof the truth is born. 
 
 How proud Giordano Bruno stands 
 Where science leadeth foreign lands, 
 The while her martyr’s fiery robe 
 Sheds purest lustre round the globe ! 
 
 Within the safeguards of her reign, 
 
 The fearless heart, the tireless brain, 
 
 She gathers from those ample fields 
 The golden harvests nature yields. 
 
 Here, where the shameful stake once stood, 
 The brave, the gifted and the good, 
 
 In grateful admiration gaze 
 While art its noblest homage pays. 
 
 With one accord, the nations each 
 Enfranchised both in soul and speech, 
 
 By tongues of fire no longer crossed, 
 Bespeak the better Pentecost. 
 
TO THE SERVIANS. 
 
 269 
 
 TO THE SERVIANS. 
 
 Shall not the sacked city’s loud wailing awaken 
 Some spirit of fire out of lethargy’s gloom ? 
 Has glory your mountains forever forsaken 1 
 You’ll find her at least in the patriot’s tomb. 
 
 Do you feel not, beholding that perishless charter 
 Which guided the souls and the swords of the brave, 
 That death is the triumph of liberty’s martyr, 
 
 And life is the torture of tyranny’s slave ? 
 
 Who raise not the warning hut counsel forbearance, 
 Thus either their tresaon or cowardice show ; 
 
 Be last to rely upon slow interference, 
 
 Be first in the dash at the throat of your foe. 
 
 No longer your councils should listen and tremble ; 
 
 No longer your sabres should blush with their rust ; 
 The standard unfurl — for the conflict assemble, 
 
 Your purpose is sacred and heaven is just ! 
 
270 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 RECANTATORY TO TENNYSON. 
 
 0 thou who early spurned’st the thrall 
 Of many an earthy Asian god, 
 
 Where men were trained to crouch and crawl 
 Obedient to the awful nod. 
 
 All glory to thy puissant arm, 
 
 That drives from every land and shrine 
 The holy sorcerer’s muttered charm, 
 
 The armored lie of right divine. 
 
 0 tender-spirited but pulsed 
 
 Like sovereign nature everywhere, 
 
 At times convulsing and convulsed 
 To purify the grosser air. 
 
 Not lovelier where the iEgean wave 
 Soft rippled to the silvern strand 
 Than where eight months of winter rave 
 Around self-governed Newfoundland ! 
 
 Thine eyes outshine the costly things 
 That spangle long-descended crowns, 
 
 To which a barbarous odor clings 
 
 Of ravaged fields and pillaged towns. 
 
FREEDOM. 
 
 271 
 
 Thy virgin soul that could resist 
 A million mercenary swords 
 ■Can dissipate, like morning mist, 
 
 A far too ancient house of lords. 
 
 The furious fault was never thine 
 When democratic wrath unpent, 
 In blotting some heraldic line, 
 
 Has rashly marred thy just intent. 
 
 But thou dost accurately gauge 
 The bitter sum of blood and tears, 
 
 Hot flooded in one hour of rage 
 
 But filtered through a thousand years. 
 
 And when Harmodius* drew the blade 
 Of vengeance from its leafy sheath, 
 
 Thy touch that sprig of myrtle made 
 More lasting than our laureate’s wreath. 
 
 And thou wert present to direct 
 When, after Brutus bent the knee 
 And raised his voice without effect, 
 
 Stern Casca,f cried, “ Speak, hands, for me ! ” 
 
 * A Greek who slew one of the most powerful tyrants of 
 Athens, whose presence he gained carrying a sword hidden 
 in a wreath of myrtle. 
 
 t Among those who stabbed Caesar, Casca was the first 
 to strike, uttering the words quoted above. 
 
272 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 Say, which has aided most thy reign, 
 
 The solemn council or the crowd ? 
 
 By that the faithless Charles was slain — 
 
 By this the brainless James was cowed.'*' 
 
 All brows are “ furnished ” that unitef 
 Their own from feudal force to wring ; 
 
 Thou grantest none the patent right 
 To legislate or even sing. 
 
 The truest harmony is that 
 
 Which wakening nations hear thee speak : 
 
 A summons to the autocrat, 
 
 An invitation to the weak. 
 
 The rights the famished Chartists claimed. 
 At first forbidden and abhorred, 
 
 But now in firm enactments framed, 
 
 Shall long survive the latest lord. 
 
 For thou, whose footsteps near and far 
 And fast, all human wrongs disclose, 
 
 Shalt turn the tinsel human star 
 
 Back to the darkness whence it rose 
 
 * Charles I and James II of England. The mob was 
 more lenient than the high court of justice. 
 
 t The laureate closes his ode to Freedom with this, 
 compliment to the reformers : 
 
 “Men loud against all forms of power. 
 
 Unfurnished brows, tempestuous tongues, 
 Expecting all things in an hour — 
 
 Brass mouths and iron lungs ! ” 
 
FOLK-SONG. 
 
 273 
 
 FOLK-SONG. 
 
 A voice in the wilderness sings ' 
 
 The spirit of freedom awakes, 
 
 And the peasant stands up before kings 
 Who are playing their very last stakes. 
 
 How firmly his manhood aspires ! 
 
 If his words have a menacing sound, 
 
 ’Tis the down-trodden blood of his sires 
 
 That is crying through him from the ground 1 
 
 The weird shapes of fancy diseased, 
 
 Are quitting that ghastly control. 
 
 Which solemnly did as it pleased 
 
 With its bond-servants — body and soul. 
 
 The hrazen-hrowed legate of wrong, 
 
 His turn has now come to grow pale, 
 
 For the keen shafts of speech and of song 
 Fly straight to the joints of his mail. 
 
 The red star that carnage portends 
 Must soon from the firmament fall,. 
 
 While hope to the zenith ascends 
 To shed its mild beams over all. 
 
 Faith finds a more fitting repose 
 In the human and not the divine, 
 
 While charity lovelier glows 
 
 Where the ashes lie cold on the shrine. 
 
 '18 
 
274 
 
 NEW YEAR’S ODE. 
 
 A halo this world never saw 
 
 Shall yet gild the forehead of time 
 To abolish the barbarous law 
 As well as the barbarous crime. 
 
 NEW YEANS ODE. 
 
 Now glides the angel Hope abreast 
 Of day’s bright courier speeding west 
 Around the earth. 
 
 The stirring message that he brings 
 Through every glittering zone he flings 
 A new year’s birth ! 
 
 Melts to a point within the past 
 The finished circle. On the vast 
 Unsounded deep 
 
 That spreads before, the wand of dawn 
 A segment of the next has drawn 
 With measured sweep. 
 
 Howe’er the mystic round shall fill, 
 May growing good o’er waning ill 
 Throughout prevail. 
 Pandora, close the casket’s lid. 
 
 With open heart and hand we bid 
 The new year hail. 
 
NEW YEAR’S ODE. 
 
 275 
 
 The anthem that the swelling breeze 
 Strikes from the ocean’s thunderous keys 
 Floats forth sublime, 
 
 Saluting countries far apart 
 And rousing many a languid heart 
 To fuller time. 
 
 What aspects strange of storm and calm 
 From crystal peak to crested palm 
 Now open wide, 
 
 Where ebbs and flows, with murmuring surge, 
 Mingling the dance-song with the dirge, 
 
 The human tide ! 
 
 The fragile foam-bells gleam and pass 
 Reflecting in their magic glass 
 
 All transient things— 
 
 The mustering cloud, the crumbling cliff, 
 
 The wandering wave, the fleeting skiff. 
 
 The flitting wings. 
 
 0 mimic worlds in miniature ! 
 
 How brief a season ye endure, 
 
 Or weak or strong ! 
 
 The rushing floods efface and hush 
 The glories of the painted brush, 
 
 The poet’s song. 
 
 Then, is there no perrennial wreath 
 For earnest striving ? Yes, beneath 
 The reign of peace, 
 
 Shall science, freedom, brotherhood, 
 
 The true, the beautiful, the good, 
 
 Live and increase. 
 
276 
 
 NEW YEAR’S ODE. 
 
 At this momentous stage we pause 
 To greet the light that never was 
 On land or sea. 
 
 The future thrills us with a voice 
 To which we listen and rejoice — 
 
 It soon shall be. 
 
 Not vainly stood the sage to mark 
 What signals should illume the dark 
 From midnight towers. 
 
 What though he saw no daybeams rise, 
 
 The steady starlight of his eyes 
 Has beaconed ours. 
 
 Nor will we rest till craven fear 
 Be banished from the gladdened sphere — 
 Till nature work 
 
 Her loveliest patterns on that sense 
 Which long was dimmed by shadows dense 
 Where demons lurk. 
 
 Oh that the budding days might fill 
 With good alone; no blighting chill, 
 
 No serpent’s trail 
 In any bower or bosom hid ! — 
 
 With hope and faith renewed, we bid 
 The new year hail. 
 
TO A KINDLY CATECHIST. 
 
 277 
 
 TO A KINDLY CATECHIST. 
 
 I fully and firmly believe that you write 
 In the spirit of Christian kindness, 
 
 But one who is walking by faith, not sight, 
 Should scarcely accuse me of blindness. 
 
 I can still stand erect without feeling the need 
 Of the trammels my mind has broke loose from ; 
 And if ever I long for a genuine creed, 
 
 There are ninety-nine thousand to choose from. 
 
 I believe that a man who makes mammon his friend 
 Is sure of a good situation. 
 
 Though he fail fifty times, he turns up, in the end, 
 Inside of a fine habitation. 
 
 I believe if the faithful keep kicking my shins, 
 I must pardon them seventy times seven ; 
 
 If not, I might suddenly die in my sins 
 
 And not meet the dear brethren in heaven ! 
 
 I believe in the family circle — in wife 
 
 And child- —I believe we should rate them 
 Above all the treasures we own in this life ; 
 I believe it is wicked to hate them. 
 
278 
 
 TO A KINDLY CATECHIST. 
 
 So then, I possess a most positive creed 
 One nicely adapted for giving 
 Some part of the godly contentment I need 
 When rancor denies me a living. 
 
 An d, not being a Turk, I can bear near the throne 
 As many as prove themselves brothers ; 
 
 But I have too much conscience just now of my own 
 To be ruled by the conscience of others. 
 
 Not far can the voice of my heresy reach, 
 Hemmed in like the hero Gordon, 
 
 On the west by the billows of Pubnico beach — 
 On the east by the swellings of Jordan. 
 
 While others, warmed up by the orthodox fires, 
 And by hatred’s sharp winter unbitten, 
 
 Possess the whole land, from the Island of Briars 
 To our Ultima Thule — Cape Breton. 
 
 You say that my doctrine with men might prevail 
 Had it future rewards to beguile ’em. 
 
 Dear soul, I am striving to pull down a jail, 
 
 And not to erect an asylum ! 
 
TO HON. Vf. S. FIELDING, 
 
 279 
 
 TO BON. W. S. FIELDING. 
 
 PREMIER OF NOVA SCOTIA. 
 
 Fielding, a grateful land has viewed 
 A chief with patriot zeal imbued 
 Place public good o’er party feud, 
 
 Till head and shoulders, 
 
 He towers above the multitude 
 Of office-holders. 
 
 Not with the politician’s tact 
 Of specious word and spurious act, 
 
 But with fidelity and fact 
 Uniting all, 
 
 The honest leader builds compact 
 The Spartan wall. 
 
 When rights that chartered states endow 
 Are used to deck some barren brow, 
 
 There falls the mantle of a Howe, 
 
 Who fought to gain them, 
 
 On one who not less nobly now 
 
 Dares to maintain them. 
 
 Our country needs such men to save 
 Her honor from an early grave, 
 
 Her substance from some grasping knave — 
 Some Jacob dressing 
 In pilfered furs’ 1 ', that he may crave 
 Her blindfold blessing. 
 
 * The allusion here is not to Bremner’s furs, but to the 
 kidskins by means of which the purblind patriarch was 
 shamefully deceived. — See Genesis xxvii, 16-22. 
 
280 
 
 TO OLIVL SHREINER, CAPETOWN, AFRICA. 
 
 Yours be the mission to impeach 
 And interdict the clinging leach. 
 
 Though sight and touch should fail to teach 
 What he has cost her, 
 
 She’ll know the difference in the speech 
 And spurn the impostor. 
 
 TO OLIVE SCHREINER , CAPETOWN, AFRICA . 
 
 AUTHOR OF “THE STORY OF AN AFRICAN FARM. 
 
 Cape Sable joins hands with the Cape of Hope, 
 Though ocean, desert and the torrid line 
 All interpose ; they shall no more confine 
 Eternal thought, free-winged for boundless scope. 
 
 But first, like Waldo, it must cry and grope. 
 
 That period is past w r ith yours and mine ; 
 
 For they have found, before their day’s decline, 
 The white plume wafted from the azure cope. 
 
 But there was darkness over all our land ; 
 
 We felt the triple agony that rent 
 The inner sanctuary’s veil in twain : 
 
 The world still rolls in dim and dizzy pain — 
 
 Make then yon kopje* and this ridge of sand 
 An Olivet for each dark continent. 
 
 * Kopje, a little hill, a name used on the Karroo, in South 
 Africa. 
 
TO A FRIEND. 
 
 281 
 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 •ON HIS REQUEST THAT I SHOULD WRITE A SATIRE. 
 
 No, though the manners of our time 
 Fester for lack of caustic rhyme — 
 
 That old heroic operation 
 
 Which often saved a gangrened nation, 
 
 Even when the torpor overcame 
 
 All but a lingering sense of shame — 
 
 I have no numbers at command 
 To stay corruption’s master-hand. 
 
 My youthful zeal begins to tire. 
 
 Alas ! the former Magian fire 
 Of wrath and love, of scorn and pride 
 Has into dust and ashes died ! 
 
 7 Twould take, indeed, a giant wrong 
 To challenge one satiric song. 
 
 Eet factious pens distil their gall, 
 
 Let slanderer blah and bigot bawl, 
 
 Let dire anathemas be hurled 
 In some poor hierarch’s pigmy world, — 
 Beyond the curtain and the pall 
 I’ve seen the nothingness of all ! 
 Though conscious of the fact, alas ! 
 
 That vice pervades the general mass, 
 That theft pervails in every rank 
 And honesty alone is lank, 
 
282 
 
 THE NEW DRAMA. 
 
 I view with quite indifferent gaze 
 The acts and scenes of all their plays 
 Tragic or comic, which, when through, 
 The gods forgive — Fra sure I do ! 
 
 My vanity it would not please, 
 
 Though I, encased in affluent ease, 
 Should reign as goodly and as great 
 Among the thriving third estate 
 As Ward McAllister, who rules 
 The upper world of Gotham fools ! 
 
 THE NEW DRAMA. 
 
 The stage that we tread is not doomed to destruction 
 If tyrants and terrors are rendered less strong. 
 
 All progress has been but the steady reduction 
 Of sanctified fraud and of legalised wrong. 
 
 Ring down on the drama of priests and apostles 
 That had such a run on antiquity’s stage. 
 
 jn the daylight of rea'son they shine but as fossils 
 Set fast in the petrified soul of their age ! 
 
 Ring down on the third act of wealth and of labor, 
 
 A tragedy mixed with a heavy burlesque, 
 
 Where a man so complacently sits on his neighbor 
 In seating himself at a millionaire’s desk. 
 
 The footlights are glowing ; then ring up the curtain : 
 The orchestra brays not with trumpet or drum. 
 
 The actors are born to their parts, and are certain 
 Of brilliant successes for ages to come ! 
 
AD POPULUM, 
 
 283 
 
 AD POPULUM. 
 
 Heu pietas, heu prisca fidea ! 
 
 This age has cast behind its back 
 The gibbet, thumbscrew, stake and rack. 
 We worship now the well-paid hack 
 And not the martyr. 
 
 Still, some important things we lack 
 To freedom’s charter. 
 
 The masses must in freedom dwell; 
 
 Let them he free to buy and sell, 
 
 To send a deputy to tell 
 
 Their wishes out, 
 
 And send the other man to — well, 
 
 The right about ! 
 
 The legislature must desist 
 From pampering the monopolist, 
 
 That government may get more grist 
 Brought to its mill, 
 
 And plunge its own nefarious fist 
 Deep in the till. 
 
 Let no one lull your wits to sleep 
 Or tempt you with the glittering heap ; 
 For oh ! he buys your manhood cheap 
 Although he offers 
 All that a spendthrift land can keep 
 Within its coffers ! 
 
284 
 
 STANZAS TO MARY. 
 
 When factions for their favorites fight, 
 While honor’s cause is lost from sight, 
 While round you storms of party spite 
 Rave, roar and hiss, 
 
 Then fling your banners to the light 
 Inscribed like this : 
 
 King, congress, council, cabinet 
 Are for the people’s welfare set. 
 
 Their tenure is the trust you let, 
 
 And not their dower ; 
 
 Then, never let those men forget 
 You are the power. 
 
 STANZAS TO MARY. 
 
 Air.— E insam bin ich, nicht alleine. 
 
 I am not alone, though lonely, 
 
 For there rises on my view 
 Thy dear form, the first and only 
 Treasure that my life e’er knew. 
 
 When upon the past I ponder, 
 When I think on days to be, 
 Fated far from thee to wander, 
 
 Still my heart abides with thee. 
 
 Cruel time my hopes has shaken 
 Like the autumn leaves that fall, 
 But the spring-time joys awaken 
 When thy kindness I recall. 
 
THE MINSTREL^ GOOD NIGHT. 
 
 Though no more the notes of gladness 
 Speak the lover’s heavenly flame, 
 
 Yet I hush the voice of sadness 
 With the music of thy name. 
 
 Every load of care I lighten, 
 
 Every grief I can beguile, 
 
 Every shadow I can brighten 
 With the mem’ry of thy smile. 
 
 Beaming through the darkened distance, 
 Like the orb that lights the pole, 
 
 Still the lode-star of existence 
 
 Cheers and guides my erring soul. 
 
 THE MINSTBEL’S GOOD NIGHT. 
 
 Ich singe wie der Vogel singt 
 
 Der in den Zweigen wohnet, — Goethe . 
 
 Good night to all. The shadows o’er the lea 
 
 Are stretched like fallen turrets, gray and long ; 
 A lambent gleam still trembles on the sea 
 That haunts me with an overpowering song 
 Deeper than music of the gay-plumed throng, 
 
 To which I listened by the morning’s gate 
 
 And tried to give response. If that was wrong, 
 Here only for your pardon do I wait 
 Ere I retire alone, hut not all desolate. 
 
 Affection for my country and my kind, 
 
 Unnoticed though it be, encheers me still ; 
 
 And I have striven with an eager mind 
 The promise of my childhood to fulfil. 
 
286 
 
 THE MINSTREL’S GOOD NIGHT. 
 
 But as steep rocks may turn aside the rill 
 And waste its virtue in the arid sand, 
 
 So sternest hindrances beset my will, 
 
 And most it grieves me that my native land 
 
 Reaps nothing from my thought, and little by my hand. 
 
 To sing her praises was the wish I nursed, 
 
 The highest boon, I deemed, that man could ask, 
 While fancy with the future age conversed, 
 
 And heard its voice enjoin the glorious task. 
 
 How little cared I then who sought to bask 
 In fortune’s sunshine, rusting at his ease, 
 
 Or who put on dissimulation’s mask 
 That trivial power he might the better seize ; — 
 
 Thank God, I have no place among such men as these ! 
 
 ’Twas well that, in a lot so lowly cast, 
 
 The native impulse was too strong and warm, 
 
 To be out-voiced by every savage blast, 
 
 Or deadened into coldness by the storm, 
 
 Or warped by tyrant custom to conform 
 To modes that set their deep-indented stamp 
 On everything pertaining to the swarm, 
 
 And all the nobler powers so straitly cramp 
 
 That palsied reason scarce can trim her flickering lamp. 
 
 JSTor could the unquiet mind forever keep 
 Within their narrow intellectual girth, 
 
 Whose tricks might sometimes make the angels weep, 
 And sometimes move a Benedictine’s mirth ! 
 
 A wider heritage was mine by birth : 
 
THE MINSTREL’S GOOD NIGHT. 
 
 287 
 
 I proudly call the English tongue my own, 
 
 And even to this noteless spot of earth, 
 
 Like richly-freighted ships from every zone, 
 
 It brings the rarest gems the world has ever known. 
 
 And sweet is the reward of moments spent 
 In meditating rural loves and joys ; 
 
 For this, the courtly Roman was content 
 
 To string his polished lyre for girls and boys. 
 
 To one who thus his guileless thought employs 
 -Are shown the treasures of the richest theme ; 
 
 If graven images and gilded toys 
 Are things he cannot worship or esteem, 
 
 His love is not confined to creatures of a dream ! 
 
 This harp, to every various feeling true, 
 
 Has often in some lone, obscure retreat, 
 
 Reen wet with tears, but tears are heavenly dew, 
 Benignant showers for ardent bosoms meet ; 
 
 Else would the young affections, opening sweet, 
 With dust of daily life become impure ; 
 
 Or passion’s rays would kiss them into heat, 
 
 Then, like unsheltered flowers, they would be sure 
 To wither ere their prime, to die and not mature. 
 
 All earth is tuneful, when the infant leaves 
 First whisper to the idle breeze’s play, 
 
 Yet scarce less joyous when her lap receives 
 The golden tribute of an autumn day. 
 
 The highest instinct that our lives obey 
 Points forward — never to a darkened close ; 
 
 Hor would it help us on the destined way, 
 
 If, in the soft allurement of repose 
 
 The desert that we tread should blossom like the rose. 
 
288 
 
 THE MINSTREL’S GOOD NIGHT. 
 
 Henceforward I must linger not nor pause, 
 
 As I have done amid the dubious waste, 
 
 In futile questioning of all that was, 
 
 Or is, or shall be ; nor with too much haste 
 Explore what little yet remains untraced, 
 
 Which would avail me nothing to foreknow. 
 
 Enough for me, at intervals, to taste 
 The hidden springs, and own its quickening flow 
 Replenished from the cloud that seemed surcharged 
 with woe. 
 
 Thus in no dreary mood I bid good night. 
 
 A liberal patroness has nature been 
 In furnishing, if only for delight, 
 
 The sources whence some scanty truths I glean ; 
 
 Hot in the halls where learned men convene. 
 
 But by the wave and in the cloistered wood, 
 
 Where, muffled in their cloaks of sombre green. 
 
 Are ranked the aged trees — the brotherhood 
 On whom the Holiest looked and saw that it was good.. 
 
 I still the chords, and on the Acadian birch 
 Suspend my harp. Perchance the airy note 
 Of some kind cherub on his earthly search 
 Shall make diviner spell around it float ; 
 
 If this should be, the day is not remote 
 When I shall take it from its silent rest 
 
 And all its powers with steadier touch devote 
 To the prime motive of the patriot’s breast 
 And its achievements high, by which the race is blest..