LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
THORNS AND FLOWERS 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS BELROSE, Jr., 
 
 "Mon verre rt est pas grand, viais je bois dans mon verve:' 
 
 Alfred de Musset. 
 
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 •No. 3S S L 
 >t> 1879. .<* 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 1879. 
 
 l > 
 
Copyright, 1879, by LOUIS BELROSE, Jr. 
 
I wandered where the spring had decked a glade 
 With blossoms native to the forest wild ; 
 And clambered where the mossy rocks were piled, 
 
 To breathe the perfume and enjoy the shade. 
 
 Then plucking random bud and brier/ made 
 This simple wreath, admiring like a child ; 
 But now, as if my fingers had defiled, 
 
 The leaves all wither, and the colors fade. 
 
 If worth acceptance, take it, and the vale 
 
 Shall furnish what the warmer days have born ; 
 But if, unskilled to please, endeavor fail, 
 
 Let pity mingle with deserved scorn, 
 For though the flowers that I touch grow pale, 
 My blood has tipped the point of every thorn. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Sonnet 3 
 
 The Tale of an Ancient Mariner 1 1 
 
 j." he Talking Oak 38 
 
 The Leaf and the Kiss 61 
 
 To those by whose Influence the Motto, " In God We Trust," 
 
 was put upon the Coins of the United States. 65 
 
 A Centennial Prayer, 1876 70 
 
 A Drinking Song 73 
 
 Light and Gladness 75 
 
 Song 77 
 
 Must I Choose ? 78 
 
 April Sun 80 
 
 April Showers 81 
 
 A Prescription 82 
 
 Nirvana 8^ 
 
 5 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 To a Fair Advocate of Woman's Rights S5 
 
 To Harriet 86 
 
 " O Nations ! " 87 
 
 Solitude 88 
 
 The True Divinity 89 
 
 After Reading the Motto, " In God "We Trust," upon a Coin 90 
 
 To Mr. E. Littre 91 
 
 Sympathy 92 
 
 Poor France 93 
 
 The same continued 94 
 
 " How to be envied is the lot of those " 95 
 
 "Ilonnetir et Patrie. " 96 
 
 The same continued 97 
 
 " When love was only love " 98 
 
 The " Virginius " Affair 99 
 
 Toast to the New Year 100 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 7 
 
 Introduction to a Poem ioi 
 
 " Full often when my way is long " 102 
 
 To my Little Neighbor 103 
 
 Over Head and Ears 104 
 
 The Language of Flowers 105 
 
 False Suspicion 106 
 
 "Souvenir du ier Mars, 181 5 " 107 
 
 The same continued 108 
 
 In the Forest of Compiegne 109 
 
 To President Grant on Reading the Dispatch Concerning his 
 
 Secretary of War no 
 
 Early Spring in 
 
 Upon the Proposition of Amnesty for the French Communists 112 
 
 After Dinner 113 
 
 Another Term 114 
 
 " Sad is the flower " 115 
 
 Rouge et Noir 116 
 
 " Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream " 117 
 
 August 15th, 1875 1 J 3 
 
 The same continued 119 
 
 A Broken Promise 120 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 To Sitting Bull 121 
 
 Acrostic 122 
 
 " Nay, judge me not " 123 
 
 La Fornarina 1 24 
 
 Peace 125 
 
 My Lady's Hair 126 
 
 My Lady's Mole 127 
 
 My Lady's Nose 1 28 
 
 My Lady's Ear 129 
 
 My Lady's Feet 130 
 
 " I'd gathered in my lady's bonnet " 131 
 
 My Lady's Mouth 132 
 
 Love-Longing 133 
 
 " While yet a child " 134 
 
 Ambition 135 
 
 Byron 136 
 
 Cervantes 137 
 
 r Ordre Moral 138 
 
 The Marshal's Manifesto 140 
 
 The Marshal's Rubicon 141 
 
 Another " Offence " 142 
 
CONTENTS. g 
 
 MacMahon Soliloquizes 144 
 
 The Marshal's Second Capitulation 145 
 
 The Marshal's " Ministry of Affairs " 146 
 
 Imperialists 14S 
 
 Orleanists 149 
 
 Legitimists 150 
 
 Clericals 151 
 
 The Sacred Heart 152 
 
 Sister Simplice 153 
 
 On the Death of Pious IX 1 54 
 
 On the Republican Gains in the Elections of March 3, 1878, 
 
 France 155 
 
 " I would to heaven I'd been born a priest " 156 
 
 " I loved a dame " 157 
 
 A V Opera , 158 
 
 The Man in the Moon 159 
 
 Backgrounds 160 
 
 A Sketch 161 
 
 A Swiss Scene 1 62 
 
 " Thou oft hast told me" 163 
 
 "La blessure guerit, mais la marque rested 164 
 
IO CONTENTS. 
 
 " Their faith may be groundless " 165 
 
 A Future Life 166 
 
 " The sweetest visions haunt me ever " 167 
 
 My Philosophy 168 
 
 Emancipation 1 69 
 
 ioo° in the Shade 170 
 
 Midsummer 171 
 
 A Parable 172 
 
 To J. R. Lowell 173 
 
 On Reading a Sonnet by Longfellow 174 
 
 The Writing of the Iliad 176 
 
 A "Waterscape" 177 
 
 Spiritism 178 
 
 " Well, well, I've lost my heart again to-day ! " 179 
 
THE TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 THIS tale was writ by one who now is dead — 
 
 A sailer in the ships upon the sea. 
 
 Poor soul ! a tempest drove him on a lee- 
 Shore, and upon his flesh the dog-fish fed. 
 
 When Atropos's scissors cut his thread 
 And cable both at once, there came to me 
 This yarn, which shows what spinning there must be 
 
 When woman turns the heart, and rhyme the head. 
 
 Poor fellow ! we were chums for years at school, 
 And though his wit was hardly then first-rate, 
 Nobody ever thought he'd make a fool. 
 
 But love soon worked him into such a state 
 
 That I was forced to let our friendship cool. 
 
 How sad to die so young and yet too late ! 
 
 ii 
 
12 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 When I was young and life was dear 
 
 I sailed about the sea, 
 And there amid the boisterous waves 
 
 Found sweet tranquillity. 
 
 For woman — bless her — by the rule, 
 
 Was left upon the shore ; 
 It isn't well that she should dwell 
 
 Aboard a man-o'-war; 
 
 And so when once the sail was set 
 
 We bade good-bye to care, 
 Like men who knew no Delilah 
 
 Could catch us by the hair. 
 
 Or if, on leave, by some mishap 
 
 We lost a lock or two, 
 We'd go aboard, increase our hoard, 
 
 And wait until it grew. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 1 3 
 
 But man in single-blessedness 
 
 Is never quite secure, 
 And this could not be always thus, 
 
 Nor even long endure ; 
 
 For he who stands the middle watch 
 
 And gazes on the skies, 
 Must either turn his thoughts to love, 
 
 Or else philosophize. 
 
 And I did both. When Venus shone, 
 
 Before the break of day, 
 I wished that I could take a stroll 
 
 Along the milky way. 
 
 Or, when Diana led the chase, 
 
 Methought if I were Mars, 
 The men that make the almanac 
 
 Might count on other stars. 
 
1 4 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 Then sometimes, anchored in a fog, 
 When things grew awful dull, 
 
 I'd dream of metaphysics and 
 The incognoscible. 
 
 Philosophy ! Philosophy ! 
 
 But in the torrid zone 
 How cope with the "unknowable," 
 
 Or even the unknown ? 
 
 Alas ! alas ! all flesh is grass ; 
 
 And grass is hay when dry, 
 Which maketh us combustible 
 
 Beneath a tropic sky. 
 
 And it grew very warm that cruise — • 
 
 'Twas in the Caribbees ; 
 I haven't felt it so much since 
 
 By several degrees. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 1 5 
 
 And this it was revealed the truth 
 
 (Which I'm discoverer of) 
 That heat, a mode of motion, 
 
 Is yet a mode of love. 
 
 O strange correlativity ! 
 
 Transmigratory one ! 
 I'll write an ode on that some day, 
 
 And call it, "To the Sun." 
 
 " Father of life and light," I'll say, 
 
 Or words to that effect, 
 " How wonderous, how glorious 
 
 Art thou ! though somewhat specked. 
 
 " My feeble fancy fain would climb 
 Thy genealogic tree, 
 And trace through space till time efface 
 Thy hazy pedigree : 
 
1 6 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 " Would travel to the utmost verge 
 Of ancestorial mist, 
 To watch the waking of the force 
 That gave the primal twist ; 
 
 " Then mark the metamorphoses, 
 Through varied pull and shove, 
 From planetary genesis 
 To protoplasmic love ; 
 
 "And onward to the tender thrill 
 That agitates my breast 
 When beauty — ' ' but, by Jove, enough ! 
 I fear that I've digressed. 
 
 Where was I ? Oh ! — the Caribbees- 
 
 Yes, it grew very warm, 
 And certain signs were manifest 
 
 Which indicate a storm. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 1 7 
 
 The storm it burst and did its worst ; 
 
 It blew and blew and blew, 
 Until I swore I'd go ashore 
 
 And evermore lie to. 
 
 Now seamen young and seamen old, 
 
 Before it be too late, 
 Upon the danger of my course 
 
 'Twere well to meditate. 
 
 The dread of things we know not of 
 
 Should make us rather stand 
 A sea of troubles on the sea 
 
 Than fly to worse on land ; 
 
 For love's a flame and flesh is hay, 
 
 As proven here above, 
 Which doth explain exceeding plain 
 
 We shouldn't play with love. 
 
1 8 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 So when your blood begins to boil 
 
 And fizz beyond control, 
 Do what I should have done myself — 
 
 Get orders to the Pole. 
 
 Of course, amid the bears and ice 
 
 It may be hard to dwell, 
 But better far turn Esquimaux 
 
 Than roast outright in — well, 
 
 Confound the word ! it always comes 
 When this theme's treated of; 
 
 So many endings rhyme with hell, 
 So very few with love. 
 
 And here connected with my tale 
 
 It may not seem amiss, 
 If I respectfully submit 
 
 A short parenthesis : 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 19 
 
 Beside the stormy Chesapeake, 
 
 On placid Severn's shore, 
 There lies an antiquated town, 
 
 Not far from Baltimore. 
 
 And in this town of old renown 
 
 A vast academy, 
 Where youth may learn all things in turn 
 
 Pertaining to the sea. 
 
 May learn the rules which regulate 
 
 Our courses by the sun's, 
 And teach the young idea to shoot 
 
 Both great and little guns. 
 
 May learn to make and shorten sail, 
 
 To tack and eke to wear, 
 And work the fleets that may be built 
 
 When cash is not so rare. 
 
20 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 With many more accomplishments 
 
 Which their estate beseem ; 
 To fire torpedoes apropos 
 
 And navigate with steam. 
 
 But though to fit them for the sea 
 This course is wisely planned, 
 
 There's nothing in the whole four years 
 To fit them for the land. 
 
 And such remarkable neglect 
 Has grieved me all the more, 
 
 As seamen oftenest, like ships, 
 Are lost upon the shore. 
 
 For man may brave Poseidon's wrath 
 And flout the darts of Mars, 
 
 But when the sea-born goddess strikes, 
 Egad, look out for scars ! 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 21 
 
 What courage so invincible ? 
 
 What fortitude so mighty ? 
 What heart so steeled but it must yield 
 
 To Venus Aphrodite ? 
 
 Now since they're taught in self-defence 
 
 To use the sword and glove, 
 Why not continue one step more 
 
 And teach them how to love ? 
 
 Should time prevent, the Board might lay 
 
 The chaplain on the shelf; 
 And if no better can be found, 
 
 I'll take the place myself. 
 
 In fact, though modesty forbids 
 
 Allusion to my worth, 
 It may be I'm the very man 
 
 To occupy that berth ; 
 
2 2 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 For I've employed in deep research 
 
 A dozen years of toil, 
 And made a most remarkable 
 
 Expense of midnight oil. 
 
 By which I've learnt, with careful use 
 
 Of methods quite my own, 
 That, as to laws of motion, love 
 
 Resembles the cyclone. 
 
 A storm that's only dangerous 
 
 When navigators fail 
 To see by shifting of the wind 
 
 Which way they ought to sail ; 
 
 And which, to those who understand, 
 
 Becomes an aiding force, 
 That often serves to fill their sails 
 
 And help them on their course. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 2, 
 
 So rules in case of storms at sea, 
 
 Mutatis mutandis, 
 Cover the peril greater still 
 
 That met with on the land is. 
 
 Therefore, if what I now propose 
 
 Should gain due approbation, 
 I hope to pay with interest 
 
 The debt I owe the nation. 
 
 I'll teach the art of lying-to 
 
 Upon the proper tack, 
 Whereby one obviates the risk 
 
 Of being ta'en aback ; 
 
 As also, if the storm approach, 
 
 How near it's safe to stay, 
 And when to stand and ride it out, 
 
 And when to run away. 
 
24 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 With every delicate device 
 
 That seamen need employ 
 To 'scape the gyves of would-be wives — 
 
 Sweet partners of our joy ! 
 
 But, as regards my narrative, 
 
 I'm painfully aware 
 That simple technicalities 
 
 Are neither here nor there. 
 
 So now, to hasten on our way, 
 
 We'll just select a few 
 Of those in turn who made me burn, 
 
 And pass them in review. 
 
 The first, that is to say, of course, 
 
 The first in this connection, 
 For ere my legs wore pantaloons 
 
 My heart was in subjection, 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 2$ 
 
 The first was young — was very young, 
 
 But ripe beyond her years ; 
 With all the woman's wealth of bloom 
 
 Without the woman's fears ; 
 
 With every grace of form and face 
 Enhanced by passion's yearning, 
 
 Yet all the sweet unconsciousness 
 That burns nor knows the burning. 
 
 Taller than most ; of that proud growth 
 
 Of solid flesh that's seen 
 Where Tiber turns between the hills — 
 
 A pure Trasteverine. 
 
 The blue-black hair that seemed to cast 
 
 A shadow on her liquid eyes 
 Fell straight, without a wave, beyond 
 
 The large voluptuous thighs ; 
 
26 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 Fell heavily and smooth, and damp 
 And cold upon the velvet skin, 
 
 Whose dusky pallor hid the glow 
 Of rich, warm blood within. 
 
 Hid it except where on the cheek 
 
 It flushed the pale disguise, 
 And where the lips in virgin bloom 
 
 Were ripe for sacrifice : 
 
 Were ripe, but guarded by an arm 
 
 That I shall ne'er forget J 
 Jesu, what muscle ! 'Pon my soul, 
 
 My ears are ringing yet. 
 
 Her features, charming when she smiled, 
 
 At rest resembled those 
 That tell us of the Roman dames 
 
 On ancient cameos. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 2 J 
 
 And soon there came a sweet reserve 
 
 At times, that would suggest 
 The gravity of strong desire 
 
 By stronger will repressed. 
 
 Her motion was a gallant ship's 
 
 That helm and sail obeys : 
 The bosom that she proudly bore 
 
 Had never hung in stays : 
 
 A bosom fit for any god 
 
 To rest his head upon ; 
 But now, alas ! — ah, who can tell 
 
 What those six babes have done ? 
 
 Finis. — The next was gentle, blonde, 
 
 Calm, continent and meek, 
 Nay, chaster than an eight-day clock ; 
 
 I loved her for a week. 
 
28 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 And might be loving still perhaps, 
 
 Had not another fellow 
 Stepped in and run away with her 
 
 Before my plan was mellow. 
 
 And thus abruptly terminates 
 
 Adventure number two — 
 But really I've enough of this; 
 
 Kind reader, haven't you? 
 
 Don Juan, as the story goes, 
 
 Booked over ninety score ; 
 Which must have been, beside the sin, 
 
 A most infernal bore. 
 
 And then I ne'er got far enough 
 
 To make it interesting : 
 Virtuous, simple, poor and plain — 
 
 It's not worth while protesting. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 29 
 
 O youthful innocents, before 
 . You love be sure you're rich ; 
 An empty purse, except in verse, 
 Wins neither dame nor . 
 
 For beauty's well, and wit is well, 
 And courage sometimes counts, 
 
 But all combined must fall behind 
 Your cash in large amounts. 
 
 Ah, let me leave this saddening theme 
 
 For one that brings relief, 
 Lest "saddening doubly" by its length, 
 
 My tale be brought to grief. 
 
 Ah, let me turn from charms that smite, 
 
 To dam my weeping eyes, 
 And tell of her whose love is peace — 
 
 Whose worship makes me wise. 
 
;o TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 Long, long ago, while yet a boy, 
 There passed among my dreams 
 
 A vision, hardly seen at first 
 Except in fitful gleams ; 
 
 But which as time went slowly on 
 
 Became, or seemed to be, 
 The figure of a woman veiled, 
 
 And bright ineffably ; 
 
 Till like a star that glows at eve 
 When veiling beams depart, 
 
 The gradual beauty of her face 
 Came forth and filled my heart ; 
 
 Filled all my being with the warmth 
 
 Of uncontrolled desire, 
 Lighting my spirit as a flame, 
 
 And chastening as a fire. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 31 
 
 No longer seen but in my dreams, 
 
 A phantom of the night, 
 That only lingered till the dawn 
 
 To fade before the light, 
 
 But ever present drawing me 
 
 Away from meaner things, 
 To follow it through all the world 
 
 In all its wanderings. 
 
 Brighter the vision seemed to me 
 
 Than aught on earth beside, 
 More worthy of a man's desire 
 
 Than any mortal bride. 
 
 No longer did I waste my love 
 
 On every passing maid ; 
 'Twas hers — all hers, and when she smiled 
 
 I felt it all repaid : 
 
32 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 A smile, a hope that led me on 
 
 Over the land and sea ; 
 A promise for the years to keep ; 
 
 A guide incessantly. 
 
 And often as we went she'd change, 
 
 Be distant, dark, or clear 
 And brighter, than she'd been before, 
 
 As if the time drew near 
 
 When I should, clasping her my own, 
 
 At once fulfil the quest, 
 And gain for constancy reward 
 
 Of peace and joy and rest. 
 
 Around the Mother Isle we roamed, 
 
 The dear old Motherland, 
 Where oft she came so near I 'most 
 
 Might touch her with my hand ; 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 33 
 
 But then the wind would westward blow 
 
 Over the dismal sea, 
 And bring with soft, enchanting clouds 
 
 A veil of mystery. 
 
 And on I went throughout the weird 
 
 Fair lands beyond the Rhine, 
 Where tints from many a golden tress 
 
 Lurk in the golden wine ; 
 
 But ever drew my love away, 
 
 And in her distant eyes 
 Appeared, through rifts of gathering mist, 
 
 The light of other skies. 
 
 Little the heart that lives apart 
 
 Within a state's confine ; 
 Little the wit that's cut to fit 
 
 A nation's border line : 
 
34 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 But yet must sympathy prevail : 
 
 Long live my Fatherland ! 
 France ! May her foes forever fall ; 
 
 Her friends forever stand ! 
 
 Then came I, westward journeying, 
 
 Unto the banks of Seine, 
 Where meet the waves of Burgundy 
 
 And waters of Champagne : * 
 
 When lo, my guide took leave of me, 
 
 And smiled an ait revoir 
 So sweet that I was full of joy,. 
 
 Knowing the time not far. 
 
 How lightly beats the careless heart 
 
 That all along was sad ! 
 None but the sons of sorrow know 
 
 The joy of being glad. 
 
 * The map and context would indicate Charenton, but the 
 author probably meant Paris. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 35 
 
 And lightly went my steps, for now 
 
 In many an open door 
 I met the long-familiar friends 
 
 Seen but in dreams before. 
 
 Streets where I'd often in my sleep 
 
 Passed with uncertain tread 
 Were thronged with living multitudes 
 
 For noon-lit miles ahead \ 
 
 And right and left the by-ways ran 
 Through all the country round, 
 
 So vast I rubbed my eyes and then 
 Stamped on the solid ground. 
 
 'Twas real ! Up and down I went 
 
 Through every part, and came 
 Back to the place I'd started from 
 
 At early dawn, the same 
 
36 TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 In which the vision last had smiled, 
 
 And where I'd lost a shade 
 I found in lovely flesh and blood 
 
 A breathing, smiling maid. 
 
 Like, but how much more beautiful ! 
 
 Her presence seemed to be 
 Surrounded by an atmosphere 
 
 Of perfect sympathy : 
 
 Without a fault, without a line 
 
 To fairly question of, 
 Yet all her gracious features still 
 
 But handmaids to her love. 
 
 I never had the gift of gab, 
 
 And so my words were few ; 
 In fact, to tell the honest truth, 
 
 I'd rather bill than coo. 
 
TALE OF AN ANCIENT MARINER. 37 
 
 But mindful of my long attent, 
 
 She promptly named the day ; 
 And good old father Littre 'twas 
 
 Who gave the bride away. 
 
 O cullers of eclectic sweets, 
 
 Ye know not, never can, 
 The peaceful joys that recompense 
 
 A fitly-married man : 
 
 Then when the withered heart hath ceased 
 
 Preliminary aching, 
 And wedded union sanctifies 
 
 Prosaic baby-making. 
 
 But here my tale must have an end, 
 
 Like others, false or true, 
 With all the getting ready done, 
 
 And all the work to do. 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 LIFE'S varied seasons fraught with pain 
 
 Have each its own peculiar joy ; 
 
 This cheers the babe, and that the boy ; 
 'Tis love, ambition, ease or gain : 
 But though the greatest oft attain 
 
 An ecstasy beyond defining, 
 None come so early nor remain 
 
 So long as that of dining. 
 
 And though the nations each advance 
 A claim for some unequalled dish, 
 Some excellence of game or fish, 
 
 That prejudice will oft enhance, 
 
 When once you're weaned (before, perchance, 
 But that's a question might embarrass), 
 
 There's no place in the world like France, 
 And none in France like Paris. 
 
THE TALKING OAK 39 
 
 Here cooks are born, here cooks aspire 
 Through mystic art, pre-Raphaelite, 
 With almost nothing, if not quite, 
 
 To calm the hungry soul's desire. 
 
 When heated on that sacred fire, 
 The pride of their vocation, 
 
 The merest grill becomes a lyre 
 Aglow with inspiration. 
 
 And then the waiters' looks reveal 
 
 A sympathy with him that feeds ; 
 
 An instinct that divines the needs, 
 Which if you don't you ought to feel. 
 No vulgar bustle, but a zeal 
 
 So mixed with tact you scarce observe it ; 
 For me I own that half the meal 
 
 Is in the way they serve it. 
 
40 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 What wonder if, when tinged with blues 
 By actual or fancied ill, — 
 A falling rent, impending bill, 
 
 Unfaithful dame or distant muse, 
 
 I leave my cheerless rooms and choose 
 Some house of ancient reputation, 
 
 Where solid comfort gently woos 
 To liquid consolation ? 
 
 If there I stow myself away 
 In some snug corner all alone, 
 And straight to willing ears make known 
 
 An inward need of holiday ; 
 
 Then call the trusty sommelier 
 
 And hint the nature of my sorrow ? 
 
 It's ten to one he'll find a way 
 To calm it till the morrow. 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 4 1 
 
 Alone, I said, but what I mean 
 
 Is unaccompanied by guest 
 
 Or friend ; alone among the rest 
 Of those the vesper shades convene : 
 Who come to feed, to talk, be seen, 
 
 Solicit or supply temptation, 
 Or else, like me, to give their spleen 
 
 A good deoppilation. 
 
 I like all sorts of solitude ; 
 
 The mountain, forest, vale and sea 
 
 Have each a different charm for me, 
 Adapted to a different mood : 
 But then they're apt to make you brood 
 
 Too long before your sorrow hatches, 
 If out of sorts ; a process food 
 
 With good old wine despatches. 
 
42 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 Old wine ! what liquid melody 
 
 In these two words ! what visions rise 
 Of all things good beneath the skies, 
 
 Of all things good beneath the sea ! 
 
 And yet, alas ! how often we 
 
 O'erwhelm with floods of senseless twattle 
 
 The wealth of whispered poesy 
 Exhaling from a bottle. 
 
 Think not I grudge the tribute due 
 Of pure libations freely poured 
 To friendship round the social board ; 
 
 Not I ; but faithful friends are few ; 
 
 While bottles, whether false or true, 
 Before they set the soul a-flowing, 
 
 Must pour their contents into you ; 
 Which warns one if he's knowing. 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 43 
 
 Nor judge me so devoid of grace, 
 
 So impious as to underrate 
 
 The pleasures of the tete-a-tete ; 
 I own the charm of loosened stays, 
 And well-fed woman's winning ways, 
 
 But that's beside the question ; 
 Love's not my theme — and then, it plays 
 
 The devil with digestion. 
 
 Westward beyond the city's zone, 
 (So called because to pass you pay), 
 There lies the wood of Rouveray ; 
 
 An ancient forest, better known, 
 
 What's left, as taking from Boulogne 
 A name you hear until you're 
 
 Inclined to think "the boy," half grown, 
 To some was most familiar. 
 
44 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 But this of course can hardly be, 
 
 Whereas what I shall now relate 
 
 Is easy to authenticate ; 
 I had it from an old oak tree. 
 Don't smile as if you doubted me ; 
 
 They talk ; and for a sample 
 Of what they've done in verse just see 
 
 The Laureate's example. 
 
 Salut ! — 'Twas thus : one afternoon 
 Unoccupied I sauntered forth, 
 And shaped my course say west by north 
 
 (It's always pleasant here in June), 
 
 To listen to my wood -birds' tune; 
 A favorite distraction 
 
 While summer's in her honeymoon, 
 And fresh enough for action. 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 45 
 
 Which ere I knew had taken me 
 
 Beyond the grounds of Bagatelle, 
 
 Where seven strokes upon a bell 
 Disturbed my gentle reverie. 
 Quoth I, no park can ever be 
 
 So fit since Eve became a sinner, 
 As is the Chateau dc Madrid 
 
 About the time for dinner. 
 
 And there I went. You know it, eh? 
 
 Ah, really ? Well, it's worth your while 
 
 To go. You'll find it near a mile 
 Beyond the walls, upon a way 
 That skirts the bois ; but simply say 
 
 Madrid, and any cab will take you. 
 On foot you couldn't go astray, 
 
 But then your legs might ache you. 
 
46 THE TALKING OAK 
 
 My dinner was, as you'll infer, 
 
 A good one, for of course you know 
 The castellan of this chateau 
 
 Is famous as restaurateur ; 
 
 And should King Francis' spirit err 
 This way, the valiant chevalier, 
 
 Beside creating quite a stir, 
 Would find most royal cheer. 
 
 But spirits, hang it, never budge 
 Unless you pay them, now-a-days, 
 While he who enters this place pays, 
 
 And roundly too, if I'm a judge. 
 
 It's more than I can do to grudge 
 
 My money when I'm pleased, however 
 
 Your calculating man's a drudge, 
 For all he seems so clever. 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 47 
 
 And then it's not so much the mere 
 
 Eating and drinking counts with me, 
 
 As 'tis the nicer luxury 
 Of perfume, shed from souvenirs. 
 And that is in perfection here, 
 
 For those who like it aromatic, 
 As Francois when he chased the deer 
 
 Made this his home venatic. 
 
 You know it's generally agreed 
 
 That he was monstrous fond of fun, 
 But had, comparatively, none 
 
 While lingering captive in Madrid ; 
 
 Which made him feel, as soon as freed, 
 Like ordering a forest chateau ; 
 
 For he was keen for hounds and steed, 
 And fresh as a — tomato. 
 
48 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 And thus it is that once there stood 
 
 A place for royal high carouse, 
 
 Where now there stands an eating-house. 
 Thus then as now the wine was good, 
 And thus the deer that roamed the wood 
 
 Were brought (they mostly then were game ones), 
 And some were fed, and some were food, 
 
 The wild ones and the tame ones. 
 
 The night was calm ; the birds that sing 
 At vespers now had gone to rest, 
 And with the flowers, joy-oppressed, 
 
 Were dreaming of departed spring. 
 
 The moon was up, and everything 
 
 Conspired to work a charm, and so forth — 
 
 Which prompted me to have them bring 
 My coffee and to go forth. 
 
THE TALKING OAK 49 
 
 Then choosing out a cozy place 
 
 Beside the railing, near the gate, 
 
 I sat me down to contemplate : 
 And happening in my chair to face 
 That ancient oak about whose base 
 
 You'd look for Druids a priori, 
 I tried to make my thoughts retrace 
 
 What would have been its story. 
 
 The night was still, and it was late : 
 From time to time a silver laugh 
 Would sound some bottle's epitaph, 
 
 Or crushed beneath a coupe! s weight 
 
 The gravel would expostulate ; 
 
 Then silence — then the fragrant rustle 
 
 Of skirts retiring would create 
 A momentary bustle. 
 4 
 
50 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 But soon both sights and sounds went by 
 Unnoticed, and I sat absorbed 
 In gazing where the moon, full-orbed, 
 
 Between the branches cocked an eye, 
 
 And seemed to smile in sympathy; — 
 Gazing until there came a whisper, 
 
 As if from leaves when almost dry, 
 Or, may be, somewhat crisper. 
 
 At first I thought it was the wind, 
 
 But then I seemed to catch a word. 
 
 And finally was sure I heard 
 Articulation well defined. 
 Now miracles of any kind 
 
 Had never yet occurred to me, 
 In fact their place was not assigned 
 
 In my philosophy. 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 51 
 
 But then I'm one of those that own 
 What is, although they can't explain, 
 And this time doubting was in vain. 
 
 I thought of Mr. Edison — 
 
 But phonograph and telephone 
 
 Together would have failed to clear it ; 
 
 And certainly the moonlight shone 
 Too strong for any spirit. 
 
 I looked around, but couldn't see 
 
 A soul outside or in the flesh ; 
 
 And now the thing began afresh — 
 It surely was that ancient tree — 
 And, what was more, it spoke to me ; 
 
 And spoke in French the purest, 
 Barring some words apparently 
 
 The language's maturest. 
 
52 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir/' it said ; " surprise 
 Is natural — do I interrupt ? 
 I see you've dined " (its word was supped) ; 
 " I thought that age might authorize 
 An indiscretion. Oh, don't rise; 
 I couldn't possibly be seated — 
 No, nothing; thank you. I'll be wise. 
 My sap's now overheated. 
 
 " We seldom talk to men, it's true, 
 
 But if we did they'd seldom hear , 
 For that requires a special ear, 
 
 Which, sir, I'm glad to find in you. 
 
 The fact is, I was getting blue 
 
 For want of just such conversation ; 
 
 These sticks are not worth talking to, 
 With all their 'cultivation.' 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 " How times do change ! When I was youm 
 
 We treated age with some respect ; 
 
 But now these upstarts here object 
 To listening, so I hold my tongue. 
 A pretty lot to live among ! 
 
 Why, sir, the trees of that complexion 
 Used to die out, or never sprung, 
 
 With natural selection. 
 
 '•' Those were the days; and then such sport 
 Old stags that often used to dash 
 Beneath my branches, with the crash 
 
 Of hound and hoof, and all the court 
 
 Following hard in royal sort. 
 
 And big wild boars in hundreds rooting, 
 
 Where now your gentlemen resort 
 For what's called pigeon-shooting. 
 
54 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 " You'll think that I'm a royalist. 
 
 But no. The rings about my core 
 
 May still be what they were of yore, 
 As first impressions will persist ; 
 But every summer swells the list, 
 
 And every ring, as time advances, 
 Makes up its fibre with a twist 
 
 To suit the circumstances. 
 
 'And now, sir, I'm republican. 
 
 But, bless your soul, must such as I 
 
 Give up their tastes and turn canaille, 
 Because they preach the rights of man ? 
 Cordieu ! why since the world began 
 
 No two things yet w r ere ever equal ; 
 All bagged by some low partisan, 
 
 That's what will be the sequel. 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 55 
 
 ' But there — I hope you'll pardon me 
 
 For this, it's one of my old tricks; 
 
 Whenever I talk politics 
 My sap, though no one disagree, 
 Gets all worked up, as if a tree 
 
 Were authorized to turn haranguer ! 
 W r e might make poles for Liberty, 
 
 Or lend a branch to hang her. 
 
 "And wherefore should we thus repine 
 At others' sins and others' wrong, 
 When all our lives might glide along 
 So pleasantly? We've rain and shine, 
 Why fret if men lack bread or wine? 
 
 It only makes us die the faster ; 
 Look at this wasted trunk of mine 
 Half full of stones and plaster. 
 
56 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 " No use ! I've tried : it's in the grain. 
 
 But, thank my stars, from time to time 
 
 Through every branch there seems to climb 
 A genial warmth of summer rain ; 
 Old memories come back again 
 
 Of youthful days, and on occasion 
 I quite forget the moral strain, 
 
 And sing a song Rabelaisian. 
 
 " ' Though Fame beguile, 
 
 And Fortune smile, 
 One toast shall e'er be mine — 
 
 A blooming lass, 
 
 A brimming glass, 
 And a tear for aula 7 lang syne. 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 57 
 
 " 'If friends should fail, 
 
 And foes assail, 
 Need honest heart repine ? 
 
 With a blooming lass, 
 
 And a brimming glass, 
 I'll live in auld lang syne.' 
 
 That's Rabelais; bless him, though his rhymes 
 
 Were always bad, I loved the man ; 
 
 So jolly — when he once began 
 (I've heard him sing a hundred times) 
 His voice would drown the castle chimes, 
 
 And then itself be drowned in laughter 
 On some odd whack at faults or crimes, 
 
 A game he still was after. 
 
58 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 " The stories that he told, I grant, 
 
 Were broad ; but here he forced the note 
 To suit the times, and when he wrote 
 
 The worst were not found dissonant. 
 
 He laughed and loved — despising cant — 
 With all his great heart, warm and mellow; 
 
 Hated by priest and protestant ; 
 Reformer and good-fellow. 
 
 It seems to me if I'd the luck 
 
 To be a man I'd strive to be 
 
 So hated of hypocrisy. 
 I'd strike it, as old Rabelais struck; 
 I'd bare both arms, and run a muck 
 
 Against the sow and all her farrow. 
 But read him : ' Break the bone, and suck 
 
 The substantific marrow.' 
 
THE TALKING OAK. 59 
 
 Perhaps, and rightly too, you'll say, 
 
 That when he'd strangers to divert 
 
 He killed his pigs before dessert ; 
 That was the master mocker's way. 
 But I'm all out of sorts to-day. 
 
 Such nonsense, too. For all my growling, 
 I couldn't bring myself to slay 
 
 A single little sowling. 
 
 " I really hope you wont suppose 
 
 I can't be cheerful ; bless your heart, 
 Just let me get the proper start. 
 One doesn't see such larks as those 
 I've seen for nothing. If he chose 
 
 To play propriety he couldn't. 
 I've often tried to make them close 
 The curtains, but they wouldn't. 
 
60 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 il No further back than yesterday — " 
 
 Here the tree stopped. Then came a sound 
 Like Monsieur thrice ; I looked around, 
 And heard the boy go on to say, 
 "JVe craint-il pas Thumidit'e, ?" 
 
 I thought it was becoming chilly, 
 So asked him what I had to pay, 
 And felt a trifle silly. 
 
 I'd let the latest hour go by, 
 
 Hoping that oak would tell a few 
 Of those good things I knew it knew. 
 
 The cabs were gone ; the moon not high 
 
 Enough to dot de Musset's t, 
 
 But then I liked the thought of walking. 
 
 Reader, if you go out there, try 
 To set the tree a-talking. 
 
THE LEAF AND THE KISS. 6 1 
 
 THE LEAF AND THE KISS. 
 
 SHE left me for a warmer land 
 
 And clearer skies : 
 She left me for the tideless strand ; 
 And leaving, let me kiss her hand 
 
 And mouth and eyes. 
 
 She went to meet the spring half way, 
 
 As birds depart ; 
 And all the gloom of winter lay 
 Like death upon the land that day, 
 
 And filled my heart. 
 
 She left, but promised, like the bird 
 
 That leaves its nest, 
 To come again : and word by word 
 Between her broken sighs I heard 
 
 She loved me best. 
 
62 THE LEAF AND THE KISS. 
 
 And when I wrote I begged her find 
 
 Some spot I knew ; 
 Some spot whose charms had oft combined 
 To swell my breast, and call to mind 
 
 Sweet thoughts and true, 
 
 And there alone, to think of me 
 
 And name my name. 
 It seemed that mountain, vale, and sea 
 Must hold my love in memory, 
 
 And breathe, — // faime. 
 
 I begged her, if she'd cure my grief, 
 
 To send a kiss ; 
 To send it on a primrose leaf: 
 And then it was, to cure my grief, 
 
 She sent me this. 
 
THE LEAF AND THE KISS. 63 
 
 The lingering perfume of the South 
 
 Was on it then ; 
 The sweetness of her own dear mouth. 
 But leaves once plucked must die with drouth, 
 
 Nor bloom again. 
 
 It withered as beneath the blast ; 
 
 Its color fled : 
 But ere the fleeting color past, 
 Our love, she said must always last, 
 
 Our love was dead. 
 
 Full many a gift I treasure yet 
 
 Lies hidden here 
 Within my quaint old cofferet : 
 On some for seal sweet lips were set, 
 
 On some a tear. 
 
64 THE LEAF AND THE KISS. 
 
 But none like this among them all 
 
 Can move me now : 
 It tells of joys that turn to gall : 
 Its crumbling ashy veins recall 
 
 A broken vow. 
 
■'IN* GOD WE TRUST. " 65 
 
 To those by whose influence the Motto, "In God we 
 Trust," was put upon the coins of the United States. 
 
 IS there no shame that thus ye dare disgrace 
 The fleeting winter of a poor old god ? 
 That thus ye filch his venerable name 
 To deck your idol and to cover o'er 
 Your bestial rites with stale hypocrisy ? 
 Or has the die, less brazen than yourselves, 
 Altered your motto, and refused to stamp 
 "The God we Trust " upon the yielding gold? 
 
 And yet are days not distant when the thought 
 
 Of him ye now blaspheme had made you quake 
 
 And half forget your plotting in your fear. 
 
 But oh, how dimly burns thy smouldering hell ! 
 
 Poor shadow of a great divinity. 
 5 
 
66 "IN GOD WE TRUST." 
 
 Where is the terror of the mighty hand 
 Whose infant strength could strangle Hercules, 
 And shake the lofty throne of thundering Jove ? 
 Didst thou not bend before thy holy sign 
 The rabble hordes and yoke their fiery lust ? 
 Did not thy vicar reign upon the earth 
 Above the kings ? and make them fear thy wrath 
 More than the wrath of all their enemies ? 
 Were not thy altars laden with the deeds 
 Of fairest virtue and of foulest crime, 
 While men in every act, or great, or small, 
 Besought thy help, thy sanction, or thy grace ? 
 Yea, and though all thy ancestors were dead, 
 Did they not give thee immortality ? 
 
 Alas ! O god, how time has mocked and marred 
 And wasted thee ! that what is vile should dare 
 To prostitute thy name, and what is best 
 
"IN GOD WE TRUST." 6j 
 
 Should blush to see the years upon thy brow, 
 And like a worn jade turn thee out to die 
 In the lean pastures of the Incognoscible. 
 
 How sad a thing it is that when a god 
 Grows old, as all have done and ever must, 
 He cannot leave the government of earth 
 In younger hands, and quietly retire 
 To some secluded region, far away 
 From all the strife and tumult of the world. 
 Thus would the many weaknesses of age 
 Go unremarked, and thus his waning days 
 Be peaceful, and his memory remain 
 Forever cherished in the hearts of men. 
 But no; when once his prime is reached and passed, 
 And each new year brings new infirmities, 
 His priests begin to tremble lest the herds 
 They govern in his name should lift their eyes 
 
68 "IN GOD WE TRUST." 
 
 And mark the dotage of their deity. 
 
 The fear that made them valiant in his youth 
 
 To work his will is then gone out of them, 
 
 And they who served him, then would make his age 
 
 The servant of their dear ascendancy. 
 
 At first a little fard is judged enough 
 To hide time's ravage from the vulgar gaze, 
 But when the faltering step, the sightless eye 
 Foretell that dissolution which must end 
 Their bloated reign, oh, then begins a scene 
 To make the heart of honor bleed with shame. 
 Haggard and wan, but tricked for public show 
 In hues fantastic like a mountebank, 
 The god is tortured, and when all his shape 
 In palsied antics writhes, the priests cry out 
 " Behold the wondrous power of the Lord ! " 
 
"IN GOD WE TRUST." 69 
 
 And many who would worship but have eyes, 
 Seeing these things, forget the glorious past 
 To scoff, and mock their long credulity. 
 And so till all have left him but the blind 
 And those who lead the blind — and then he dies. 
 Versailles, July, 1873. 
 
JO A CENTENNIAL PRAYER. 
 
 A CENTENNIAL PRAYER, 1876. 
 
 O THOU beneath whose valiant hand 
 The conquest spreads from land to land, 
 Till earth's extremest ends record 
 Thy victory and own thee lord ; 
 Thou in whose image gods were fair, 
 To thee, O man, I raise my prayer ! 
 
 A century of eager toil 
 Has turned our wheels and tilled our soil 
 Since, faithful to their proud decree, 
 Our fathers made us one and free, 
 And now we bid the world behold 
 Our wealth increased a hundred-fold. 
 
 May memory of the sterner days 
 When virtue took the place and praise, 
 
A CENTENNIAL -PRAYER. 
 
 Make clear the truth that wealth, apart, 
 But swells the purse to shrink the heart ; 
 And leave us like our fathers, strong 
 To love the right and hate the wrong. 
 
 While science with her dawning light 
 Makes dim the guiding star of night, 
 And baffled by the break of day 
 Bewildered millions seek the way, 
 O keep us on the course begun, 
 And haste the rising of the sun ! 
 
 Build us an altar, rock on rock, 
 Whose time-defying strength shall mock 
 The winds and floods of doubt, till all 
 Have spent their weary force and fall : 
 An altar where the true may bring 
 The true heart's wealth in offering. 
 
J 2 A CENTENNIAL PRAYER. 
 
 Beneath a single flag unite 
 
 The scattered bands that waste their might 
 
 Against the leagued hosts of vice, 
 
 In unavailing sacrifice ; 
 
 "And, cast in some" more human " mould, 
 
 Let the new cycle shame the old ! " * 
 
 *John G. Whi trier, "Centennial Hymn." 
 
A DRINKING SONG. 7$ 
 
 A DRINKING SONG. 
 
 WOULDST lie once more on the blooming shore 
 
 And dream as in years gone by, 
 When the boundless sea was fair and free 
 And calm as the bright blue sky ? 
 Then fill, fill up the cheering cup ; 
 
 No friend can say me nay, 
 For "auld lang syne," in the blood-red wine, 
 Is the toast I drink to-day. 
 
 The sun that shines on the purple vines 
 
 When life is love and rhyme 
 Makes rich the juice for a later use 
 In the weary winter time. 
 
 Then fill, fill up the cheering cup ; 
 
 No friend can say me nay, 
 For "thine and mine," in the blood-red wine, 
 Is the health I drink to-day. 
 
74 A DRINKING SONG. 
 
 A child's delight is the vision bright 
 
 Of a future joy supreme ; 
 But the visions turn as we live and learn 
 To the memory of a dream. 
 
 Then fill, fill up the cheering cup ; 
 
 No friend can say me nay, 
 For a thing divine is the blood-red wine 
 That washeth care away. 
 
 x\nd who can tell but the doleful knell 
 
 Of illusions early fled 
 May ring full soon ere the happy noon 
 Of childhood's day be sped? 
 
 Then quick, fill up the cheerful cup, 
 
 For the sun's maturing beam 
 In vain would shine on the purple vine 
 If youth should cease to dream. 
 
LIGHT AND GLADNESS. 75 
 
 LIGHT AND GLADNESS. 
 
 LIGHT and gladness on the mountain, 
 Light and gladness on the sea ; 
 
 Hill and vale and shore and city- 
 Feel the warmth and smile on me. 
 
 Alpine snows send back the sunshine 
 Bright as in the midst of May ; 
 
 Send it back to where the orange 
 Blossoms on the shortest day. 
 
 From the line of silver ripples 
 Outward to the cloudless sky- 
 All the waters dance and glitter ; 
 E'en the wind has ceased to sigh. 
 
7 6 LIGHT AND GLADNESS. 
 
 Glorious sunlight ! naught in nature 
 Lacks the joy thy beams impart — 
 
 Naught but this o'erburdened bosom, 
 Naught but this my broken heart. 
 
 Ah! 'tis doubly sad to suffer 
 When the very stones rejoice, 
 
 Doubly sad to stand forever 
 First of all in sorrow's choice. 
 
 Must I bear my pain in silence ? 
 
 Must I meekly bend me ? — No ! 
 Let a curse be on their gladness, 
 
 Cursed all that mock my woe — 
 
 Cursed ? Nay — alas ! I'm weary — 
 
 Blest ! for all their joy is mine. 
 Love and sympathy are human, 
 Let the curse be still divine. 
 Castle Hill, Nice, Dec. 22. 
 
song. 77 
 
 SONG. 
 
 WHEN shall the heart of the weary be lightened ? 
 
 When shall the spirit that pineth go free ? 
 When shall I dwell with the visions that brightened 
 
 Youth in its dawning far over the sea? 
 
 Wait till the voice of the merry bird ringeth 
 Lusty and loud with the praises of May, 
 
 Flung from the tip of the flower that springeth 
 Bright as a flame from thy mouldering clay. 
 
 Then shall the heart of the weary be lightened ; 
 
 Then shall the spirit that pineth go free ; 
 Then shalt thou dwell with the visions that brightened 
 
 Youth in its dawning far over the sea. 
 
yS MUST I CHOOSE? 
 
 MUST I CHOOSE? 
 
 MUST I choose from varied hues 
 
 One sweet maid 
 Ere I test all the rest ? — 
 
 I'm afraid. 
 
 Dost thou know, when roses blow, 
 
 Which rose smells 
 Best of all ? which to call 
 
 Queen of dells? 
 
 Canst thou say, when birds are gay, 
 
 Which bird sings 
 Best of all ? which to call 
 
 Voice of springs? 
 
MUST I CHOOSE? 79 
 
 Dost not doubt, when stars are out, 
 
 Which star seems 
 Most to glow? which to throw 
 
 Softest beams ? 
 
 Wouldst thou dare, when all are fair, 
 
 Name one best, 
 If to choose were to lose 
 
 All the rest ? 
 
 Fairest maid in time may fade ; 
 
 Lest one pall, 
 Let me still, if you will, 
 
 Love them all. 
 
8o APRIL SUN. 
 
 APRIL SUN. 
 
 WHEN April's sun is beaming 
 On lovely nature teeming 
 With creatures fondly dreaming 
 
 Of life and love in May, 
 What wonder if the gleaming 
 Of downcast eyes, beseeming 
 Young passion and redeeming, 
 
 Should steal my heart away ? 
 
 Alas, the time for wooing 
 When love's what one's pursuing 
 Goes by without renewing, 
 
 And thirty's late, I ween ; 
 So let me still be doing 
 While yet I've voice for cooing, 
 While yet I've eyes for viewing 
 
 The charms of sweet sixteen. 
 
 
APRIL SHOWERS. 8 1 
 
 APRIL SHOWERS. 
 
 LET poets praise 
 What spring displays 
 In rural ways 
 
 When April showers, 
 And dream their bays 
 Can feel the rays 
 That quicken May's 
 
 Unfolding flowers ; 
 
 For me a treat 
 That's more replete 
 With visions sweet, 
 
 Although it's shocking, 's 
 A muddy street 
 With little feet 
 And ankles neat 
 
 And pretty stockings. 
 
82 A PRESCRIPTION. 
 
 A PRESCRIPTION. 
 
 A BOSOM made in beauty's mould 
 
 To feel the common smart ? 
 Nay, lady, if you've taken cold 
 
 You've caught it from your heart. 
 
 And should your conscience say I'm right, 
 
 Permit me to suggest 
 That it were well you straight should light 
 
 A fire within your breast. 
 
 
NIRVANA. 83 
 
 NIRVANA. 
 
 THE womb quickens 
 The babe cries*. 
 
 Nirvana. 
 
 The wing strengthens • 
 The bird flies. 
 Nirvana. 
 
 The tear trickles : 
 The drop dries. 
 Nirvana. 
 
 The hand labors : 
 The lip lies. 
 Nirvana. 
 
84 NIRVANA. 
 
 The brain questions 
 The heart sighs. 
 Nirvana. 
 
 The flame nutters : 
 
 The lamp dies. 
 
 Nirvana. 
 
SONNETS. 85 
 
 TO A FAIR ADVOCATE OF WOMAN'S RIGHTS. 
 
 THE flowers once, disdaining their estate 
 
 As love's fair messengers and beauty's aid, 
 Began to rail in honeyed tones at fate 
 
 And vowed that rather than submit they'd fade. 
 But rage, as if to thwart a plan so silly, 
 
 Heightened each charm till all perfection grew, 
 Giving a rarer pallor to the lily 
 
 And to the rose's red a deeper hue. 
 Should any wicked man in malice seem 
 
 To goad your ire or challenge your dissent, 
 Be patient nor the froward act esteem 
 
 A fell attack upon your sweet content, 
 For he perchance the skill of anger knows 
 To paint the lily and adorn the rose. 
 
86 SONNETS. 
 
 TO HARRIET. 
 
 KIND Harriet, bestow, I beg of thee, 
 
 Thine aid upon a pastoral in prose, 
 For though my theme is meet for poetry, 
 
 The Muse in silence holds her classic nose. 
 But thou art " gentle, artless, wise and just," 
 " With much of Christ " in thee like Lady Byron, 
 And thou canst "pity weakness, sin and lust," 
 
 And sift the truth from errors that environ. 
 So tell me — if our morals may be kept 
 
 From base attempts of genius to deprave, 
 And "slanders" into dark oblivion swept 
 
 By writing incest on a poet's grave — 
 What word of infamy must laymen choose 
 When Christian pastor tups his tender ewes ? 
 
 July, 1873. 
 
SONNETS. 87 
 
 O NATIONS ! 
 
 O NATIONS ! ye that scoff at fallen France, 
 
 Or pour your venomed pity on her wound, 
 What are ye ? Do your steady steps advance 
 
 Straight to perfection ? Has the rugged ground 
 That baffles her been past and is there naught 
 
 To learn from her distress but pride and scorn ? 
 Why, Heavens ! were the space of Gallia fraught 
 
 With all your vice, and all your weakness borne 
 On her small breadth, the overburdening mass 
 
 Would rend the earth and sink engulfed below ! 
 And yet for others' sins ye cry "alas ! " 
 
 Look to your own, ye hypocrites, and know 
 Nor highest mount nor river nor deep sea 
 Can bound the folly of humanity. 
 
 Paris, March, 1872, 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 SOLITUDE. 
 
 THERE is a solitude whose depth profound 
 
 Is greater than the silent desert knows : 
 About whose state a deeper gloom is wound 
 
 Than starless night o'er slumbering nature throws- 
 Whose dreariness unfelt in hermit cell 
 
 Assumes no outward sign or mark of dole, 
 But with a secret force that naught can quell 
 
 Relentless saps the life and gnaws the soul. 
 'Tis his who wanders aimless and alone 
 
 Amid a crowded city's busy throng, 
 Mourning bright hopes by cruel Fortune strown 
 
 Far on the winds, and sorrowing along 
 Past beauty, joy and sorrow, friend and foe, 
 Whelmed in a deep infinity of woe. 
 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 THE TRUE DIVINITY. 
 
 WHY mourn for paradise ? why weep your god ? 
 
 Come, dry your tears and fill a cup with me : 
 He has but ta'en the road the rest have trod ; 
 
 Come, here's a health to my divinity : 
 To woman, bless her ! Ere the gods were born 
 
 Her worship warmed the tender germ of love, 
 And on her altar lay the offering torn 
 
 From selfishness ere man had looked above. 
 To woman, bless her ! Though our hopes be wrecked 
 
 On reason's cold, inhospitable shores, 
 And all our dreams have waking, rudely checked, 
 
 And naught remain of all that faith adores, 
 As long as blood runs warm and beauty charms 
 We still shall find a heaven in her arms. 
 
90 SONNETS. 
 
 AFTER READING THE MOTTO, "IN GOD WE 
 TRUST," UPON A COIN. 
 
 'TIS said the Greeks when Troy had proved her force 
 
 Made feigned retreat, and had a story spread 
 Of wondrous virtues in a wooden horse, 
 
 And stuffed him full of men from tail to head. 
 A stratagem by which, though rather thin 
 
 To modern people such as you or I am, 
 The horse and Trojans both were taken in ; 
 
 Which played the devil with the town of Priam. 
 The men who now besiege the Constitution 
 
 Would also like to introduce a hobby, 
 But by a process some call evolution, 
 
 The ways of things have changed in war and lobby, 
 So they, like true descendants of Loyola, 
 To get him in have put him on the dollar. 
 
 Sept., 1873. 
 
SONNETS. 91 
 
 TO MR. E. LITTRE. 
 
 I LAUNCHED my bark upon a lonely sea, 
 
 Though all I loved lay weeping on the shore, 
 And set ray sail for climes unknown to me, 
 
 And bade my hopes farewell for evermore. 
 No chart had marked the unfrequented way, 
 
 And soon the giddy needle ceased to guide, 
 While lowering clouds that darkened all the day 
 
 Burst into storm and rent the surging tide. 
 Black rocks that lurked like foes along the night 
 
 Rose menacing, but still I struggled on, 
 Till, lo, afar a friendly beacon-light 
 
 Shone o'er the waste and led me to the dawn. 
 A stranger hand had fed a saving fire — 
 'Twas thine, O master ! may it never tire. 
 Tarts, Sept. 16, 1873. 
 
92 SONNETS. 
 
 SYMPATHY. 
 
 THEY who have known a mother's tender care 
 
 And learned by absence all the joys of home, 
 And kept a friend who every hope could share, 
 
 And loved a maid ere love began to roam, 
 And quenched ambition at the fount success, 
 
 And clung to God as only faith can cling, 
 And felt the charm of vice's hot caress, 
 
 May lisp of love ; but he alone can sing 
 Within whose bosom glows the sacred fire 
 
 That time has lighted in love's very heart 
 With passions purified, who strikes the lyre 
 
 As one whose sympathy can bear a part 
 Of each emotion feeling creatures know, 
 Rejoice with every joy and weep with every woe. 
 
SONNETS. 93 
 
 POOR FRANCE. 
 I. 
 
 POOR France ! alas, how all thy faults combine 
 With all thy foes to make a wreck of thee, 
 And "crown the edifice" of treachery. 
 
 Ere Fate had whispered words of her design 
 
 To ruin thee, ere thou didst cease to shine 
 The envy of the world, my heart was free 
 To love or loathe, but now, in sympathy, 
 
 If I could weep, my tears should all be thine. 
 
 Poor France ! Could I but raise my feeble voice 
 
 Above the clamor of the herds that bray 
 Disdainful pity, or that dare rejoice, 
 
 Each wind that sweeps the ocean should convey 
 A prayer for thee, dear country of my choice, 
 To happier shores still dear though far away. 
 
94 SONNETS. 
 
 II. 
 
 I'D TELL of what it cost thee in disgrace, 
 In precious blood, in treasure and in shame 
 To cast away thy freedom and acclaim 
 
 The Perjurer thy saviour. I would trace 
 
 December to Sedan, and then efface 
 The memory of all that I might blame 
 By telling how in thy distress there came 
 
 Noble resolves that proved thee weak, not base. 
 
 The simple story of thy constancy 
 
 That grows with every trial and defies 
 Menace and plot, should form my artless plea. 
 
 Yes, and should teach Columbia to despise 
 The fawning hypocrites who bend the knee 
 And play the pander to thy enemies. 
 
 Paris, Oct. 6, 1873. 
 
SONNETS. 95 
 
 HOW to be envied is the lot of those 
 Whose placid minds do ever calmly soar 
 Above the troubled world ; who can ignore 
 
 The anguish of the present in its throes, 
 
 To follow still where idle fancy goes; 
 Or, undisturbed, with rapt attent explore 
 The labyrinth of past, or con the lore 
 
 That nature's depths from transient eye enclose. 
 
 Such is not mine, alas ! My cherished theme 
 
 Has been begun and left a thousand times, 
 And noisy rumors make my thoughts to seem 
 
 Like timid birds that seldom-ceasing chimes 
 Frighten from where they still return to teem 
 On some cathedral spire that into heaven climbs. 
 
96 SONNETS. 
 
 "HONNEUR ET PATRIE." 
 I. 
 
 BEFORE the Tuileries, 'neath the Marshals' Hall 
 From which in line against the western skies 
 The Obelisk and Arc of Triumph rise, 
 
 I stood and mused, while off the calcined wall 
 
 Fell the huge blocks and scattered in their fall 
 The dust of demolition. Where mine eyes 
 Had seen the chiefs portrayed in warlike guise 
 
 Was blacked and crumbling stone, and that was all. 
 
 Not all, for just within, on either side, 
 
 Where each uplifted eye must needs behold 
 Remained a narrow space that had defied 
 
 The winter and the flame, and as of old, 
 Bore, in the gilded letters of its pride, 
 
 " Honneur et Patrie," on a ground of gold. 
 
SONNETS. 97 
 
 II. 
 
 " Honneur et Patrie ! " And the dazzling glare 
 That shone from off the motto in the gloom 
 Was like a word of cheer from out the tomb, 
 Was like a ray of hope in black despair. 
 
 The valiant memories assembled there 
 Were as the shades of heroes who resume 
 Their earthly walks, and when disasters loom 
 
 Warn of the threatened woes they still must share. 
 
 "Honneur et Patrie ! " 'Twas the soldier's creed. 
 But while I gazed my thoughts returning met 
 The Marshal President, content to lead 
 
 Designing knaves, and him whose traitor debt 
 Is still to pay; and where I late could read 
 Was nothing but the gloom — the sun had set. 
 
 Paris, Oct. 27, 1873. (During the trial of Marshal Bazaine.) 
 7 
 
98 SONNETS. 
 
 WHEN love was only love a little maid 
 
 Taught me to love her, and her watch in plight 
 She let me wear, while mine from morn till night 
 
 Against her budding breast was gently laid. 
 
 And there it heard her heart, and there it stayed 
 Till it had learned by listening in delight 
 A pleasant tale ; which throb for throb aright 
 
 It tells forever o'er as then betrayed. 
 
 Just half my life ago ! and on the sea 
 
 And in a hundred lands, since we did part, 
 The storm has burst and sun has shone on me ; 
 
 But ne'er in heedless joy nor dolor's smart 
 Have I forgot the whispering melody 
 That tells the story of the virgin heart. 
 
SONNETS. 99 
 
 THE "VIRGINIUS AFFAIR." 
 
 NOW forth, Columbia, draw thy valiant sword ! 
 Now on, ye brave, and let your loud alarms 
 Strike dumb dispute. Now on ! To arms ! To arms ! 
 
 'Tis booty calls, and hath it e'er implored 
 
 Freemen in vain ? And shall a greedy horde 
 Of Spanish placemen revel in the charms 
 Of Cuban spoil, while fears of petty harms 
 
 Keep from our own a merited reward ? 
 
 Forbid it, Heaven ! No ! discussion now 
 
 Were blackest treason, and the wretch who'd bore 
 With project of reform, or stir the slough 
 
 That holds our leaders' filth, should suffer sore. 
 To arms ! and tress the laurel for your brow ; 
 E'en thieves are heroes when baptized in war ! 
 Paris, Nov. 20, 1873. 
 
IOO SONNETS. 
 
 TOAST TO THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 FILL full : a bumper to the new-born year ! 
 The heir of ages, may it ever be 
 A shining honor to its ancestry, 
 
 And peace unbroken bless its bright career. 
 
 Its heritage, the fruit of toil severe 
 
 In lands unnumbered and on every sea, 
 Is rich confusion, may sweet harmony 
 
 Pervade the whole, and all its joys appear. 
 
 While just devotion, honoring the shrine 
 
 That ancient worth and virtues still adorn, 
 Marks the descendant of a noble line, 
 
 May blighting bigotry relentless torn 
 Forth by the root where'er it dares to twine 
 Proclaim the parent of the years unborn. 
 Dec, 1873. 
 
SONNETS. IOI 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO A POEM. 
 
 WHEN the sad wind, from wandering round the sea 
 Or through the regions of eternal snow, 
 Tells to the harp its endless tale of woe, 
 
 The chords are moved responsive and set free 
 
 A vague and shadowy sound of sympathy. 
 
 Not in skilled measure does their grief o'erflow, 
 But artless plaints that dreary-long and low 
 
 Like waves of sorrow die upon the lea. — 
 
 Such my poor song ; a wind of doleful sighs 
 
 That came distinct above the murmuring 
 Of nature's millions, born to agonize, 
 
 Swept o'er my heart. O ye, who've heard this thing 
 And felt the tears of pity in your eyes, 
 Attend my lay: in pity's name I sing. 
 
102 SONNETS. 
 
 FULL often, when my way is long and lies 
 
 Through busy streets in which the dazzling light 
 Gleams from a thousand lamps until my sight 
 
 Is all bedimmed, I raise my weary eyes 
 
 Above and rest them on the tranquil skies : 
 
 Rest them from little flames that flare and smite 
 By gazing where the myriad suns of night 
 
 Shine with a glow that calms and beautifies. 
 
 Thus when the sounds of pain and strife and hate 
 
 Assail mine ears and grieve and torture me, 
 Leaving me, sick of life, to curse at fate, 
 
 I raise my thoughts to regions that are free 
 From earthly cares, and there I contemplate 
 The silent working of Immensity. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 103 
 
 TO MY LITTLE NEIGHBOR. 
 
 MY little neighbor, wilt thou leave me here 
 To wait forever? wilt thou ne'er reope 
 Thy pleasant window more ? and must the hope 
 
 Born of thy soft eyes perish, thou so near ? 
 
 Why dost thou shun me ? Have they made thee fear 
 Their cruel chiding, they who watch o'er thee? 
 Then ope and leave me, sweet, that I may see 
 
 Thy pretty chamber,— even that is dear. 
 
 Thy couch has curtains, which the vine and flower 
 
 In such entwined confusion overspread, 
 That in their fall they seem to form a bower 
 
 About the spot where lies thy maiden head. 
 Dear girl, I'd love thee were thy only dower 
 One little bud from off so fair a bed. 
 
104 SONNETS. 
 
 OVER HEAD AND EARS. 
 
 LADY, when thou dost linger by the sea, 
 While not a ripple whispers to the shore, 
 And all is still, as if the winds no more 
 
 Could break its slumber, hath it charms for thee ? 
 
 Or when its lashed and foaming waters flee 
 The tempest's wrath, and every sail it bore 
 Is rent and lost, and midst the horrid roar 
 
 Men cry unheard, canst weep in sympathy ? 
 
 Then hear my grief: — unfathomed as the main, 
 
 A sea of passion rolls within my breast, 
 And long beneath its cruel waves have lain 
 
 Wrecked hopes of youth ; while now the last, the best 
 Is struggling all in vain ; — alas ! in vain, 
 
 Though one kind word could set the storm at rest. 
 
 
SONNETS. 105 
 
 'DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE 
 OF FLOWERS?" 
 
 YEA, Love, I've learned the hidden sense they bear 
 And hold it greatest of all scholarships, 
 For not a flower that the bright bee sips 
 
 But tells of thy sweet self, and calls thee fair. 
 
 Some mind me of soft eyes, and azure rare, 
 And some of pearl-white teeth in balmy lips, 
 Of matchless hands, of rosy finger-tips, 
 
 Or wavy lustre of thy golden hair. 
 
 And others, whispering of the charms that gleam 
 From out the night and turn my blood to fire, 
 Bring back the vision of a joy supreme ; 
 
 But ever as I gaze some envious brier 
 Points to the fatal shadow in the dream 
 That keeps me ever from my soul's desire. 
 
106 SONNETS. 
 
 FALSE SUSPICION. 
 
 TO . 
 
 AND so it seemed my vows were meant 
 But as a puling poet's song, 
 Whose one reply to such a wrong 
 
 Would be a moonlight lone lament ? 
 
 No, by my soul ! If I've misspent 
 An idle hour — alas, too long — 
 In idler rhymes, when I was young 
 
 The trade I learnt took other bent. 
 
 'Tis true that ere I deemed it sold 
 
 I drank thy beauty as a wine, 
 But if thy choice have more than gold 
 
 To give for this new love of thine, 
 I'll prove thee what I once foretold — 
 The heart to bleed shall not be mine. 
 
SONNETS. 107 
 
 "SOUVENIR DU Ier MARS, 1815." * 
 
 (RETURN FROM ELBA.) 
 I. 
 
 'TWAS here the landing? here they pitched the tent 
 Till midnight, when the fatal march began 
 That yet once more, despite the nations' ban, 
 
 Shook earth a hundred days ? and such event 
 
 Marked like a petty road-side accident ! — 
 Not thus, not thus, O giant Corsican, 
 Uprose the shaft in that ambitious plan 
 
 Which I had formed for such a monument. 
 
 Not thus, but glittering with all the gold 
 
 Thy glory cost the Gaul, and thy disgrace ; 
 W T hile mounting toward thine image, as of old, 
 
 The burnished mass was fashioned to enchase 
 A million skulls — thy legend briefly told ; 
 
 And all the sea was blood about the base. 
 Golfe JOUAN (near Cannes, France), 1874. 
 
 * Composed before a small column bearing this inscription which 
 stands by the road near the spot where Napoleon landed. 
 
io8 SONNETS. 
 
 II. 
 
 O Tyrant, we are small as thou art great, 
 But mid the rabble thou didst so despise 
 Be some that look the gods between the eyes 
 
 And fear not. Yea, be some that dare to rate 
 
 Their halo but a mask : and when in state 
 I raised thy cursed genius to the skies, 
 'Twas there to strip thee of thine old disguise 
 
 And join to endless fame eternal hate. 
 
 But all was done that I had hoped to do, 
 
 By him who reigned thine heir and blood-in-law, 
 Late Prussia's high Purveyor to the Maw, 
 
 When, with himself and mighty retinue, 
 
 He left the lion's skin beneath her paw, 
 And made Sedan a bastard Waterloo. 
 
 
SONNETS. 109 
 
 IN THE FOREST OF COMPIEGNE. 
 
 DARK as the mystic wood of Domremy 
 Wherein compassion's voice grew audible 
 Are these deep shades, and as I wander, still 
 
 I think of thee, brave Joan, and envy thee : 
 
 For thou, ere taken while too loath to flee, 
 Before yon city's gate, didst all fulfil; 
 And neither Rouen's fire nor priestly skill 
 
 Could stay the working of the "sorcery." 
 
 And I too hear the voices manifold ; 
 
 Till night and day with all my heart I yearn 
 To work their will, ere heart and all be cold ; 
 
 But sorrow's legions yet neglect or spurn 
 The faith that now could lead them, while the old 
 Is powerless to save — or e'en to burn. 
 
HO SONNETS. 
 
 To President Grant, on reading the cable dispatch 
 concerning his Secretary of War; Paris, March 
 3, 1876. 
 
 ANOTHER down ? Ye gods ! and can it be 
 That in your vast, inexplicable ire 
 Little and great must tumble till the mire 
 
 Cover them all ? O strange fatality ! 
 
 But courage, Grant ! Although these things we see 
 Are made to rend the bosom and inspire 
 Sorrow in stones, take heart, for evils dire 
 
 Assail the purest when the gods decree. 
 
 Bacchus, the boss of some old whiskey ring, 
 Worked such a spell on Midas, we are told, 
 And everything he touched was turned to gold ; 
 
 But as the golden age when he was king 
 
 Has changed to iron, if all that you uphold 
 Should turn to steel, 'twere not astonishing. 
 
SONNETS. Ill 
 
 EARLY SPRING. 
 
 TO . 
 
 HOW sweet to breathe these perfumes and to share 
 The calm rejoicing and the gentle mirth, 
 While nature, radiant from the bonds of birth, 
 
 Glows in her vernal ardor and is fair. 
 
 While yet no flower falls to waken care, 
 
 Nor aught foretells the weary winter's dearth, 
 But soft voluptuous languor fills the earth, 
 
 And love is latent in the very air. 
 
 'Tis early spring, dear girl, within thy heart, 
 
 And thou wouldst ever idly dream away 
 The precious hours that so soon depart ; 
 
 But I, alas, beneath the burning ray 
 Of summer's sun, now count with bitter smart 
 The days that rest : — and wilt thou still delay? 
 
112 SONNETS. 
 
 UPON THE PROPOSITION OF AMNESTY FOR 
 THE FRENCH COMMUNISTS. 
 
 JUSTICE, twin-born sister of bright Truth, 
 I too would raise a voice for amnesty ; 
 
 But not like theirs, a ready-granted plea 
 For men misled, whose miserable youth 
 
 Was left to God's protection, and the tooth 
 Of famished envy ; who could hope to see 
 The dawning of the day that is to be 
 
 But in red flame. No, these have earned thy ruth. 
 
 1 plead for such as having wine and meat 
 
 And knowledge, thrust these out, and let them fall 
 A prey to demagogues ; for such as greet 
 
 That man their saviour who can best enthrall ; 
 For chieftains dreadful only in the street ; 
 
 And all the band ecclesiastical. 
 Paris, March, 1876. 
 
SONNETS. 113 
 
 AFTER DINNER. 
 
 SWEET scents are floating on the wave : 
 Such perfume as the tropic shore 
 Sends back the sea, when day is o'er, 
 
 Upon the cooling breeze it gave. 
 
 I hear the moonlit waters lave 
 
 The vessel's side, a distant oar 
 
 Dip lazily ; and more and more 
 Remote, the singing of a slave. 
 
 Blest vision of the summer seas ! 
 
 'Twas thus in youth when years ago 
 I sailed amid the Caribbees. 
 
 And shall I give my life to woe 
 While yet I find such thoughts as these 
 In one small glass of Curacoa? 
 
114 SONNETS. 
 
 ANOTHER TERM. 
 
 I DREAMT I saw St. Peter at the gate 
 (The mind is given to wandering at night), 
 And clouds of angels thinly clad in white 
 
 Were pushing to get in, for it was late. 
 
 The Porter checked their names upon his slate, 
 And all went well, till, lifting up his light, 
 He looked at one suspiciously, despite 
 
 His muffler and assurance, and cried, " Wait ! " 
 
 He waited, but when all were in he said, 
 
 " Now, look here, Peter, listen — I affirm 
 That more than twenty thousand years have fled 
 
 " Since I first asked ; now, isn't there a germ 
 Of pity in you, man ? " P. shook his head — 
 " Go back to hell and serve another term ! " 
 Paris, April 8, 1876, 
 
SONNETS. 115 
 
 SAD is the flower, O Sun, that decks the way 
 Too soon ; while yet the wind of winter blows, 
 And blissful are the blossoms that unclose 
 
 Their tender petals to the warmth of May. 
 
 Sad is the soul, O Truth, that sees thy ray 
 
 Too soon ; and blest, ah, doubly blest are those 
 Who linger dreaming till their sweet repose 
 
 Is broken by the warmer beam of day. 
 
 Now joyous nature holds the vernal rite 
 
 And worships thee beneath the cloudless sky, 
 O Sun, from whom is life and all delight : 
 
 Yet one that loves thy bounty breathes a sigh: — 
 Ah, wherefore whisper, seeing all so bright, 
 O Truth, that e'en by this the Sun shall die? 
 April, 1876. 
 
Il6 SONNETS. 
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 {In the ga?'den at Monte- Carlo, Monaco.) 
 
 ALL gone at last ; all, all ! By god, an ace ! 
 
 Three ten-spots and an ace, to thirty-two ! 
 
 And at the limit ! — All ! and not a sou 
 To pay for a dispatch. — Ah, damn the place ! 
 
 And yet how beautiful ! with what a grace 
 
 Those tranquil palms stand out against the blue 
 Of sea and sky, and that soft, dreamy hue 
 
 The moonlight makes along the mountains' base. 
 
 They've chosen well ! — an Eden to conceal 
 
 The serpent. — Bah ! 'twere nothing did we mar 
 Only our fortunes : it's the loss of zeal, 
 
 The drought that leaves the heart a shrivelled scar 
 As empty as this purse — what's that I feel? — 
 By Tove, a louts ! and the rhvme is noir ! 
 
SONNETS. 117 
 
 " Before, a joy proposed ; behind, a dream:" 
 
 Shakspeare, Sonnet 129. 
 
 OH, the strong, strange emotion, bitter-sweet, 
 That fills my weary bosom as I ride 
 Along these lanes, and note on every side 
 
 The woods and fields that knew my childish feet. 
 
 Men stare at me, but all the ripening wheat 
 Bows and is glad ; the brook by which I sighed 
 Told an old tale and laughed ; and, dignified, 
 
 My friends the trees stretch out their arms to greet. 
 
 Ah, yes, 'twas there while resting from my play 
 
 I dreamt of future years, that used to seem 
 So full of promise and so far away. 
 
 Poor child ! they come and go, but none redeem 
 The worthless pledge ; they pass, and each new day 
 But dims the memory of that fond dream. 
 Wallingford, Delaware Co., Pa., July, 1875. 
 
Ii8 SONNETS. 
 
 AUGUST 15th, 1875. 
 I. 
 I NE'ER had seen the moonlit summer night 
 More beautiful ; above, the stars were drowned 
 In brightness, and below upon the ground 
 A distant haze blent all in one delight. 
 
 Along the stream a line of denser white 
 Lay heavily ; and nearer, stretched around, 
 The wood stood still and slept without a sound ; 
 
 While Time's swift wing beat on in silent flight. 
 
 No change; alas, no change, but all as fair 
 And tranquil as the placid sleep of faith, 
 And in my poor worn heart — despair, despair ! 
 
 No change, — and all my hope was changed to death 
 For I had heard upon the midnight air 
 
 Life's saddest sound, — a mother's dying breath. 
 
SONNETS. 119 
 
 II. 
 
 GONE, gone ! The gentle heart that unsubdued 
 Could cheer us in the gloom of death's delay- 
 Would throb no more : the hand that yesterday 
 
 Still answered' mine ; the lids so often dewed 
 
 With tears by me ; the lips that e'er renewed 
 
 Forgiveness — gone ! Gone the last chance to pay 
 Love with fair deeds : and left to comfort me — 
 
 The memory of my own ingratitude. 
 
 O misery ! — ah, could I but deceive 
 
 My sorrow with a little hope; but be 
 Like them that shut their eyelids and believe. 
 
 Relentless Truth, look what I bear for thee ! — 
 They talk of grief that never learned to grieve ; 
 And yet they say we doubt from vanity ! 
 
120 SONNETS. 
 
 A BROKEN PROMISE. 
 
 THIS coming death-day soon will make the third, 
 Mother, and all my grief be more by three ; 
 But you've forgot the promise given me : 
 
 Ah, mother, mother, mother, but one word ! 
 
 Is it my fault ? — I know their prating stirred 
 
 My anger, but I always tried to be 
 
 Fair ; and I've watched so long ! why can't I see? 
 I've listened, but my tears are all I've heard. 
 
 And if my doubts be true ? And if the flame 
 
 Died with the light when that last kiss grew cold ? 
 O miserable charlatans that came 
 
 Between us for a little sum of gold, 
 Where are you now ? — A faith ? Ah, yes, — the same ; 
 Divides our hearts and fortunes like the old. 
 
SONNETS. 121 
 
 To " Sitting Bull," on receiving the news of his victory 
 over U. S. troops. 
 
 WELL done, Dakotah ! Though good men and brave 
 Be fallen, and beneath the wind and sun 
 Wait for a grave, well done ! I say ; well done ! 
 
 Their blood be not on thee, but them that drave 
 
 Thy tribe to war ; not thee, for thou canst lave 
 Thy red hands clean in wrong. Our greed alone 
 Is guilty ; and the vengeful balls that won, 
 
 Behind the true heart, heedless, sought the knave. 
 
 Yea, chief, strike hard ! Though fate hath doomed 
 thy race, 
 And cruel progress hails the stern decree, 
 Strike hard ! for man's defence is good to see. 
 
 Yea, turn, and take the death- wound in the face, 
 That on your tomb a friendly hand may trace — 
 
 They died in arms against their destiny. 
 
 Eaux-Bonnes, Basses Pyrenees, Sept. 9, 1876. 
 
122 SONNETS. 
 
 ACROSTIC TO 
 
 WHILE yet I knew thee not, when some fair thought 
 Importuned me to give its beauty birth, 
 Like one who might have been, I mourned the dearth 
 
 That time misspent in wayward youth had wrought. 
 
 Then said I to myself, — "And hadst thou sought 
 However much to mend thy meagre worth, 
 O fool ! thou wouldst have lived and passed from 
 earth 
 
 Unknown, and all thy toil had been for nought." 
 
 But since I saw thy face, and felt the thrill 
 
 Each word from those sweet lips hath power to raise, 
 My keen remorse is such as nought can still. 
 
 Irrevocable curse of wasted days ! — 
 Now had I but a tithe of Petrarch's skill, 
 
 E'en Laura's fame should fade before thy praise. 
 
SONNETS. 123 
 
 TO -. 
 
 NAY, judge me not, nor this poor heart of mine, 
 As thou art wont to do when others kneel, 
 For, all unworthy as I am, I feel 
 
 What thou canst never know, nor words define. 
 
 Bigot am I in love, and though the shrine 
 I worship at awakens all men's zeal, 
 I hold they lack the grace that can reveal 
 
 The mystery which maketh love divine. 
 
 Then pardon me if earnestness too deep 
 
 To brook control bring words that seem severe — 
 Alas, and can it be I've made thee weep? 
 
 Nay, pity me ! the storm is over, dear, 
 And all the passions that offended sleep, 
 
 For thou hast quelled them with a single tear. 
 
124 SONNETS. 
 
 LA FORNARINA. 
 
 "WHO was la Fornarina?" Raphael 
 
 Knew more of that than I can teach thee, dear, 
 For stories differ ; but there's one thing clear — 
 
 Whoe'er she was, he must have loved her well. 
 
 A Roman girl, low-born, if what they tell 
 Be true ; a beauty sure ; but less severe 
 Than one would judge, if her own traits appear 
 
 In that calm face on which he loved to dwell. 
 
 At times, when art was powerless to wean 
 The lover from his love till eventide, 
 They placed her on the scaffold by his side. 
 
 He took from passion all that youth could glean 
 
 And then he died. — "And how?" — ah — well — he 
 died — 
 As I would die wert thou my Fornarine. 
 
SONNETS. 125 
 
 PEACE. 
 
 CHEER ! 
 
 Why 
 Sigh? 
 Hear, 
 
 Dear ; 
 Dry 
 
 Thy 
 Tear. 
 
 Life's 
 So 
 
 Short, 
 
 Strife's 
 No 
 Sport. 
 
26 SONNETS. 
 
 MY LADY'S HAIR. 
 
 BLONDE are the locks I love ; in hue 
 Like summer wheat toward harvest day 
 When round the fields the warm winds play 
 
 And make them wave as waters do. 
 
 Blonde are my lady's own, wherethrough 
 Her features, worth Petrarca's lay, 
 Take tinge of gold, that melts away 
 
 To leave the perfect rose anew. 
 
 No man resists when charms so bright 
 
 Decoy, beneath so sweet a snare ; 
 None. If they tell the tale aright, 
 
 The maid she has to tend her hair 
 For one whole hour every night 
 
 Combs out the hearts entangled there. 
 
SONNETS. 127 
 
 MY LADY'S MOLE. 
 
 MY lady has below her chin, 
 
 Just where the collar shows her neck, 
 A wicked little brownish speck 
 
 No bigger than a pin. 
 
 It isn't patched upon the skin 
 
 Like those with which some beauties deck 
 
 A pretty face, but for my wreck 
 The Devil wove it in. 
 
 'Twould give a saint an appetite — 
 
 That space between her collar's roll — 
 It looks so white. 
 
 If I were sure I have a soul 
 I'd offer it for one good bite 
 Beneath that mole. 
 
128 SONNETS. 
 
 MY LADY'S NOSE. 
 
 I'LL do what poet ne'er did yet, 
 As far as I know, — that's compose 
 A sonnet to my lady's nose : — 
 
 'Tis somewhat " Marie Antoinette," 
 
 Commanding, arched, and proudly set, 
 But not too long ; and though she knows 
 What good wine is, the driven snow's 
 
 Not nearly so immaculate. 
 
 If by mishap we disagree 
 
 'Tis sometimes here my lady shows it. 
 And then 'twould do you good to see 
 
 The lofty way in which she throws it : 
 But, ah, 'tis always dear to me, 
 
 And pretty — even when she blows it. 
 
SONNETS. 129 
 
 MY LADY'S EAR. 
 
 MY lady has the sweetest ear ! — 
 A perfect little rosy shell ! — 
 In which the tales that lovers tell, 
 
 That lovers tell, and ladies fear, 
 
 But never quite refuse to hear, 
 
 Have left an echo, there to dwell 
 
 And make the blush perpetual ; 
 (I wonder if my meaning's clear?) 
 
 If she were only fond of verse 
 
 I'd fill the little shell with rhyme ; 
 But that would be a waste, or worse ; 
 
 For when I think I'm most sublime 
 She yawns, which makes me want to curse, 
 And knocks me wholly out of time. 
 
130 SONNETS. 
 
 MY LADY'S FEET. 
 
 OF all the pretty little feet 
 
 Since those that slipped when Adam fell 
 There's not a pair that can excel 
 
 My lady's; really it's a treat 
 
 To see her cross a muddy street, 
 
 Her dainty bottines fit so well ; 
 
 And then her ankle ! — shall I tell? 
 But no, we'll not be indiscreet. 
 
 One day when too much exercise 
 
 Had caused those little shoes to smart her, 
 She deigned to let me loose the ties ! — 
 
 St. Crispin, cobbler, saint and martyr, 
 Would risk his all in paradise 
 If once he got so near her garter. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 I'D GATHERED in my lady's bonnet 
 Just charms enough to make a salad, 
 And by the rule poetical had 
 
 Mixed them in a little sonnet. 
 
 Not all were there, depend upon it, 
 For every feature's claim is valid, 
 And citing all would fill a ballad ; 
 
 Which, to my taste, had overdone it. 
 
 But woman, bless her, ne'er declines 
 
 That dish, and seems to think you wrong her, 
 When once she tastes, unless she dines ; 
 
 My lady wanted more and stronger : — 
 " That's nice," she said, " but— fourteen lines !— 
 Why don't you make your sonnets longer? " 
 
I3 2 SONNETS. 
 
 MY LADY'S MOUTH. 
 
 HOW shall I praise my lady's mouth, 
 Whose beauty makes description vain ?- 
 Like perfume wafted o'er the main 
 
 To seamen toiling toward the south 
 
 Her warm breath is ; and like the drouth 
 Of parched throats that drink for rain 
 The salt sea water, is the pain 
 
 Her moist, sweet lip engendereth. 
 
 And that dear voice ! its notes might be' 
 
 As wine to what is worse than this — 
 My worn heart's thirst for sympathy. 
 
 And none could find the cure amiss ; 
 For any little word, to me, 
 
 Were dearer than the fondest kiss. 
 
SONNETS. 133 
 
 LOVE-LONGING. 
 
 (See D. G. Rossetti's beautiful sonnet, " Love-Sweetness.") 
 NOT that the fragrant shadow of her hair 
 
 Is on thy face, nor that her hands are wed 
 
 A tender lily wreath about thy head, 
 I'm envious ; nor that her features wear 
 
 The love her soft remembering sighs declare : 
 Not that her bosom's white is turned to red 
 Beneath thy lips which on her own had fed ; — 
 
 Not therefore ; no, my lady too is fair. 
 
 But because thou hast known that sweeter thing 
 
 For want of which my soul finds nothing sweet — 
 A listener to the song that it would sing. 
 
 Because thy spirit, when its pinions beat 
 The lonesome air " in cloud-girt wayfaring," 
 
 Feels "breath of kindred plumes against its feet." 
 
134 SONNETS. 
 
 WHILE yet a child, before the joys of spring 
 Had come and gone till all were known to me, 
 I set an orchard out with many a tree 
 
 Of goodly stock for plenteous harvesting. 
 
 And though the sweet birds came to light and sing, 
 It seemed the far-off day would never be ; 
 And, heedless of their note, impatiently 
 
 I waited for the time of fruit-bearing. 
 
 The time has come : the trees are now full-grown ; 
 
 And o'er my head their branches interlaced 
 Bear fruits of varied flavor, all my own. 
 
 But, nearly in my reach, I let them waste : 
 While, listening to the bees' unwearied drone, 
 I sit and muse, and hardly care to taste. 
 
SONNETS. 135 
 
 AMBITION. 
 
 HOW long ago it is since hope was mine : 
 How long ago since first it seemed to me 
 As if, at most, a few short years would see 
 
 The full accomplishment of my design. 
 
 Alas, 'twas ere that loveliest of the nine 
 
 Fair fickle daughters of Mnemosyne 
 
 Had made a mess of my virginity, 
 And cast me off, and left me to repine. 
 
 In those old times I dreamt my song must sway 
 
 The nations : — now, my life would not seem vain 
 If later (shaving, as I was to-day) 
 
 Some lathered lover of old rhyme should deign 
 To read my torn leaf twice ere cast away, 
 And with his razor dull forget the pain. 
 
12,6 SONNETS. 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 O SINGER of the summit and the sea, 
 O lover of the tempest, that divined 
 The language of the lightning and the wind, 
 
 Byron ! the very air is full of thee. 
 
 Thy song was of the mountains and the free 
 Far-rolling ocean, where thine ears could find 
 Relief from rattle of the chains that bind 
 
 The tortured spirit of humanity. 
 
 A forest is thy poem, where my soul 
 
 Roams on through tropic luxury to climb 
 The snow-clad glorious heights that top the whole. 
 
 But there be those that root amid the slime 
 For noxious weeds ; and when they find, extol 
 
 The little kitchen-gardeners of rhyme. 
 In view of the Villa Diodati, near Geneva. 
 
SONNETS. 137 
 
 CERVANTES. 
 
 THOU wast a poet after my own heart, 
 
 Cervantes. — When all Europe's hopes and fears 
 Followed Don Juan, yet a boy in years 
 
 Lepanto saw thee play the hero's part. 
 
 And when thy fortune led thee to this mart 
 Of Islam's foes, although a slave, the tears 
 Of twenty thousand captives in Algiers 
 
 Fell fewer for thy courage and thine art. 
 
 Ennobled by the hand that held the sword 
 
 With all the soldier's virtues, frank and free, 
 Thy pen spoke plain to rabble, priest and lord ; 
 
 Nor was the recompense refused to thee ; 
 For parasite and pander swelled the horde 
 
 That mocked thy wounds, thine age and poverty. 
 Algiers. 
 
138 SONNETS. 
 
 L'ORDRE MORAL. 
 
 "The Illustrious Marshal MacMahon, " "Loyal 
 Soldier," etc., etc. 
 
 (See the Bonapartist, Orleanist, or Legitimist, alias " Conservative," 
 newspapers of the day.) 
 
 O MEN of "moral order, " saviors, ye 
 That swell your praises like an empty bag, 
 Or breeches pocket that conserves a flag, 
 
 Who is this valiant pink of loyalty ? 
 
 O men of " moral order, " is it he, 
 
 Your baffled leaders took to help them gag 
 
 The mouth of France? of whom it was their brag 
 
 He'd play her false to serve your monarchy ? 
 
 O patriots of fame immaculate, 
 
 Is't he that when the nation asked for breath, 
 But when the Empire's cause grew desperate, 
 
SONNETS. 139 
 
 Risked all for Caesar's crown? (this Caesar saith,)* 
 And threw against the loaded dice of fate 
 
 When every scullion knew the choice was death ? 
 
 Paris, Feb. 15, 1876. 
 
 *See Louis Napoleon's letter to Sir John Burgoyne, after Sedan. 
 
140 SONNETS. 
 
 THE MARSHAL'S MANIFESTO. 
 
 (Free translation.) 
 
 FRENCHMEN ! The glorious Marshal-President, 
 Duke of Magenta, Reichshoffen, Sedan, 
 Et metres lieux, now bids you straightway scan 
 
 This manifesto and admonishment : — 
 
 Sacree canaille ! The deputies you sent 
 
 A year ago were nearly every man 
 
 Both unpapistic and republican, 
 An insult, damn it, to my government. 
 
 Now hear ! I've sent them back, and lest you grope 
 
 In ignorance of what your chiefs about, 
 I've chosen men (conjointly with the pope) 
 
 Imperio-royalist beyond a doubt. 
 If they're elected, as I truly hope, 
 
 All will be well ; but if they're not, look out ! 
 
 Sept., 1877. 
 
SONNETS. 141 
 
 THE MARSHAL'S RUBICON. 
 
 THIS is indeed a very funny man. 
 
 Because a gang of sharpers, priests and fools 
 That count on him to found three different rules 
 
 Have dubbed the numskull, " Hero of Sedan," 
 
 Our hen-pecked king-maker has changed his plan ; 
 And heedless of the world that ridicules, 
 He now would turn his masters into tools 
 
 To bridge a little private Rubicon. 
 
 A pretty thing in Caesars, by my soul ! — 
 
 Was it for this the nation purged her heart 
 Of that old longing for a chiefs control ? 
 
 Was it, her back still aching with the smart, 
 To take the lash from an inglorious drole ? 
 
 The Bastard's name at least was Bonaparte. 
 Sept., 1877. 
 
142 SONNETS. 
 
 ANOTHER "OFFENCE." 
 
 ANOTHER villanous " offence ! "— 
 
 A worthy holder of the crayon, 
 
 With laudable desire to play on 
 A cord that's now no longer tense, 
 
 Portrayed with due magnificence 
 Our glorious Marechal MacMahon 
 Upon the steed he rode the day on 
 
 Which he was hit by Providence. * 
 
 " My faith, a knowing eye ; yes, very, — 
 
 The horse," says one whose Journal ranks 
 Among the " reds ; " a commentary 
 
 *This wound in the hip was so opportune that it forced the 
 Marshal to quit his saddle just at the moment when things grew 
 desperate, and thus relieved him from the disagreeable duty of sign- 
 ing the Capitulation of Sedan. 
 
SONNETS. 143 
 
 Whose Machiavelian malice, thanks 
 To *Badinguet's Judiciary, 
 
 Has cost the wretch five hundred francs. 
 
 * Nickname of Napoleon III. 
 
144 SONNETS 
 
 MACMAHON SOLILOQUIZES. 
 
 "A PRETTY mess ! — They promised me last May 
 If I'd dissolve they'd run the thing in style, 
 And, damn it, now they've made me risk my pile, 
 I find the very rogues I sent away. 
 
 A coup tfetat would suit 'em, would it, eh? 
 
 Of course ; and how about the rank and file ? 
 
 There's old Dufaure,* I might try him a while, 
 But, Lord ! just think what Madam M. would say ! 
 
 What's to be done? — a.second dissolution ? 
 Why, all my foxy friend de Broglie's art 
 Can't make the Senate sanction this solution : 
 
 And then the deputies before they start 
 Must vote the budget — Hang their Constitution ! 
 
 I would to heaven I were Bonaparte." 
 
 Paris, Nov. 21, 1877. 
 
 * A very moderate republican who had already been the Marshal'* 
 prime-minister. 
 
SONNETS. 145 
 
 THE MARSHAL'S SECOND CAPITULATION. 
 
 (After the Elections.) 
 " THIS quarter of an hour, Rabelais,* 's thine. 
 That insubordinate rascallion Fate, 
 The Communist ! has said, ' Capitulate,' 
 And this time I myself shall have to sign. 
 
 Just think, the very Orleanists decline 
 
 To see me through ! the very men whose prate 
 About devotion brought me to the strait 
 
 I'm in. And now it's yield or else resign. 
 
 My motto's ' Here I am, and here I stay ; ' 
 
 But what a pity for a son of Mars 
 To smear his valiant nose in such a way. 
 
 Sedan was nothing to it ; this is farce, 
 
 And that was tragedy where one could play 
 
 At getting badly wounded in the hip." 
 Paris, Dec. 14, 1877. 
 
 * " Rabelais's quarter of an hour " is the time of reckoning. 
 
 10 
 
146 SONNETS. 
 
 THE MARSHAL'S "MINISTRY OF AFFAIRS." 
 
 (Impromptu upon hearing of the attempted coup cTetai.) 
 
 AH, traitor, that was what you called "Affairs," 
 Was it ? — Affairs in which the rue Montmartre 
 Has seen this Rochebouet, the hound, take part 
 
 Before, with grape and canister for wares. 
 
 Ah, " Loyal Soldier." — So my pink " that shares 
 The world's esteem," my "Bayard " tried to start 
 Un petit commerce a la Bonaparte ? — 
 
 I knew you, hypocrite, with all your airs. 
 
 You missed it, did you? Damn you, you forgot 
 
 That which the meanest soldier never can 
 Forget ; you thought that seven years could blot 
 
SONNETS. 147 
 
 Metz and Bazaine, MacMahon and Sedan. 
 Go hang, you scoundrel ! — Troops for such a plot ? 
 
 Marshals and generals, yes— but not a man. 
 Paris, Dec. 22, 1877. 
 
 The Cabinet of General Rochebouet, " without political bias," 
 was to devote itself to affairs and conciliation. As colonel of artil- 
 lery during the coup d'etat of 185 1, the general had qualified 
 himself for this mission by the massacres which took place in the 
 neighborhood of the rue Montmartre. 
 
148 SONNETS. 
 
 FRENCH FACTIONS IN 1877. 
 I. 
 
 IMPERIALISTS. 
 
 FIRST of the several factions on the list 
 Of those that seek to rule or ruin Gaul 
 (The only one with any chance at all), 
 
 I place the party called imperialist. 
 
 An eagle, that the physiognomist 
 
 Named vulture, once was emblematical 
 Of this odd lot ; but since Napoleon's fall, 
 
 A famished crow with carrion in his fist. 
 
 Their hope was, first to shake the nation's trust 
 In freedom by their schemes, and then to see 
 The people take a " savior " in disgust. 
 
 But this has failed ; and now they all agree 
 That friend MacMahon should use force, and miu 
 Or else they'll doubt his famous loyalty. 
 
SONNETS. 149 
 
 II. 
 
 ORLEANISTS. 
 
 NEXT come the Dukes and gentlemen of note 
 Who own allegiance to the county Paris ; 
 Great friends of liberty, whose constant care is 
 
 Never to let you know it by a vote. 
 
 Too weak to take the nation by the throat 
 
 Themselves (it's not that principles embarrass), 
 Their remedy if driven to despair is 
 
 To swallow Caesar as an antidote. 
 
 Believe it on this wise and save your soul : 
 
 Six days He labored, and it came to pass 
 That on the seventh, viewing o'er the whole, 
 
 He started with a— " Bless me, what an ass ! 
 Who's to keep all this rabble in control ? " 
 
 And next day made He the " directing class." 
 
150 SONNETS. 
 
 Ill: 
 
 LEGITIMISTS. 
 
 THIRD, and the least unworthy of the three, 
 
 We have the partisans of Henri Cinq ; 
 
 Marquis and dowagers made fit by rank 
 To rule the nation o'er a cup of tea. 
 
 Their honor, all Quixotic though it be, 
 
 Rings sound, as rang the answer firm and frank 
 When d' Orleans begged their king on bended shank 
 
 To smut the banner of the fleurs de lys. 
 
 But some whose sires bore cross beyond the sea 
 
 Envy the knights imperial their deeds 
 And long to turn chevaliers d* Industrie. 
 
 For them Amphitryon's the one that feeds 
 And Capet's scruple want of energy: — 
 
 " Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." 
 
SONNETS. 151 
 
 IV. 
 
 CLERICALS. 
 
 BACK in the dark behind the rest of these, 
 But leagued against the nation with them all, 
 The never-tiring party clerical 
 
 Works for the cause of Christ upon its knees. 
 
 It has for shield against its enemies 
 
 Night, and a sword that's dipped in zealot's gall ; 
 
 For only motto this one word, " enthrall ; " 
 For crest the crown of Pious with the Keys. 
 
 Its members priests or undeveloped spawn 
 
 Of priests, whose bloated, careless lips have blessed 
 Each tyrant that would deign to let them fawn. 
 
 Who fat their lecherous buttocks on the best 
 Of every land, and rule by right of brawn 
 
 Wherever woman loves to be confessed. 
 Paris, Dec, 1877. 
 
152 SONNETS. 
 
 THE SACRED HEART. 
 
 IN Paris on the hill they call Montmartre 
 They're putting up, by way of expiation 
 For all the sins of this most sinning nation, 
 
 A vast cathedral to the Sacred Heart : 
 
 That is, they want to, but it seems the start 
 Is hindered by an ancient excavation, 
 Wherein before beginning their foundation 
 
 Our friends have seen their dwindling funds depart. 
 
 Now Pious swears indulgences from Rome 
 
 Shall build the thing, or by his crown of glory 
 He'll starve the Devil out of house and home ; 
 
 And, estimating by the lower story, 
 It's reckoned that before they reach the dome 
 There'll not a soul be left in purgatory. 
 Paris, Nov., 1877. 
 
SONNETS. 153 
 
 SISTER SIMPLICE. 
 
 THROUGH Arden wood they came, each little pair 
 Prattling about the fun they'd had that day, 
 And toddling back reluctant from their play 
 
 To meet the vesper chimes that sought them there. 
 
 And at their head a novice young and fair, 
 Simplice, the teacher, meekly led the way ; 
 When sudden, bounding toward the helpless prey, 
 
 A dog came on, all foam, with eyes aglare. 
 
 "Run, run," she screamed; then knelt with arms 
 stretched wide 
 And caught the beast, and struggled till her cries 
 Brought help, and they were saved for whom she died. 
 
 Catholic martyr, when my soul denies g 
 Because of creed a saint so sanctified 
 
 May death in pity close my blinded eyes. 
 Paris, Dec, 1877. 
 
154 SONNETS. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF PIOUS IX. 
 
 AND so " thy hash is cooked," thou poor old man. 
 Well, many a worse than thou hath held the key, 
 And many worn the crown whose infamy 
 
 Had better graced the losing. Partisan 
 
 Of errors since condemned, thy reign began 
 Amid the shouts of them thy will made free ; 
 But not for long ; such schemes of liberty 
 
 Might suit Mastai, but not the Vatican. 
 
 No, and the change that made thy bounty wage 
 
 This war upon the times, and vilify 
 That which thine own heart held in appenage 
 
 But proves that faith and love have rent their tie. 
 Proves that faith, too, must soon, o'ercome with age, 
 
 Say " sono fritto," and lie down and die. 
 
 Paris, Feb. 8, 1878. 
 
 "During the night he took strong doses of quinine; he suffered 
 greatly and said: sono fritto (sic)." 
 
SONNETS. 155 
 
 ON THE REPUBLICAN GAINS IN THE 
 ELECTIONS OF MARCH, 1878. 
 
 THE deed is surely better than ye know. 
 
 This gradual awakening despite 
 
 The holy league of priest and parasite ; 
 This constancy through seven years that show 
 
 No faltering ; this steady progress, slow 
 But sure, toward the form that must unite 
 All France in one ; this thing shall give you might 
 
 To face for freedom's sake a different foe. 
 
 Already do the German and the Slave 
 
 Prepare; already haggle which shall trace 
 The boundary dividing what your race 
 
 May yet call home ; but this, if aught, shall save. 
 
 Be one, and when they come 'twill give you grace 
 To hurl them back or make your soil their grave. 
 
 Paris, March 4, 1878. 
 
156 SONNETS. 
 
 I WOULD to heaven I'd been born a priest. 
 
 No turnip-eating Trappist — they're a sham ; 
 
 But furnisher of sacerdotal balm 
 To something swell, a baroness at least. 
 
 How jolly it would be to share the feast, 
 And then retire at ease, — I worship calm, — 
 To conscientiously confess Madame, 
 
 With Monsieur mounting guard till one had ceased. 
 
 I always have admired the Roman way 
 
 Of keeping and extending domination : 
 In order to perpetuate their sway 
 
 And shape the youthful mind by education, 
 They gain the women — proof as clear as day 
 There's nothing like a priest for penetration. 
 
SONNETS. 157 
 
 I LOVED a dame of thirty years 
 Whose face and figure could defy 
 Suspicion of antiquity. 
 
 I loved her eyes, her nose, her ears, 
 
 I loved her smile, her frown, her tears 
 
 (She wept sometimes, the Lord knows why, 
 But then she'd only risk one eye) — 
 
 In fact, for love I'd no compeers. 
 
 To reach her heart in lovers' wise 
 With all the skill that I possess 
 I built a solid bridge of sighs ; 
 
 Which only led me to distress ! 
 For not a thing beneath the skies 
 
 Could enter but " that next new dress." 
 
158 SONNETS. 
 
 A L' OPERA. 
 
 I'VE sought them where the spring begets 
 The sweetest flowers that blow, 
 
 I've sought them by the rivulets 
 New-fed with alpine snow, 
 
 I've sought the little anchorets 
 
 In every land I know, 
 But such a bed of violets 
 
 Not one of them can show. 
 
 Where all eyes gloat 
 Without reserve, 
 The modest bouquet rests ; 
 
 Beneath thy proud imperial throat, 
 Beneath thy shoulders' ample curve, 
 Between thy perfect breasts. 
 
SONNETS. 159 
 
 THE MAN IN THE MOON. 
 
 FROM morn till night she worked away 
 Beside her bird on the window-sill, 
 And both together they sang with a will, 
 
 For April was changing into May. 
 
 And she had promised that every day 
 She'd save up all her extra sous 
 Till they had enough to go and choose 
 
 A sweet little wife for her bird so gay. 
 
 And she hurried her needle at such a rate 
 
 That, long before the first of June, 
 Her pretty companion had found a mate. 
 
 But the poor little girl grew thoughtful soon. 
 And she'd sit by her open window late 
 
 And gaze for hours at the man in the moon. 
 
i6o SONNETS. 
 
 BACKGROUNDS. 
 
 THE hangings of our cabinet were blue 
 
 At dinner, and each time she turned her head 
 She looked so fair, so perfect, that I said 
 
 For such a profile 'twas the only hue. 
 
 And when I said it, 'pon my soul 'twas true ! 
 But room and seat had changed as wooing sped, 
 And all through supper I was sure that red 
 
 Made far the better background of the two. 
 
 How mighty is the force of circumstance ! 
 
 It changeth good to bad, or dark to light, 
 And turneth wisdom into ignorance. 
 
 Why, that same evening, ere we said good-night, 
 I'd sworn if any color could enhance 
 The beauty of her features, it was white. 
 
SONNETS. l6l 
 
 A SKETCH. 
 
 TWO children talking by a balustrade : 
 Below upon the walk, outside the stair, 
 All summer-white, with massy raven hair 
 
 Falling in curls, a languid, lisping maid 
 
 Unleaves a rose. Her shoulders' curve has laid 
 The bosom's rich warm dusky promise bare, 
 But this she knows not, while her black eyes stare 
 
 At nothing, hardly heeding what is said. 
 
 Three steps above a blue-eyed, earnest boy 
 
 Leans over on the ample stone at ease, 
 With every feature beaming new-felt joy. 
 
 And fearful lest the transient vision cease, 
 He lengthens with the license bards employ 
 The story of the famed Hesperides. 
 
1 62 SONNETS. 
 
 A SWISS SCENE. 
 
 HOW sweet it is to linger all alone 
 
 Beside the shore, while summer skies are bright, 
 And watch the little boats with steady flight 
 
 Follow the wind toward the setting sun. 
 
 Their painted sails the last ray falls upon 
 
 Spread wing-and-wing, and, wonderfully white, 
 Seem really wings of birds about to light 
 
 Upon the water when their day is done. 
 
 They come to me out of the distant haze 
 A scattered fleet before a gentle wind, 
 Laden with precious thoughts of other days ; 
 
 And just as when I watched them from behind 
 At starting, when they took their different ways 
 
 New-painted on my nursery window-blind. 
 Near Geneva. 
 
SONNETS. 163 
 
 TO 
 
 THOU oft hast told me how, when night 
 Had blent the garden's wealth of green, 
 And high o'er Leman's wave serene 
 
 The moonbeam tipped the mountain height. 
 
 From yonder window, robed in white, 
 Thou'dst gaze as on a u fairy scene," 
 While gentle music bade thee glean 
 
 Thy sweet heart's fill of calm delight:— 
 
 The full moon shines across the lake ; 
 
 I hear a soft Italian air; 
 The little ripples hardly break ; 
 
 And all as then is passing fair — 
 But thou art gone ! and these but wake 
 The dreamy echoes of despair. 
 
1 64 SONNETS. 
 
 "La blessure gu'erit, mats la ??iarque reste." 
 
 Rousseau, Nouvelle Heloise. 
 
 HAIL. Leman ! once again I rest 
 
 Beside thy waters, fairest lake, 
 
 And in their liquid azure slake 
 The burning thirst that sears my breast. 
 
 O now, where all thy banks are blest 
 With Julie's love, for Julie's sake 
 Remember all my wrongs, and break 
 
 The spell by which my soul's oppressed. 
 
 By Clarens's shades that veiled a love 
 Profounder than the depths of thee, 
 And purer than the snows above, — 
 
 And by the rocks of Meillerie, — 
 O send the heart I'm worthy of 
 To cast this passion out of me ! 
 
 
SONNETS. 165 
 
 " THEIR faith may be groundless I grant, but if those 
 Who believe are made happy, if trusting they find 
 That life's burden grows lighter to bear, is it kind 
 
 To deprive them of all the relief it bestows? 
 
 Why teach them a truth that must add to their woes ? 
 Would you tell of the storm to the deaf and the 
 
 blind ? 
 If the flash of the lightning and howl of the wind 
 Were unnoticed, unknown, would you break their 
 repose ? ' ' 
 
 Well said ; if they can, let them slumber, but pray, 
 
 Is it our fault they hear us? must we that have eyes 
 Lie still lest our feet wake the blind on the way? 
 
 Are we to be blamed for the light in the skies 
 If, seeing the dawn, we prepare for the day ? 
 Go talk to the sun and forbid it to rise. 
 
1 66 SONNETS. 
 
 A FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 " A FUTURE LIFE? " I hate the very sound. 
 Does man so feel for man, is earth so warm 
 With love in all its workings multiform 
 That we must turn away and cast around 
 
 For worlds to vent it on ? Hath reason found 
 A remedy against the dismal swarm 
 Of Nature's ills, — the pestilence, — the storm. 
 
 That it must seek a task beyond her bound ? 
 
 Be thine this life, and whether prose or rhyme 
 Live it, and leave the next, if next there be, 
 To those unfortunates who make a crime 
 
 Of all that's love and joy and sympathy, 
 And like a cock-roach on the brink of time, 
 Go wag their feelers at eternity. 
 
SONNETS. 167 
 
 THE sweetest visions haunt me ever 
 
 When no word's nigh ; 
 The fairest thought escapes endeavor, 
 
 Born but to die. 
 
 Like hearts the weary wide waves sever, 
 
 That ache and sigh, 
 So yearn my thought and word, but never 
 
 Find wings to fly. 
 
 Yon birds that keep the wild wood ringing 
 
 All day long, 
 Are joyous, each emotion bringing 
 
 Notes as strong. 
 Ah, would that I had voice for singing 
 My whole soul's song. 
 
1 68 SONNETS. 
 
 MY PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 I SAW good men at strife because a creed 
 
 That half held sacred half had learned to shun ; 
 And while their bodies rotted in the sun 
 
 I thought ; — I thought of all the strength we need 
 
 To war with nature ; — how men's interests, freed 
 From misconception, still must ever run 
 Athwart ; and ere my pondering was done 
 
 I heard from lips of wounds that seemed to plead, — 
 
 " Teach fact and judge not. Let the world have light. 
 
 Show all to all, that all men's eyes may see 
 The best and worst ; that stamped on all men's sight, 
 
 Some sharp, some dull, the selfsame star may be 
 The guide for all. Facts and not creeds unite." — 
 Which forms the whole of my philosophy. 
 
SONNETS. 169 
 
 EMANCIPATION. 
 
 YEA, truly 'twas a glorious thing to set 
 
 The black man free ; but was it worth the war 
 That forty millions might change place with four ? 
 
 Was't worth the unnumbered dead, the countless debt, 
 
 The long-enduring enmity which yet 
 
 Divides the land, that half a hundred score 
 Of demagogues might own us ? might restore 
 
 The yoke for us, and laugh to see us sweat ? 
 
 Where are the poets, statesmen, warriors brave, 
 
 Who sang and worked and fought till the disgrace 
 Of negro servitude had found a grave ? 
 
 Are all the champions of a downtrod race, 
 Who howled for freedom when the black was slave, 
 Dead ? Or has every living man a place ? 
 July, 1S78. 
 
170 SONNETS. 
 
 ioo° IN THE SHADE. 
 
 'TWAS August on the banks of Delaware, 
 And in his bed a hardened sinner lay ; 
 While, anxious for the soul that ebbed away, 
 
 A village pastor called the man to prayer. 
 
 'Twas August ; not a single breath of air 
 Disturbed the glorious sun's prolific ray, 
 And o'er the buzzing of the flies at play 
 
 A weak voice answered thus, no words to spare, — 
 
 " Hell? Do you think that I'm afraid of hell? 
 Haven't I fanned all seasons, wet and dry, 
 For forty year ? Has any heated spell 
 
 Set me to growling about this here sky ? ' ' 
 The good man owned he'd born the climate well ; 
 " Then go 'way, parson, I'm prepared to die." 
 
SONNETS. 1 7 
 
 MIDSUMMER. 
 
 HOW sweet to listen to the dove 
 When all the rest forget to sing, 
 And watch the swallows wantoning, 
 
 And butterflies the gold whereof 
 
 Comes sinking through the skies above 
 Like feathers from an angel's wing. 
 What comfort in the proof they bring 
 
 Of perfect wisdom, perfect love. 
 
 Why is it when the heart is stirred 
 To praise of Him who rules on high, 
 Of Him who made our earth and sky 
 
 From nothing with a single word, 
 Why is it that the little bird 
 Will eat the butterfly ? 
 
172 SONNETS. 
 
 A PARABLE. 
 
 A CERTAIN farm had long been deemed the best 
 Of all the country round ; but war, neglect, 
 And folly joining, fields that once were decked 
 
 With plenty turned to swamp where vile weeds pressed. 
 
 And they were many brothers who possessed ; 
 
 With minds like many ways that intersect ; 
 
 All one in will to mend the fortune wrecked, 
 But differing each from all in all the rest. 
 
 Some simply wished to root away the weeds; 
 
 Some counselled prayer, and others counselled spo.l ; 
 Some sought the prophets of the new-born creeds ; 
 
 And one there was for management and toil, 
 Till choice of varied crops and different seeds, 
 With time and culture, should renew the soil. 
 
 Aug., 1S7S. 
 
SONNETS. 173 
 
 TO J. R. LOWELL. 
 
 PARDON the freedom of a friend unknown ; 
 
 Nor wonder even I usurp the name ; 
 
 For he who soweth on the winds of fame, 
 As thou hast done, must reap what he hath sown. 
 
 I love thee, for thy sins are like my own : 
 I love thee, for thy burning lines proclaim 
 Thee too a traitor to thy country's shame, 
 
 And loyal to the right, and right alone. 
 
 O veteran, comrade of the few that stand 
 
 Where all the present and the past combine 
 To light the future, tell us, hath the land 
 
 Lost truth forever? Some whose faith like thine 
 Would more than worship, seek from strand to strand, 
 But where an altar stood is now a shrine. 
 Aug. 5, 1878. 
 
174 SONNETS. 
 
 UPON READING THE FOLLOWING SONNET 
 BY MR. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 " ONCE upon Iceland's solitary strand 
 
 A poet wandered with his book and pen, 
 Seeking some final word, some sweet Amen, 
 Wherewith to close the volume in his hand. 
 The billows rolled and plunged upon the sand, 
 The circling seagulls swept beyond his ken, 
 And from the parting cloudrack now and then 
 Flashed the red sunset over sea and land. 
 Then by the billows at his feet was tossed 
 A broken oar ; and carved thereon he read, 
 ' Oft was I weary when I toiled at thee ; ' 
 And like a man who findeth what was lost 
 He wrote the words, then lifted up his head 
 And flung his useless pen into the sea." 
 
SONNETS. 175 
 
 BUT one (the least of those that loved his song, 
 And sought the secret of its melody), 
 With still-admiring reverence for plea, 
 
 Afar, unseen, had tracked his steps along : 
 
 Who, witness of the ill -deserved wrong, 
 
 Approaching, caught the pen from out the sea, 
 And, brushing off the foam, beseechingly 
 
 Offered it back, with words that love made strong. 
 
 " Master, I speak who fitly should obey : 
 
 For all thy lessons let me teach thee one, 
 Taught by thyself although forgot to-day ; — 
 
 While light remains the task is never done. 
 ' Morning and fervid noon have passed away ? ' 
 
 Behold the beauty of the setting sun." 
 Aug. 11, 1878. 
 
I7 6 SONNETS. 
 
 THE WRITING OF THE ILIAD. 
 
 NO longer did the Pride of Ilion wait, 
 But fled before the friend of him laid low ; 
 And swifter than a hound that hunts the roe, 
 
 Achilles followed on the wings of hate. 
 
 Twice had they passed the close-shut Scsean gate, 
 And twice the springs that feed Scamander's flow 
 (One warm that fumes, and one like melted snow), 
 
 When came a clash that stayed impending fate. 
 
 The poet, wincing, urged the race anew, 
 
 But bound as in a dream by sudden spell, 
 The Trojan stopped, nor could the Greek pursue. 
 
 Then once again clanged out the horrid knell ; 
 And driving every vision from his view, 
 
 Came : " Ho — mer, don't you hear the dinner-bell? ,: 
 
SONNETS. 177 
 
 A "WATERSCAPE." 
 
 THE French fought hard, the British fleet 
 Had quite as much as it could do, 
 With each ship one or even two 
 
 Tough customers that meant to beat. 
 
 'Twas then his captain all replete 
 With classic knowledge (this is true) 
 At admiral, I wont say who, 
 
 Got off a speech as apt as neat. 
 
 " Now Victory stands clothed in doubt, 
 
 While o'er Patroclus Greeks and Trojans 
 Strain with sharp clash and horrid shout ! ' ' 
 
 And then was heard 'twixt two explosions 
 " I've something else to think about ; 
 
 G — d — your Greeks and Trojans ! " 
 
178 SONNETS. 
 
 SPIRITISM. 
 
 I DEDICATE these lines to spiritism ; 
 
 The real religio-philosophical. 
 
 Kind reader, if you've ever had the — gale 
 You'll know my feelings toward this Yankee schism. 
 
 I've not had either, but my catechism 
 
 Was just the thing to fill a hospital ; 
 
 Thank fate, mine alimentary canal 
 Was coated with a layer of " egotism." 
 
 I've suffered though ; I've suffered till the name 
 
 Is one with discord. Really something ought 
 
 To rise and answer their eternal pow-wows, 
 
 If only by its being to proclaim 
 
 A future life and show that not for naught 
 I damn them to the everlasting bow-wows. 
 
SONNETS. 179 
 
 WELL, well, I've lost my heart again to-day ! 
 I wonder if that pretty little thing 
 Who came for chestnuts thought of rummaging 
 
 Among the basketful she took away. 
 
 She made me think of when I used to play 
 With just such girls, as happy as a king. 
 Her voice was like the birds' that used to sing 
 
 Years, years ago ; and then so much to say. 
 
 The dogs had killed a rabbit — " what a shame ! " — 
 
 Spelling she liked but not geography. — 
 Such lots of fun as soon as winter came. 
 
 That hurricane blew down an apple tree. — 
 Bran-bread anpl sugar pleased their horse : his name 
 Was like the man's. — Not ten yet : soon should be. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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