&?»* 
 
LIBRAP OF CONGRESS. 
 
 ls-Ts 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
ODDS AND ENDS 
 
 Verses Humorous, Occasional, and 
 Miscellaneous. 
 
 BY 
 
 
 HENRY A. BEERS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
 
 Wqz ftitafoe Press, (Eamimtige. 
 1878. 
 
Copyright, 1878, 
 By HENRY A. BEERS. 
 
^ 
 
 To 
 
 THE CLASS OF 1869 
 
 THESE SLIGHT REMINDERS OF OUR COLLEGE LIFE ARE 
 
 ^ffectfonatelg Knscrfbeti. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The verses in this little volume were written 
 during a residence at Yale College, first as under- 
 graduate and afterwards as tutor. Those in the 
 earlier division of the book sprang more or less 
 directly from the experiences of college life; the 
 remainder are more miscellaneous in character. 
 
 Some have been printed in different periodicals, 
 and others have remained until now in manuscript. 
 The fact that a number of the former were rather 
 widely copied about through the newspapers, has 
 prompted the hope that a collection of such might 
 not be entirely without interest for the general 
 reader. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 It may be right to add, that at least half the 
 
 pieces here included can lay claim to whatever 
 
 indulgence, if any, is usually given to juvenilia, or 
 
 the work of writers under age. 
 
 H. A..B. 
 
 New Haven, April, 1878. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE THIMBLE ISLANDS. 
 
 i. High Island n 
 
 2. Lotus Eating ....... 13 
 
 3. The Mermaid's Glass 15 
 
 HUMOROUS AND OCCASIONAL PIECES. 
 
 Ballads. 
 
 The Darke Lad ye 23 
 
 Ye Laye of ye Woodpeckore ... 26 
 
 A Merry Ballad of Three Sophomores and 
 
 a Toll- woman 31 
 
 Fly Leaves from Arnold's Latin Prose Composi- 
 tion. 
 
 1. In Latin Prose Recitation . . . .36 
 
 2. A Fish Story 38 
 
 3. Schoolmaster Dick ... . . 40 
 
 4. The Restlessness of the Fig-horse . . 42 
 
 5. The Unpsychological Baby . . . -44 
 
 6. Threnody on Three Worthy Characters 45 
 
 7. Pride goeth before a Fall . . . -47 
 
 A Holiday Eclogue 48 
 
 A Shades 51 
 
 Ad Iulum Antonium 53 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Memory 57 
 
 Presentation Day, 1868 and 1869 59 
 
 Ivy Ode, 1869 60 
 
 The New Yale, 1871 61 
 
 Triennial Pome, 1872 63 
 
 Poetical Epistle to J. Horne .... 69 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
 Spirit Lake 73 
 
 The Rise of Aphrodite 76 
 
 Water Lilies at Sunset ... -78 
 
 Anacreontic . 80 
 
 A Vacation Reverie 82 
 
 Bumble Bee . • ^3 
 
 Ad Fontem Bandusle 85 
 
 Ad Ministrum 86 
 
 Sixpence for a Kiss 87 
 
 Psyche . . . 88 
 
 Between the Flowers 89 
 
 On a Miniature 93 
 
 Im Schwarzwald 95 
 
 Katy Did 97 
 
 As You Like It 99 
 
 Narcissus . 102 
 
 Carcamon 104 
 
 Amethysts 109 
 
 Sonnet 11 1 
 
 Beaver Pond Meadow 112 
 
 Posthumous 116 
 
 Jeanne Darc 118 
 
 The Last of his People 124 
 
THE THIMBLE ISLANDS. 
 
ODDS AND ENDS. 
 
 HIGH ISLAND. 
 
 Pleasant it was at shut of day, 
 When wind and wave had sunk away, 
 To hear, as on the rocks we lay, 
 
 The fog bell toll ; 
 And grimly through the gathering night 
 The horn's dull blare from Faulkner's Light, 
 Snuffed out by ghostly fingers white 
 
 That round it stole. 
 
 Somewhere behind its curtain, soon 
 The mist grew conscious of a moon : 
 No more we heard the diving loon 
 
 Scream from the spray ; 
 But seated round our drift-wood fire 
 Watched the red sparks rise higher and higher, 
 Then, wandering into night, expire 
 
 And pass away. 
 
12 HIGH ISLAND. 
 
 Down the dark wood, the pines among, 
 A lurid glare the firelight flung; 
 So for a while we talked and sung, 
 
 And then to sleep \ 
 And heard in dreams the light-house bell, 
 As all night long in solemn swell 
 The tidal waters rose and fell 
 
 With soundings deep. 
 
LOTUS EATING. 
 
 Come up once more before mine eyes, 
 
 Sweet halcyon days, warm summer sea, 
 Faint orange of the morning skies 
 
 And dark-lined shores upon the lee ! 
 Touched with the sunrise, sea and sky 
 All still on Memory's canvas lie : 
 The scattered isles with India ink 
 Dot the wide back-ground's gold and pink 
 Unstirring in the Sunday calm, 
 
 Their profile cedars sharply drawn, 
 Bold black against the flushing dawn, 
 Take shape like clumps of tropic palm, 
 Night shadows still the distance dim 
 (Ultra-marine) where ocean's brim 
 Upholdeth the horizon-rim. 
 
 Once more in thought we seem to creep 
 By lonely reefs where sea-birds scream, 
 
 Ulysses-like, along the deep 
 
 Borne onward in the ocean-stream. 
 
14 LOTUS EATING. 
 
 The sea-floor spreadeth glassy still ; 
 No breath the idle sail doth fill ; 
 Our oar-blades smite the heavy seas; 
 Under the world the morning breeze 
 Treads with the sun the unknown ways. 
 
 Thus steer we o'er the solemn main 
 
 Eating the Lotus-fruit again, 
 Dreaming that time forever stays, 
 Singing " Where, Absence, is thy sting ! " 
 Listening to hear our echoes ring 
 Through the far rocks where Sirens sing. 
 
THE MERMAID'S GLASS. 
 
 'T was down among the Thimble Isles, 
 That strew for many " liquid miles " 
 The waters of Long Island Sound : 
 Our yacht lay in a cove ; around 
 The rocky isles with cedars green 
 And channels winding in between : 
 And here a low, black reef was spread, 
 And there a sunken " nigger-head " 
 Dimpled the surface of the tide. 
 From one tall island's cliffy side 
 We heard the shaggy goats that fed : 
 The gulls wheeled screaming overhead 
 Or settled in a snowy flock 
 Far out upon the lonely rock 
 Which, like a pillar, seemed to show 
 Some drowned acrojDolis below. 
 Meanwhile, in the warm sea about, 
 With many a plunge and jolly shout, 
 Our crew enjoyed their morning bath. 
 The hairy skipper in his wrath 
 
1 6 THE MERMAID'S GLASS. 
 
 Lay cursing on the gunwale's rim : 
 He loved a dip but could not swim ; 
 So, now and then with plank afloat 
 He 'd struggle feebly round the boat 
 And o'er the side climb puffing in, 
 Scraping wide areas off his skin, 
 Then lie and sun each hirsute limb 
 Once more upon the gunwale's rim 
 And shout, with curses unavailing, 
 " Come out ! There 's wind : let 's do some sail- 
 ing." 
 A palm-leaf hat, that here and there 
 Bobbed on the water, showed him where 
 Some venturous swimmer outward bound 
 Escaped beyond his voice's sound. 
 All heedless of their skipper's call, 
 One group fought for the upset yawl. 
 The conqueror sat astride the keel 
 And deftly pounded with his heel 
 The hands that clutched his citadel, 
 Which showed — at distance — like the shell 
 Round which, unseen, the Naiad train 
 Sport naked on the middle main. 
 Myself had drifted far away, 
 Meanwhile, from where the sail-boat lay, 
 Till all unbroken I could hear 
 The wave's low whisper in my ear, 
 
THE MERM AID'S GLASS. IJ 
 
 And at the level of mine eye 
 
 The blue vibration met the sky. 
 
 Sometimes upon my back I lay 
 
 And watched the clouds, while I and they 
 
 Were wafted effortless along. — 
 
 Sudden I seemed to hear a song : 
 
 Yet not a song, but some weird strain . 
 
 As though the inarticulate main 
 
 Had found a voice whose human tone 
 
 Interpreted its own dull moan; 
 
 Its foamy hiss; its surfy roar; 
 
 Its gentle lapping on the shore ; 
 
 Its noise of subterranean waves 
 
 That grumble in the sea-cliff caves ; 
 
 Its whish among the drifting miles 
 
 Of gulf-wind from the Indian Isles : — 
 
 All — all the harmonies were there 
 
 Which ocean makes with earth or air. 
 
 Turning I saw a sunken ledge 
 
 Bared by the ebb, along whose edge 
 
 The matted sea-weed dripped : thereon, 
 
 Betwixt the dazzle of the sun 
 
 And the blue shimmer of the sea, 
 
 I saw — or else I seemed to see 
 
 A mermaid, crooning a wild song, 
 
 Combing with arm uplifted long 
 
i8 THE MERMAID'S GLASS. 
 
 The hair that shed its meshes black 
 Down the slope whiteness of her back. 
 She held a mirror in her hand, 
 Wherein she viewed sky, sea, and land, 
 Her beauty's background and its frame. 
 But now, as toward the rock I came, 
 All suddenly across the glass 
 Some startling image seemed to pass ; 
 For her song rose into a scream, 
 Over her shoulders one swift gleam 
 Of eyes unearthly fell on me, 
 And, 'twixt the flashing of the sea 
 And the blind dazzle of the sun, 
 I saw the rock, but thereupon 
 She sat no longer 'gainst the blue ; 
 Only across the reef there flew 
 One snow-white tern and vanished too. 
 But, coasting that lone island round, 
 Among the slippery kelp I found 
 A little oval glass that lay 
 Upturned and flashing in the ray 
 Of the down-looking sun. Thereto 
 With scarce believing eyes I drew 
 And took it captive. 
 
 A while there 
 I rested in the mermaid's lair, 
 
THE MERMAID'S GLASS. 1 9 
 
 And felt the merry breeze that blew, 
 
 And watched the sharpies as they flew, 
 
 And snuffed the sea's breath thick with brine, 
 
 And basked me in the sun's warm shine ; 
 
 Then with my prize I made my way 
 
 Once more to where the sail-boat lay. 
 
 I kept the secret — and the glass ; 
 
 By day across its surface pass 
 
 The transient shapes of common things 
 
 Which chance within its oval brings. 
 
 But when at night I strive to sound 
 
 The darkness of its face profound, 
 
 Again I seem to hear the breeze 
 
 That curls the waves on summer seas • 
 
 I see the isles with cedars green \ 
 
 The channels winding in between ; 
 
 The coves with beaches of white sand ; 
 
 The reefs where warning spindles stand; 
 
 And, through the multitudinous shimmer 
 
 Of waves and sun, again the glimmer 
 
 Of eyes unearthly falls on me, 
 
 Deep with the mystery of the sea. 
 
HUMOROUS AND OCCASIONAL 
 PIECES. 
 
THE DARKE LAD YE. 
 
 A shadow haunts about my door, 
 
 In midnight dreams I see 
 An Af rite-woman pace the floor : — 
 
 It is the Darke Ladye ! 
 
 Of mournful sable is her robe : 
 Her eyes like waves are rolled 
 
 Full whitely; from her ear's black lobe 
 Hangs down the red, red gold. 
 
 The clothe-basket is in her hand, 
 
 The tear is in her e'e : 
 Her children two behind her stand 
 
 While speaks the Darke Ladye : 
 
 " Full thrice with round, vermilion face 
 Behind the cedars black, 
 The moon hath risen in her place 
 On broad Quinnipiac. 
 
 " Full fourscore dawns have streaked the bay 
 Since thou, upon thy knee, 
 
24 THE DARKE LAD YE. 
 
 Didst vow the red, red gold to pay 
 Unto the Darke Ladye. 
 
 " I washed "from soil and inky blots, 
 Thy cuffs and eke thy shirt ; 
 The ^Ethiop changed another's spots 
 And cleansed the stranger's dirt. 
 
 " And though thy stains as scarlet were, 
 With blood of strawberry, 
 All snowy grew each handkercher 
 Before the Darke Ladye. 
 
 "But now, my hearth is desolate 
 And on the Elm Street shore, 
 The brooms are still ; my dusky mate 
 Shall beat the rug no more. 
 
 "Look on these cherubs, short but sweet; 
 How hangs each curly head ! 
 Their eyes are dim with tears; they eat 
 The orphan's gingerbread. 
 
 " The while thou smok'st the costly weed, 
 (I see one on thy shelf) 
 Thou makest widows' hearts to bleed 
 Withholding of thy pelf. 
 
THE DARKE LAD YE. 2$ 
 
 False caitiff ! didst thou not declare 
 
 A check was on the way 
 From thy far boyhood's home, and swear 
 
 To pay me yesterday ? 
 
 Henceforth no soap thy sheets shall know, 
 
 No starch thy limp wrist-band, 
 And dirty towels in a row 
 
 Shall hang on thy wash-stand." 
 
 She 's gone, the door behind her slams ; 
 
 Her feet descend the stair, 
 And I with sulphurous loud damns 
 
 Disturb the upper air. 
 
 She comes at morn and dewy eve, 
 
 She comes just after tea, 
 To stand beside my door and grieve, 
 
 That dismal Darke Ladye. 
 
 Thrice have I sent her small, small bill 
 
 For my dear Pa to see. 
 Some happy chance bring back his check 
 
 To quit the Darke Ladye. 
 
YE LAYE OF YE WOODPECKORE. 
 
 PICUS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 
 
 O whither goest thou, pale student 
 
 Within the wood so fur? 
 Art on the chokesome cherry bent? 
 
 Dost seek the chestnut burr? 
 
 PALE STUDENT. 
 
 O it is not for the mellow chestnut 
 
 That I so far am come, 
 Nor yet for puckery cherries, but 
 
 For Cypripediiim. 
 
 A blossom hangs the choke-cherry 
 
 And eke the chestnut burr, 
 And thou a silly fowl must be, 
 
 Thou red-head wood-pecker. 
 
 PICUS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 
 
 Turn back, turn back, thou pale student, 
 
 Nor in the forest go; 
 There lurks beneath his bosky tent 
 
 The deadly mosquito, 
 
YE LA YE OF YE WOODPECKORE. 2J 
 
 And there the wooden-chuck doth tread, 
 
 And from the oak-tree's top 
 The red, red squirrels on thy head 
 
 The frequent acorn drop. 
 
 PALE STUDENT. 
 
 The wooden-chuck is next of kin 
 
 Unto the wood-pecker: 
 I fear not thine ill-boding din, 
 
 And why should I fear her? 
 
 What though a score of acorns drop 
 
 And squirrels' fur be red ! 
 'Tis not so ruddy as thy top — 
 
 So scarlet as thy head. 
 
 O rarely blooms the Cypripe- 
 
 dium upon its stalk ; 
 And like a torch it shines to me 
 
 Adown the dark wood-walk. 
 
 O joy to pluck it from the ground, 
 
 To view the purple sac, 
 To touch the sessile stigma's round — 
 
 And shall I then turn back? 
 
28 YE LA YE OF YE WOODPECKORE. 
 
 PICUS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 
 
 black and shining is the bog 
 That feeds the sumptuous weed, 
 
 Nor stone is found nor bedded log 
 Where foot may well proceed. 
 
 Midmost it glimmers in the mire 
 Like Jack o' Lanthorn's spark, 
 
 Lighting with phosphorescent fire 
 The green umbrageous dark. 
 
 There while thy thirsty glances drink 
 
 The fair and baneful plant, 
 Thy shoon within the ooze shall sink 
 
 And eke thine either pant. 
 
 PALE STUDENT. 
 
 Give o'er, give o'er, thou wood-peckore ; 
 
 The bark upon the tree 
 Thou, at thy will, mayst peck and bore, 
 
 But peck and bore not me. 
 
 Full two long hours I 've searched about 
 And 'twould in sooth be rum, 
 
 If I should now go back without 
 The Cypripediiim. 
 
YE LA YE OF YE WOODPECKORE. 29 
 
 PICUS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 
 
 Farewell ! Farewell ! But this I tell 
 
 To thee, thou pale student, 
 Ere dews have fell, thou 'It rue it well 
 
 That woodward thou didst went: 
 
 Then whilst thou blows the drooping nose 
 
 And wip'st the pensive eye — 
 There where the sad Symplocarpus f&tidics 
 grows, 
 
 Then think — O think of I ! 
 
 Loud flouted there that student wight 
 Swich warnynge for to hear; 
 " I scorn, old hen, thy threats of might, 
 And eke thine ill grammere. 
 
 "Go peck the lice (or green or red) 
 That swarm the bass-wood tree. 
 But wag no more thine addled head 
 Nor clack thy tongue at me." 
 
 The wood-peck turned to whet her beak, 
 
 The student heard her drum, 
 As through the wood he went to seek 
 The Cypripedium. 
 
30 YE LAYE OF YE W00DPECK0RE. 
 
 Alas ! and for that pale student : 
 
 The evening bell did ring, 
 And down the walk the Freshmen went 
 
 Unto the prayer-meetfng ; 
 
 Upon the fence loud rose the song, 
 The weak, weak tea was o'er — 
 
 Ha ! who is he that sneaks along 
 Into South Middle's door? 
 
 The mud was on his shoon, and O ! 
 
 The briar was in his thumb, 
 His staff was in his hand, but no — 
 
 No Cypripedium. 
 
A MERRY BALLAD OF THREE SOPHO- 
 MORES AND A TOLL-WOMAN. 
 
 It is a lordly sophomore, 
 
 The thirstiest one of three, 
 And he hath stopped at the toll- house door 
 
 All under the greenwood tree. 
 
 "Come hither, come hither, my merrymen both 
 And stand on either side : 
 What see ye on the toll-house wall 
 By the toll-house door so wide?" 
 
 They ha' lookit north — they ha' lookit south - 
 
 They ha' lookit aboon the sky : 
 Then up and spake the first merryman 
 
 And thus he made reply : — 
 
 "I ha' lookit north — I ha' lookit south — 
 I ha' lookit aboon the sky, 
 Yet I see naught on the toll-house wall 
 Or the toll-house door thereby." 
 
32 A MERRY BALLAD. 
 
 Then up and spake the next merryman 
 
 With " Alack and woe betide ! 
 For I've left my glass on the green, green grass 
 
 All by the burnie's side. 
 
 " So though I look north and though I look south, 
 And though I look straight before, 
 I see nothing at all on the toll-house wall 
 Nor yet on the toll-house door." 
 
 " Now shame ! now shame ! my merrymen both, 
 For see ye not written here 
 These words that tell of cakes to sell, 
 And eke of the small, small beer? 
 
 " ' I have never a penny left in my purse — 
 Never a penny but three, 
 And one is brass and another is lead, 
 And another is white money.' 
 
 " But haud out your pouches o' gude green silk. 
 Or the skin of the red deer fleet, 
 And we'se tak' a draught of the wee sma' beer 
 And a bite of the seed-cake sweet." 
 
 He hadna rapped a rap, a rap, — 
 A rap but only three. 
 
A MERRY BALLAD. 33 
 
 When out and came the toll-house dame, 
 Was a grisly wight to see. 
 
 Her cheek was yellow, her throat was lean, 
 Her eyes " baith blear and blin' : " 
 
 No Soph hath half the beard, I ween, 
 That flourished on her chin. 
 
 " A boon ! A boon ! thou toll-woman, 
 A boon thous'e give to me, 
 For a thirstier soul than I am one 
 Lives not in Christiante. 
 
 " I 've swallowed the sassafras in the wood 
 And the dust on the king's highway, 
 And the sorrel that grows on the sandy bank, 
 Till my throat is as dry as hay." 
 
 " O seek ye of the red, red wine, 
 Or seek ye of the white, 
 To moisten your dainty clay withal, 
 
 And your whistles both shrill and slight ? " 
 
 "We seek not of the red, red wine — 
 We seek not of the white : 
 3 
 
34 A MERRY BALLAD. 
 
 We seek but a draught of the small, small beer, 
 Of the seecl-cake only a bite." 
 
 "Then show me the red, red gold," quo' she, 
 " And show me the silver fine, 
 And show me a roll of the green, green back, 
 Or you 'se get no beer of mine." 
 
 Then up and spake the first merryman, — 
 By several saints he swore ; — 
 " I have but an Index-check * in my pouch, 
 And the devil a penny more." 
 
 Then up and spake the next merryman — 
 
 " And I 've but a soda-ticket, 
 And a crumpled two-cent revenue stamp 
 
 With no gum-stickum to stick it." 
 
 " Aroint ! — Aroint ! ye beggarly loons, 
 From under my threshold tree ! 
 W T hat good to me is a revenue stamp 
 Or an Index-check perdy? 
 
 1 Entitling the holder to one hidex to the Yale Literary Magazine, 
 prepared by "the busy L. H. B." These checks were thrown on the 
 market in great numbers, and rapidly depreciated, causing a panic in 
 the class only equalled by the similar distress produced by the famous 
 " Finley Issue " in the class of '66. 
 
A MERRY BALLAD. 35 
 
 " A soda ticket ? A soda fiddle- 
 Stick ! Pesky belly-wash ! 
 Them folks as like it may swill sich fizz, 
 In their stomachs to rumble and swash : 
 
 " But as for me, I '11 stick to my cider, 
 And eke to the small, small beer, 
 And sell it to them as have money to pay ; 
 But you — get out o' here ! " 
 
 Then beerless to the dusty road 
 
 Turned each bold Sophomore, 
 While with a slam behind him closed 
 
 The heavy toll-house door. 
 
IN LATIN PROSE RECITATION. 
 
 I love the tongue of Cicero 
 
 In moderate quantities, you know; 
 
 But listening for an hour and more 
 
 To Latin prosings is a bore. 
 
 When Pinguis rises to recite — 
 
 O Erebus and Ancient Night ! 
 
 Chaos is come again : Old Sleep 
 
 Along the benches 'gins to creep. 
 
 What shall I do while Pinguis stands 
 
 And tells of Balbus's lifted hands ; 
 
 Of Titus Manlius, noble youth, 
 
 And that G. Washington of truth, 
 
 Caius, who fibbed not even in jest 
 
 (Ne joco quideni) — and the rest ? 
 
 What shall I do to pass the time? 
 
 Try my hand at making rhyme ? 
 
 This text-book's fly-leaves smooth and white 
 
 My pencil's sharpened point invite. 
 
 Help, muse, thou whose Maeonian brook 
 
 Meanders through the Balbus book : 
 
IN LATIN PROSE RECITATION 37 
 
 Thou who with pure mnemonic fire 
 That noble quatrain did'st inspire ; 
 " By ut translate infinitive 
 With ask, command, advise, and strive: 
 But never be this rule forgot — 
 Put ne for ut when there 's a not." 
 Goddess, thou know'st I can't compose — 
 Not worth a rap — in Latin Prose. 
 (The exercises that I do 
 On the black-board get minus 2. 
 I saw the tutor with a frown 
 In his small book put this mark (x) down.) 
 So then — here goes in English verse : 
 It may be bad — it can't be worse. 
 
A FISH STORY. 
 
 " It is said that the Greenland whale sometimes descends to the depth of 
 a mile, but always comes up exhausted and blowing out blood, showing that 
 the pressure has so acted upon the vessels as to cause them to discharge a 
 portion of their contents into the lungs."' — Olmsted's Natural Philos- 
 ophy. 
 
 " There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed 
 of in your philosophy." — Hamlet 
 
 A whale of great porosity 
 
 And small specific gravity, 
 Dived down with much velocity 
 
 Beneath the sea's concavity. 
 
 But soon the weight of water 
 Squeezed in his fat immensity, 
 
 Which varied — as it ought to — 
 Inversely as his density. 
 
 It would have moved to pity 
 
 An Ogre or a Hessian, 
 To see poor Spermaceti 
 
 Thus suffering compression. 
 
A FISH STORY. 39 
 
 The while he lay a-roaring 
 
 In agonies gigantic, 
 The lamp-oil out came pouring 
 
 And greased the wide Atlantic. 
 
 (Would we 'd been in the Navy, 
 And cruising there ! Imagine us 
 
 All in a sea of gravy, 
 With billow oleaginous !) 
 
 At length old million-pounder, 
 
 Low on a bed of coral, 
 Gave his last dying flounder, 
 
 Whereto 1 pen this moral. 
 
 O let this tale dramatic 
 
 Anent this whale Norwegian, 
 
 And pressures hydrostatic 
 
 Warn you, my young collegian, 
 
 That down-compelling forces 
 Increase as you get deeper ; 
 
 The lower down your course is, 
 The upward path 's the steeper. 
 

 SCHOOLMASTER DICK. 
 
 " Die per omnes 
 
 Te deos oro." 
 
 Horace, Book I., Ode 8. 
 
 Schoolmaster Dick ' 
 
 Was choleric. 
 One morning as he lay in bed, 
 A noisy fly about his head 
 
 Made humming, — 
 
 Now coming, 
 Now going. Ah ! poor Dick ! 
 How the beast's claws did stick 
 
 To thy wide nose. 
 
 Red as a rose 
 
 With bumming ! 
 
 At length he rose and poised full high 
 His fist, and aimed it at the fly, 
 Which, like Giles Scroggins' father's ghost, 
 Was standing tall on the bed-post. 
 Fierce he broke forth : " Caeruleo-flagon ! 
 Purpureal-flask ! You cursed bug-dragon ! 
 
SCHOOLMASTER DICK. 4 1 
 
 By Beelzebub ! I will you throttle, 
 
 You devil of a big blue-bottle ! " 
 
 Wild he struck out, his wrath to wreak : 
 
 O grief! the wily brute did sneak 
 
 All deftly out betwixt his hand 
 
 And that fell wood where it did land. 
 
 Now, Richard, rub thy knuckles sore, 
 And smite at flies on posts no more. 
 
THE RESTLESSNESS OF THE FIG- 
 HORSE. 
 
 A METROPOLITAN ODE AFTER THE HEMANS OF 
 
 AMERICA. 1 
 
 O fig-horse by the Cooper Institute, 
 
 Why dost thou, like a wild, unlassoed brute, 
 
 Start and endanger thy good master's fruit ? 
 
 Behold yon peanut-horse, who doth not vary 
 His pose, nor shake his maneless head contrary ; 
 But stands as statue-like and stationary, 
 
 As that bronze steed in Union Square, whereon 
 Rampeth the dignified G. Washington 
 Waving benignant benediction. 
 
 Peace, aged steed ! The bit thou canst not champ 
 With toothless gums ; thou art too old to ramp : 
 To arch thy ancient neck would give the cramp. 
 
 1 Vide "Ode to a Shred of Linen," commencing, " O shied, etc" 
 
RESTLESSNESS OF THE FIG-HORSE. 43 
 
 Say, dost thou scorn to vend the humble pie, 
 Or draw the car " where sweets compacted lie ? " 
 For shame ! Hanoi, proud charger ! Fie, O fie ! 
 
 Perchance pegasian instincts in thy blood 
 
 Do cause thee thus to paw the pavement mud : — 
 
 Then spread thy wings above the ocean sud. 
 
 So am I sick of these confections sweet : 
 
 Blow, wuthering winds ; November rain-floods beat ; 
 
 Welcome, loud northers and the winter's sleet! 
 
THE UNPSYCHOLOGICAL BABY. 
 
 AFTER DR. HOLLAND. 
 
 Who can tell what the baby thinks 
 
 When its warm and sugared pap it drinks, 
 
 Gurgles and sprawls and stares and blinks, 
 
 Works its fingers and eke its toes, 
 
 While mamma wipes its small snub nose ) 
 
 Gums on its ring and drules on its bib 
 
 And falls on its head from the open crib ; 
 
 Raises a bump on its cartilage bald 
 
 And goes to sleep when enough it has squalled ? 
 
THRENODY ON THREE WORTHY 
 "CHARACTERS." 
 
 Dim is my damp eye 
 
 For thee, O Sampi : 
 
 Lo ! here I drop a 
 
 Tear for Koppa; 
 
 Gone, too, art thou, 
 
 Departed Vau ; 
 
 (Ah ! letter sweet, 
 
 Now obsolete.) 
 
 Ye-one-two-three 
 
 All vanished be, 
 
 Swallowed by Time's much-gulping sea. 
 
 Unfortunate triad, 
 
 Lost like the Pleiad, 
 
 Leaving the seven 
 
 Lorn in Night's heaven. 
 
 But thou, Digamma — 
 Chiefly for thee 
 
46 THREE WORTHY " CHARACTERS." 
 
 We wail and clamour 
 
 In threnody. 
 
 Old Hell, thy gammer, 
 
 Swallowed thee whole ; 
 
 Yet still thy soul 
 
 Doth haunt this grammar — 
 
 A ghostly V 
 
 For whom Prof. Hadley 
 
 Moaneth madly 
 
 And in each dark hiatus sadly 
 
 Listens for thee. 
 
PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL. 
 
 Oh glee ! 
 
 How he 
 
 Across the street doth slip 
 
 And on the curb-stone cut his cursed lip ! 
 
 Erstwhiles 
 
 Slow smiles 
 
 Of much contempt there sat, 
 
 The while his eyes laughed scorn at my good hat. 
 
 Excellent hat — 
 
 O hat most fat, 
 
 Now feed thy hatred on him, as he lies 
 
 Low in the gutter, while the laughter dies 
 
 Away from lips and out of mud-splashed eyes. 
 
A HOLIDAY ECLOGUE. 
 
 ABOVE. 
 
 First Mason: 
 Tink-a-link! Tink-a-link! Hear the trowels ring; 
 Feel the merry breezes make the scaffold swing; 
 See the skimming swallow brush us with her 
 
 wing : — 
 Go it with your hammers, boys ; time us while 
 
 we sing. 
 
 BELOW. 
 
 First Student: 
 See the yellow sparkle of the Neckar in the 
 glass, 
 And through the cedar branches sparkles blue 
 the sea; 
 Hear the sweet piano — hear the German lass 
 Sing Freuf euch des Lebens — Oh ! "I love, 1 
 love the free ! " 
 
 Second Student: 
 I like the canary better ; 
 
 Look, how he swells his throttle ! 
 He gurgles like musical water 
 
 That dances and sings in a bottle. 
 
A HOLIDAY ECLOGUE. 49 
 
 ABOVE. 
 
 Second Mason : 
 D'ye mind the students down in the grove 
 
 Drinking their wine and beer ? 
 That's an easy life they lead. 
 
 First Mason : 
 So do we up here 
 When the weathercock points west 
 And the look-off 's clear. 
 
 Third Mason : 
 
 House-top Jim 's the boy for work ! 
 
 First Mason : 
 
 True for you, my dear. 
 
 {Whistles " The Girl I Left Behind me:") 
 
 BELOW. 
 
 First Student : 
 See the Dutchmen on those settees : 
 
 Is n't it like the Rhine ? 
 And the old church-tower up over the trees — 
 • Kellner ! Noch ein Stein / 
 Third Student: 
 I'd like to work with those masons there 
 
 Half way up the sky. 
 The air is -sweet where the pigeons build, 
 And the world is all in their eye. 
 4 
 
50 A HOLIDAY ECLOGUE. 
 
 Second Student : 
 But " Love is of the valley : " the Gretchen and 
 the Kellner 
 Haunt the cheerful levels of the lower story. 
 Glory in the garret — comfort in the cellar: 
 I will keep the comfort — you may take the 
 glory. 
 
 ABOVE. 
 
 First Mason : 
 Look up at the pointers : they 're drawing close 
 
 together ; 
 'Tis here we get the earliest news of sun, and 
 
 moon, and weather; 
 We can hear time's pulse a-ticking, with the 
 
 whistling weathercock. 
 Drop your mortar-boards, my lads, it's coming 
 
 twelve o'clock. 
 
 Third Mason : 
 Oh! it's hungry that I am with working in the 
 
 wind, 
 But there 's a shawl and bonnet — below there: 
 
 do you mind ? 
 It 's Molly with the dinner-pail : she 's coming in 
 
 the door. 
 Faith, my belly thinks my throat is cut this half 
 
 an hour and more. 
 {The church clock strikes the noon.) 
 
A SHADES. 
 
 A shades there is unknown to fame, 
 A shades indeed that very few know, 
 
 And fewer still can spell the name 
 
 That decks its windows — Madame Grunot. 
 
 (I know a quote here rather pat : 
 Perhaps it would n't come amiss, 
 
 By Jove, I'll sling it! here goes: Stat — 
 Stat umbra magni nomiuis.) 
 
 What 's in a name ? The rose is sweet, 
 Its bower is snug, albeit shady ; 
 
 The ale is nice, the room is neat, 
 And neater still the nice Old Lady. 
 
 If Bacchus' self should step in here, 
 He'd hardly miss the rosy Hebe 
 
 While smiling Madame pours his beer, 
 Or honest Tom or pretty Phebe. 
 
52 
 
 A SHADES. 
 
 He 'd hardly miss his nectar-cup ; 
 
 I '11 bet a fig that every night he 
 Would here on savory rabbits sup, 
 
 And swig his ale, sub arta vite. 
 
AD IULUM ANTONIUM. 
 
 Horace's odes : liber iv. carmen ii. 
 
 Tony, for me to write an ode, 
 
 And spout it from a staging 
 Would be to trust in waxen wings, 1 
 
 Or, when the winds are raging, 
 To pull outside the Light-house Point 
 
 In Charlie's paper wherry 
 (Six inches and a half across ;) 
 
 'T would be imprudent — very ! 
 
 " Weak-winged is song ; " Why don't you get 
 
 Some muse with pinions tougher ? — 
 Some epic dominie or some 
 
 Didactic-blank-verse buffer, 
 Complacent, fat, in white cravat, 
 
 Who, in mid-climax soaring, 
 Will pause to hear his audience cheer 
 
 And kick upon the flooring. 
 
 1 " Ceratis ope Baedalea 
 Nititur pennis." 
 
54 AD IULUM ANTONIUM. 
 
 Get some prize-poet who can write 
 
 A dozen different metres. 
 There 's Finch ; there 's Duffield — Hoilister 
 
 Who does our best Phi Betas ; 
 There 's Edward Sill — he slings a quill 
 
 Quite filthy (perhaps stylus 
 Would sound more classical than quill ;) 
 
 There's Rev. Crescentius Nilus ; — 
 
 That swelling Nile 1 whose annual flood 
 
 The " Courant " always mentions, 
 Enriching drear alumni feeds 
 
 And Delta Phi conventions. 
 I name a laureate here and there ; 
 
 You '11 doubtless think of others. 
 Who did the anniversary 
 
 (No joke on verse) at Brothers ? 
 
 These swans 2 of song I often see 
 
 Early some autumn morning 
 Fly over in the frosty sky; 
 
 Faint sounds their leader's warning. 
 
 1 " Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres 
 
 Quem super notas aluere ripas." 
 
 2 "Multa Dircaeum levat aura cycnum." 
 
AD IULUM ANTONIUM. 55 
 
 Southward they seek the Chesapeake, 
 
 To winter homes returning, 
 Above the maple-forests red 
 
 And brushwood swamps a-burning. 
 
 But I, a bee 1 that shuns the wind, 
 
 By East Rock's sheltered bases 
 Crawl into spurs of columbines 
 
 In warm and sunny places, 
 Humming in slender, earthy strain 
 
 Of little cells I 'm building 
 At home, and how my jacket brown 
 
 Has one small stripe of gilding. 
 
 Perchance on some Red Letter night 
 
 When snow was softly heaping 
 Outside upon the window-sill, 
 
 And, o'er our senses creeping, 
 The sleepy malt, the grate-fire's glow 
 
 That tinged our pipe smoke rosy 
 As evening clouds, had made us feel 
 
 Particularly cosy, 
 
 I 've taken from my pocket's depths 
 A torn and crumpled paper 
 
 1 " Ego apis Matinae," etc. 
 
56 AD IULUM ANTONIUM. 
 
 Whereon were traced some idle rhymes, 
 An idler brain's light vapor ; 
 
 And if to these the Letters Red 
 Listened with kind indulgence, 1 
 
 We '11 lay it to that genial malt 
 And fire-light's soft effulgence. 
 
 But when in gilt-edged album-book 
 
 I 'm asked to write a sonnet, 
 I sadly shake my head and say 
 
 " Dear Miss, I am not on it." 
 And when Dick reads me his new pome 
 
 In twenty cantos, then ah ! 
 My little chirping muse descries 
 
 How tenuis is her penna. 
 
 1 " Si quid loquar audiendum," etc 
 
A MEMORY. 
 
 I came across the marsh to-night, 
 And though the wind was cold, 
 
 I stayed a moment on the bridge 
 To note the paly gold 
 
 That lingered on the darkening bay; 
 
 The creek which ran below 
 Was frozen dumb ; the dreary flats 
 
 Were overspread with snow. 
 
 The college bell began to ring, 
 And as the north wind blew 
 
 Its distant j anglings out to sea, 
 I thought, dear Friend, of you ; 
 
 And how one warm September day, 
 While yet the woods were green, 
 
 We strayed across the happy hills 
 And this wide marsh between. 
 
58 A MEMORY. 
 
 The hay-stacks dotted here and there 
 
 The water-meadows wide : 
 The level lines of sluices black 
 
 Were filling with the tide. 
 
 Then this salt stream, now winter-bound, 
 Fled softly through the sedge, 
 
 Retreating from the sparkling Sound ; 
 And there along its edge 
 
 We strolled, and marked the far-off sloops, 
 And watched the cattle graze. 
 
 O'erhead the swallows rushed in troops, 
 While bright with purple haze, 
 
 West Rock looked down the winding plain 
 
 Ah ! this was long ago ; 
 The summer 's gone, and you are gone, 
 
 As everything must go. 
 
PRESENTATION: '68 AND '69. 
 
 Their songs are done, their forms are gone, 
 And Time for us hath turned the glass : 
 
 We heed not, as we take their seats, 
 
 How downward swift the red sands pass. 
 
 We heed not how the cloud comes on 
 That shadows all the sunny land — 
 
 The day when heart from heart must part 
 And clinging hand unlink from hand. 
 
 What shall that Dies Irae give 
 
 In place of that it takes away: 
 How fill the time we have to live 
 
 While youth treads downward to decay? 
 
 Good-by, true friend ; Good-by, old Yale ; 
 
 Good-by, each dear familiar spot ; 
 Good-by, sweet season of our youth — 
 
 "The golden, happy, unforgot." 
 
IVY ODE. 
 
 CLASS DAY, 1869. 
 
 When we are gone from sight and mind, 
 
 Leaving no token here behind 
 
 To speak for us in this loved scene, 
 
 O, Ivy, keep our memory green ; 
 
 And trace in thy soft, leafy line, 
 
 The dear old name of Sixty-nine. 
 
 When youth and Yale are far away, 
 And these young heads are growing gray, 
 We '11 think, how on this cold stone wall 
 Our Ivy climbeth strong and tall ; 
 And then our hearts, like thee, shall grow 
 The greener for the winter snow. 
 
 Farewell ! Farewell ! A leaf from thee 
 
 In after years a charm shall be 
 
 To start the tear in eyes long dry ; 
 
 To stir the drowsy memory 
 
 With sad, sweet thoughts of Auld Lang Syne, 
 
 And friends we loved in Sixty-nine. 
 
THE NEW YALE. 
 
 All day we hear the chisels ring, 
 
 The windlass creak, the masons sing ; 
 
 With every brightening moon there falls 
 
 A longer shadow from the walls. 
 
 We hope these rising halls may bring 
 
 Some new event — some wished-for thing. 
 
 We look to see that not alone 
 
 Of " mellow brick-work " or of stone, 
 
 But reared by wisdom's magic wands 
 
 Invisible, not made with hands, 
 
 Yet stronger than the trowel builds, 
 
 Deep-laid by toiling scholar-guilds, 
 
 Her corner-stone's free-masonry 
 
 As broad as this brave century, 
 
 Our new, regenerate Yale shall be — 
 
 Our Yankee university. 
 
 O let her widened portals stand 
 
 All opening on the future's land ; 
 
 Her pointed windows one by one 
 
 Steal color from the setting sun ; 
 
62 THE NEW YALE. 
 
 Her gables and her belfries high, 
 Her generous chimney-stacks whereby 
 The college doves shall build and fly, 
 Front only toward the western sky; 
 And far above her tall elm trees 
 The bright vanes point the western breeze ! 
 We care not that the dawn should throw 
 Its gilding on our portico ; 
 But rather that our natal star, 
 Bright Hesper, in the. twilight far 
 Should beckon toward the imperial West 
 Which he, our Berkeley, loved the best ; 
 Whereto, his mighty line doth say, 
 " The course of empire takes its way." 
 For in the groves of that young land 
 A lordly school his wisdom planned 
 To teach new knowledge to new men, 
 Fresh sciences undreamed of then. 
 She comes — had come unknown before, 
 Though not on " vext Bermoothe's " shore. 
 Yet will she not her prophet fail — 
 The new — the old — the same dear Yale. 
 
TRIENNIAL POME. 
 
 FYTTE THE FIRST. 
 
 The other evening, — just when tea is o 'er 
 And ambulances crowd the Commons door — 
 When the heat gets a trifle less intense 
 And singing sounds the nicest on the fence, — 
 At shirt-sleeve time, when the first pipe is lit 
 And cheerful June-bugs round the ceiling flit, 
 I sat with palm-leaf fan and slippered feet 
 " Enlumining with rhethoricke swete " 
 (That's Chaucer) a small portion of the gloom 
 That broods within my grim tutorial room ; 
 (I always cram my lessons up ahead 
 Because, by spirit of enquiry led, 
 With wily question Freshmen sometimes stick 
 Their Tutor in Eng. Lit. and Rhetorick) 
 Thus sitting, wrapped in Rhetorick and smoke, 
 I heard somebody tapping at my oak. 
 Thought I unto myself : " Now who the deuce is 
 That at my door ? — Some Freshman wants ex- 
 cuses : 
 
64 TRIENNIAL POME. 
 
 And yet, methinks, that is no Freshman tap ; 
 There 's something bold though friendly in that 
 
 rap : 
 Such echoes waken in these ears of mine 
 The wooden knuckles of old Sixty-Nine." 
 " Come in," I said : slow swung the ponderous door 
 And Phlander stood before me on the floor. 
 
 FYTTE THE SECOND. 
 
 Stern was his brow and serious as of yore 
 
 But somewhat bushier were the sides he wore. 
 
 Divinity sat throned within his eye — 
 
 New Haven Orthodox Divinity; 
 
 Not such as holdeth sway where Manus stands 
 
 Swinging the censer in his jeweled hands 
 
 Or sings antiphonals with solemn chant, 
 
 Snuffing the candles of the covenant. 
 
 He seemed an angel sent to summon me 
 
 To some high mission — or, perhaps, to tea: 
 
 So looks — so frowns that messenger of doom 
 
 Who beckons to the tea-fight's learned gloom. 
 
 "Fear not," he said, — "fear not, I am not come 
 
 To dun you for our Megatherium ; 
 
 The money that your secretary begs, 
 
 To buy that aged reptile's ribs and legs, 
 
 Is scarce enough as yet to furnish plast- 
 
 Er for the monstrum horrendum informis cast. 
 
TRIENNIAL POME. 65 
 
 Yet some remote posterity may see 'em 
 Ranged proudly in the Peabody Museum." 
 
 FYTTE THE THIRD. 
 
 " It is not for the fossil that I call," 
 
 Said Philander, " but for the Triennial. 
 
 We 're getting very near to the Class Supper, 
 
 There 's no Class Cup — in fact there 's no class 
 
 cupper. 
 The unfilial babe declineth to appear, 
 Thus bringing down in sorrow to his beer 
 His father's hundred and fifteen gray heads. 
 What 's to be done ? — There '11 be the toasts and 
 
 spreads, 
 But then we want some kind of fluff or foam, 
 And so — and so — you 've got to do a pome." 
 " Phlander," said I, " The class of Sixty-Nine 
 Is a sensible class : we love our beer and wine, 
 We like our smear, our smoke, our jolly chorus, 
 But pomes and speeches and all that sort bore us. 
 Don't I remember once in Delta Phi 
 When Texican and Beverly and I 
 Tried to get up some littry exercises ? 
 The chairman raps, the essayist arises 
 With bulky manuscript and neat, cravat 
 When suddenly loud cries of ' Fat up ! Fat ! 
 5 
 
66 TRIENNIAL POME. 
 
 Why don't you fat up on the Jimmy's trick ? ' 
 1 Hold your yawp, Cammy,' ' Who dug you up ? ' etc. 
 Within his frame lamented Eels grows red 
 And frescoed Clio hangs her blushing head." 
 
 FYTTE THE FOURTH. 
 
 " Besides, my Phlander, now you talk of nun , 
 The last three years I 've dealt in sterner stuff. 
 Indeed I 've ceased to build the lofty line 
 And woo the unwilling muse since Sixty-Nine. 
 Yet Phlander," said I, "were there one 1 whose 
 
 fires 
 The bull-dog kindles and John Roach inspires, 
 Well skilled in swift velocipedic race 
 Or rhyming dictionary's page to trace, 
 He were the bard to do Triennial pomes 
 And rag therein J. Saxe and Dr. Holmes. 
 Alas ! no bull-dog licks his ligneous hands ; 
 He roams in rude and licoriceless lands 
 Where never yet ' Four Years at Yale ' hath shed 
 Its rays, and e'en the 'Index' is unread." 
 
 FYTTE THE FIFTH. 
 
 Now that I 've told you how I came to be 
 Dragged into this thing by your committee, 
 
 i " The Graduate of '69." 
 
TRIENNIAL POME. 67 
 
 I '11 say the few words that I have to say 
 
 And say them in the plain prosaic way. 
 
 To us at Alma Mater's apron-string 
 
 Not much of change the quiet seasons bring. 
 
 The elm-leaf buds and spreads and yellowing 
 
 falls : 
 New ivies stretch their green threads up the 
 
 walls j 
 But now and then we hear how Tom has sped, 
 That Dick is married and that Harry's dead, 
 That Jack is raising cane on the Equator 
 And Bob is running for the " Legislatur," 
 Our academic cobwebs gather dust, 
 Perhaps our minds contract a little rust 
 And we home-keepers hardly notice how 
 The wrinkles thicken in our Mother's brow. 
 Now when we shake your hands upon the fence 
 To me, at least, there comes as yet no sense 
 Of change ; once more, as in the bright Septem- 
 ber weather, 
 Some long vacation's close brings us together. 
 But you who 've wandered doubtless find the 
 
 trace 
 Of alteration in our Mother's face. 
 All change is sad — yes, sad is ever growth ; 
 It steals away some portion from our youth. 
 
68 TRIENNIAL POME. 
 
 The college pump 's not where it used to be j 
 You can't get used to Farnam and Durfee ; 
 Old land-marks fail : just in the college close 
 Where Boreal Joseph's modest mansion rose, — 
 Where when the meteoric fireworks came 
 Their light was dimmed by less celestial flame, — 
 There now a desert of wild oats doth spread. 
 Our ivy, too, can hardly yet be said 
 To " clothe " the wall : when last I chanced to pass 
 One bright green leaf looked bravely thro' the 
 
 grass. 
 Ah well ! these younger years so lightly fly 
 We scarcely hear their wings ; but by and by 
 More precious and more precious still shall be 
 These meetings — rests and breathing-spots where 
 
 we 
 May pause as up these stony hills of time, 
 Whose summits pave eternity, we climb 
 And turn our eyes from mists and clouds and 
 
 snow 
 Back to Youth's valley lying fair below. 
 Forever there the tender light of dawn 
 Striped with long shadows trembles on the lawn; 
 The sky forever breezy, far and blue ; 
 The green woods freshened with perennial dew ; 
 The meadow-lark's brief sweetly-whistled tune 
 Fills the deep valley with the voice of June. 
 
POETICAL EPISTLE TO J. HORNE. 
 
 I don't much like this " Love as a Law ; " 1 
 
 Leastwise, the title 's stupid 
 And mixes things : who ever saw, 
 
 For instance, " Coke on Cupid " ? 
 
 Suppose you mention to Prof. P., 
 That when we buy our next book, 
 
 You think " Laus Veneris " would be 
 A very jolly text-book. 
 
 It treats of Laus and treats of Love ; 
 
 And though it does n't say 
 That love is law and laws are love, 
 
 Well — that 's C. Swinburne's way. 
 
 1 The Law of Love and Love as a Law, by President 
 Mark Hopkins. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 
 
SPIRIT LAKE. 
 
 It lies among the western hills 
 
 In purple distance far away, 
 Fed by the gush of mountain rills 
 
 Within the portals of the day. 
 
 Basking in summer stillness deep, 
 Among the dim blue hills it gleams 
 
 Forever in a charmed sleep, 
 
 Lulled by the flow of sounding streams. 
 
 At evening on the dusky wold 
 
 When winds from out the sunset blow, 
 
 And in the west the waves of gold 
 Suffuse the sky with liquid glow; 
 
 While in the wide extended blush 
 I mark the disk of one bright star, 
 
 Tinged with a faint unearthly flush 
 It shines like Heaven's gate ajar. 
 
74 SPIRIT LAKE. 
 
 And when I in the midnight wake 
 
 And through my windows see the moon, 
 
 And hear the gusty curtain shake 
 
 And the low summer night wind's tune; 
 
 That lonely lake my spirit laves 
 
 As in a vague and wandering dream, 
 
 And, listening to the wash of waves, 
 Far on the middle mere I seem. 
 
 I see the moon-bathed waters wide; 
 
 I hear the dip of spectral oars, 
 Strange echoes on the mountain side, 
 
 Uncertain whispers on the shores. 
 
 But on thy margin, haunted pool, 
 
 Enchantment holds her wizard throne : 
 
 Above thy spell-bound surface cool 
 A mystic silence broods alone. 
 
 Across thy bosom glides no sail; 
 
 No voice of man disturbs thy sleep; 
 Nor ever comes intruding gale 
 
 To stir thy tranquil water deep. 
 
 The traveler on the lonely hill 
 
 When dim-eyed twilight gathers round 
 
SPIRIT LAKE. 75 
 
 And the brown air is moist and still, 
 Hears through the dusk a solemn sound. 
 
 As of the ringing of sweet bells 
 
 Within the distant mountain's breast, 
 
 And oft on rainless nights he tells 
 Of lightning flashes in the west. 
 
 The wild deer from the forest glade 
 
 Are gone ; but still their. ghosts may slake 
 
 Their thirst, where none e'er dips the blade 
 In thy dark wave, O Spirit Lake. 
 
THE RISE OF APHRODITE. 
 
 Lo one who sails upon the moonless deep 
 Skirting the land, and hears th' unceasing roar 
 Of plunging billows and the distant sweep 
 Of wind-tossed surges on the winding shore 
 And the remote, low voices of the waves 
 Where all night long the broken water raves 
 And bellows through reechoing ocean caves. 
 
 No light upon the main but starlight dim 
 And through the solemn night no other sound 
 Upon the sea breeze, save that ancient hymn 
 The wind doth breathe through every stop and 
 round 
 Of the great sea — the monotone which swells 
 Eternal as the surfy sigh that dwells 
 Within the galleries of ocean shells. 
 
 But now from out the horizon wild and dark 
 Stealeth a strain — a dream of melody, 
 As slowly wafted comes a white sailed bark 
 With noise of flutes across the listening sea, 
 
THE RISE OF APHRODITE. J 7 
 
 Bearing to Paphos, island of all flowers, 
 Form-born Idalia; led by dancing hours 
 And oared by tritons from their coral bowers : 
 
 With tinkling harps and choral strains divine 
 Charming to sleep the billows in its way : 
 Lit up with soft celestial lamps that shine 
 Where round the prow the black haired Nereids 
 play; 
 And shedding through the startled realms of 
 
 night 
 A lambent, flushing, shifting radiance bright, — 
 A far extended haze of amber light : 
 
 And borne by sea-winds o'er the midnight deep 
 With rosy gleam and music breathing low, 
 Glides like a dream across the ocean's sleep 
 Casting on the black waves a moment's glow : 
 Then passing into darkness leaves once more 
 The sweeping surges and the billows' roar 
 And shimmering starlight lonelier than before. 
 
WATER LILIES AT SUNSET. 
 
 Mine eyes have seen when once at sunset hour, 
 White lily flocks that edged a lonely lake 
 All rose and sank upon the lifting swell 
 That swayed their long stems lazily, and lapped 
 Their floating pads and stirred among the leaves. 
 And when the sun from western gates of day 
 Poured colored flames, they, kissed to ruddy shame, 
 So blushed through snowy petals, that they glowed 
 Like roses morning-blown in dewy bowers, 
 When garden-walks lie dark with early shade. 
 That so their perfumed chalices were brimmed 
 With liquid glory till they overflowed 
 And spilled rich lights and purple shadows out, 
 That splashed the pool with gold, and stained its 
 
 waves 
 In tints of violet and ruby blooms. 
 But when the flashing gem that lit the day 
 Dropped in its far blue casket of the hills, 
 The rainbow paintings faded from the mere, 
 The wine-dark shades grew black, the gilding 
 
 dimmed, 
 
WATER LILIES AT SUNSET 79 
 
 While paling slow through tender amber hues, 
 The crimsoned lilies blanched to coldest white, 
 And wanly shivered in the evening breeze. 
 When twilight closed — when earliest dew-drops 
 
 fell 
 All frosty-chill deep down their golden hearts, 
 They shrank at that still touch, as maidens shrink, 
 When love's first footstep frights with sweet alarms 
 The untrod wildness of their virgin breasts ; 
 Then shut their ivory cups, and dipping low 
 Their folded beauties in the gloomy wave, 
 They nodded drowsily and heaved in sleep. 
 But sweeter far than summer dreams at dawn, 
 Their mingled breaths from out the darkness stole, 
 Across the silent lake, the winding shores, 
 The shadowy hills that rose in lawny slopes, 
 The marsh among whose reeds the wild fowl 
 
 screamed, 
 And dusky woodlands where the night came down. 
 
ANACREONTIC. 
 
 I would not be 
 A voyager on the windy seas : 
 
 More sweet to me 
 This bank where crickets chirp and bees 
 Buzz drowsy sunshine minstrelsies. 
 
 I would not bide 
 On lonely heights where shepherds dwell. 
 
 At twilight tide 
 The sounds that from the valley swell, 
 Soft breathing flute and herdsman's bell, 
 
 Are sweeter far 
 Than music of cold mountain rills. 
 
 The evening star 
 Wakes love and song below, but chills 
 With mist and breeze the gloomy hills. 
 
 I would not woo 
 Some storm-browed Juno queenly fair. 
 Soft eyes of blue 
 
ANA CRE ON TIC. 8 1 
 
 And sudden blushes unaware 
 Do net my heart in silken snare. 
 
 I do not love 
 The eyrie, but low woodland nest 
 
 Of cushat dove: 
 Not wind but calm ; not toil but rest, 
 And sleep in grassy meadow's breast. 
 
A VACATION REVERIE. 
 
 Here in my airy citadel 
 
 I hear the drowsy village bell 
 
 Across the valley slowly tell 
 
 The hours of afternoon. 
 Supine upon the turf I lie 
 And, as the ragged clouds drift by, 
 Adown deep openings in the sky 
 
 I spy the vapory moon. 
 
 Below, a sleepy summer view, 
 
 The near hills green, the far hills blue, 
 
 With dim perspectives opening through 
 
 A wondrous picture book. 
 Thus lying lapped in golden ease 
 'Mong grasshoppers and mountain bees, 
 Life's all-sufficient aims are these, — 
 
 To listen and to look. 
 
BUMBLE BEE. 
 
 As I lay yonder in tall grass 
 
 A drunken bumble-bee went past 
 
 Delirious with honey toddy. 
 
 The golden sash about his body 
 
 Scarce keep it in his swollen belly 
 
 Distent with honey-suckle jelly. 
 
 Rose liquor and the sweet pea wine 
 
 Had filled his soul with song divine ; 
 
 Deep had he drunk the warm night through : 
 
 His hairy thighs were wet with dew. 
 
 Full many an antic he had played 
 
 While the world went round through sleep and 
 
 shade. 
 Oft had he lit with thirsty lip 
 Some flower-cup's nectared sweets to sip, 
 When on smooth petals he would slip 
 Or over tangled stamens trip, 
 And headlong in the pollen rolled, 
 Crawl out quite dusted o'er with gold. 
 Or else his heavy feet would stumble 
 
84 BUMBLE BEE. 
 
 Against some bud and down he 'd tumble 
 Amongst the grass ; there lie and grumble 
 In low, soft bass — poor maudlin bumble! 
 With tipsy hum on sleepy wing 
 He buzzed a glee — a bacchic thing 
 Which, wandering strangely in the moon, 
 He learned from grigs that sing in June, 
 Unknown to sober bees who dwell 
 Through the dark hours in waxen cell. 
 When south wind floated him away 
 The music of the summer day 
 Lost something : sure it was a pain 
 To miss that dainty star-light strain. 
 
AD FONTEM BANDUSI^E. 
 
 HORACE : ODES : LIBER III. CARMEN XIII. 
 
 Bandusian spring — thou crystal well — 
 Worthy sweet wine with many a flower, 
 To-morrow shalt thou have for dower 
 
 A kid, whose brow begins to swell 
 
 With budding horns that playful seem 
 To threaten love and war : in vain : 
 The wanton flock's young shoot must stain 
 
 With his red blood thine icy stream. 
 
 Thy depths the hot midsummer shine 
 
 Knows not to reach : sweet coolness thou 
 To bullocks weary of the plow 
 
 Dost offer, and to wandering kine. 
 
 Thou too shalt be a storied well, 
 When of the hollow, rocky steep 
 From which thy talking waters leap 
 
 Under the holms, my lute shall tell. 
 
AD MINISTRUM. 
 
 HORACE : ODES : LIBER I. CARMEN XXXVIII. 
 
 I like not, boy, the Persians' state ! 
 Their chaplets, tied with bark, I hate ! 
 
 Thou need'st not search for me 
 In sunny spots behind the hill, 
 Where the last roses linger still. 
 
 I do not ask of thee 
 
 The cunning art that interweaves 
 
 Rose crowns with modest myrtle leaves ; 
 
 Plain myrtle 's not too fine, 
 Thy brow, my serving lad, to wreathe, 
 Nor mine when drinking underneath 
 
 My close embowering vine. 
 
SIXPENCE FOR A KISS. 
 
 Stranger maiden, when you waken, 
 
 If you miss 
 So much sweet as may be taken 
 
 In a kiss, 
 What's a mouthful musk or civet? 
 Sure you would not grudge to give it; 
 
 (In your dream 
 
 You did seem 
 Smiling yes though blushing nay). 
 
 Yet I would not choose to thieve it, 
 
 Like the bee 
 
 Who sippeth free ; 
 Therefore, sweet-heart, here is pay. 
 
PSYCHE. 
 
 At evening in the port she lay, 
 
 A lifeless block with canvas furled; 
 
 But silently at peep of day 
 
 Spread her white wings and skimmed away 
 
 And, rosy in the dawn's first ray, 
 
 Sunk down behind the rounding world. 
 
 So hast thou vanished from our side, 
 
 Dear bark, that from some far, bright strand 
 
 Anchored a while on life's dull tide ; 
 
 Then, lifting spirit pinions wide, 
 
 In Heaven's own orient glorified, 
 Steered outward seeking Holy Land. 
 
BETWEEN THE FLOWERS. 
 
 An open door and door-steps wide, 
 
 With pillared vines on either side, 
 
 And terraced flowers, stair over stair, 
 
 Standing in pots of earthenware 
 
 Where stiff processions filed around — 
 
 Black on the smooth, sienna ground. 
 
 Tubers and bulbs now blossomed there 
 
 Which, in the moisty hot-house air, 
 
 Lay winter long in patient rows, 
 
 Glassed snugly in from Christinas snows : 
 
 Tube-roses, with white, waxy gems 
 
 In bunches on their reed-like stems ; 
 
 Their fragrance forced by art too soon 
 
 To mingle with the sweets of June. 
 
 (So breathes the thin blue smoke, that steals 
 
 From ashes of the gilt pastilles, 
 
 Burnt slowly, as the brazier swings, 
 
 In dim saloons of eastern kings.) 
 
 I saw the calla's arching cup 
 
 With yellow spadix standing up, 
 
90 BETWEEN THE FLOWERS. 
 
 Its liquid scents to stir and mix — 
 
 The goldenest of toddy-sticks ; 
 
 Roses and purple fuchsia drops ; 
 
 Camellias, which the gardener crops 
 
 To make the sickening wreaths that lie 
 
 On coffins when our loved ones die. 
 
 These all and many more were there ; 
 
 Monsters and grafidifloras rare, 
 
 With tropical broad leaves, grown rank 
 
 Drinking the waters of the tank 
 
 Wherein the lotus-lilies bathe ; 
 
 All curious forms of spur and spathe, 
 
 Pitcher and sac and cactus-thorn, 
 
 There in the fresh New England morn. 
 
 But where the sun came colored through 
 
 Translucent petals wet with dew, 
 
 The interspace was carpeted 
 
 With oriel lights and nodes of red, 
 
 Orange and blue and violet, 
 
 That wove strange figures, as they met, 
 
 Of airier tissue, brighter blooms 
 
 Than tumble from the Persian looms. 
 
 So at the pontiffs' feasts, they tell, 
 
 From the board's edge the goblet fell, 
 
 Spilled from its throat the purple tide 
 
 And stained the pavement far and wide. 
 
BETWEEN THE FLOWERS. 9 1 
 
 Such steps wise Sheba trod upon 
 Up to the throne of Solomon ; 
 So bright the angel-crowded steep 
 Which Israel's vision scaled in sleep. 
 What one is she whose feet shall dare 
 Tread that illuminated stair ? 
 Like Sheba, queen ; like angels, fair ? 
 Oh listen ! In the morning air 
 The blossoms all are hanging still — 
 The queen is standing on the sill. 
 No Sheba she; her virgin zone 
 Proclaims her royalty alone : 
 (Such royalty the lions own.) 
 Yet all too cheap the patterned stone 
 That paves kings' palaces, to feel 
 The pressure of her gaiter's heel. 
 The girlish grace that lit her face 
 Made sunshine in a dusky place — 
 The old silk hood, demure and quaint, 
 Wherein she seemed an altar-saint 
 Fresh-tinted, though in setting old 
 Of dingy carving and tarnished gold ; 
 Her eyes, the candles in that shrine, 
 Making Madonna's face to shine 
 Lingering I passed, but evermore 
 Abide with me the open door, 
 
92 BETWEEN THE FLOWERS. 
 
 The doorsteps wide, the flowers that stand 
 
 In brilliant ranks on either hand, 
 
 The two white pillars and the vine 
 
 Of bitter-sweet and lush woodbine, 
 
 And — from my weary paths as far 
 
 As Sheba or the angels are — 
 
 Between, upon the wooden sill, 
 
 Thou, Queen of Hearts, art standing still. 
 
ON A MINIATURE. 
 
 Thine old-world eyes — each one a violet 
 Big as the baby rose that is thy mouth — 
 
 Set me a dreaming. Have our eyes not met 
 In childhood — in a garden of the South ? 
 
 Thy lips are trembling with a song of France, 
 My cousin, and thine eyes are dimly sweet ; 
 
 'Wildered with reading in an old romance 
 All afternoon upon the garden seat. 
 
 The summer wind read with thee, and the bees 
 That on the sunny pages loved to crawl : 
 
 A skipping reader was the impatient breeze, 
 And turned the leaves, but the slow bees read 
 all. 
 
 And now thy foot descends the terrace stair : 
 I hear the rustle of thy silk attire ; 
 
 I breathe the musky odors of thy hair 
 
 And airs that from thy painted fan respire. 
 
94 ON A MINI A TURE. 
 
 Idly thou pausest in the shady walk, 
 
 Thine ear attentive to the fountain's fall: 
 
 Thou mark'st the flower-de-luce sway on her stalk, 
 The speckled vergalieus ripening on the wall. 
 
 Thou hast the feature of my mother's race, 
 The gilded comb she wore, her smile, her eye : 
 
 The blood that flushes softly in thy face 
 
 Crawls through my veins beneath this northern 
 sky. 
 
 As one disherited, though next of kin, 
 Who lingers at the barred ancestral gate, 
 
 And sadly sees the happy heir within 
 
 Stroll careless through his forfeited estate ; 
 
 Even so I watch thy southern eyes, Lisette, 
 Lady of my lost paradise and heir 
 
 Of summer days that were my birthright. Yet 
 Beauty like thine makes usurpation fair. 
 
IM SCHWARZWALD. 
 
 The winter sunset, red upon the snow, 
 Lights up the narrow way that I should go ; 
 Winding o'er bare white hilltops, whereon lie 
 Dark churches and the holy evening sky. 
 That path would lead me deep into the west, 
 Even to the feet of her I love the best. 
 
 But this scarce broken track in which I stand 
 Runs east, up through the tan-woods' midnight 
 
 land ; 
 Where now the newly risen moon doth throw 
 The shadows of long stems across the snow. 
 This path would take me to the Jager's Tree 
 Where stands the Swabian girl and waits for me. 
 
 Her eyes are blacker than the woods at night 
 And witching as the moon's uncertain light ; 
 And there are tones in that low voice of hers 
 Caught from the wind among the Schwarzwald firs, 
 And from the Gutach's echoing waters, when 
 Still evening listens in the Forsthaus glen. 
 
g6 IM SCHWARZWALD. 
 
 I must — I must! Thou wilt forgive me, sweet; 
 My heart flies west but eastward move my feet ; 
 The mad moon brightens as the sunset dies, 
 And yonder hexie draws me with her eyes. 
 Ruck, ruck an meine grime Seif she sings 
 And with her arms the frozen trunk enrings, 
 
 And lays upon its bark her little face. 
 How canst thou be so dead in her embrace — 
 So cold against her kisses, happy tree ? 
 Thou hast no love beyond the western sea. 
 Methinks that at the lightest touch of her 
 Thy wooden trunk should tremble, thy boughs 
 stir: 
 
 But at the pressure of her tender form 
 Thy inmost pith should feel her and grow warm : 
 The torpid sap should race along the vein ; 
 The resinous buds should swell, and once again 
 Fresh needles shoot, as though the breeze of 
 
 spring 
 Already through the woods came whispering. 
 
KATY DID. 
 
 In a windy tree-top sitting, 
 
 Singing at the fall of dew, 
 Katy watched the bats a-flitting, 
 
 While the twilight's curtains drew 
 Closer round her ; till she only 
 
 Saw the branches and the sky — 
 Rocking late and rocking lonely, 
 Anchored on the darkness high. 
 And the song that she was singing, 
 In the windy tree-tops swinging, 
 Was under the tree, under the tree 
 The fox is digging a pit for me. 
 
 When the early stars were sparkling 
 
 Overhead, and down below 
 Fireflies twinkled, through the darkling 
 
 Thickets she heard footsteps go — 
 Voice of her false lover speaking, 
 Laughing to his sweetheart new : — 
 " Half my heart for thee I 'm breaking : 
 Did not Katy love me true ? " 
 7 
 
98 KATY DID. 
 
 Then no longer she was singing, 
 But through all the wood kept ringing — 
 Katy did, Katy did, Katy did love thee 
 And the fox is digging a grave for me. 
 
AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 Here while I read the light forsakes the pane ; 
 
 Metempsychosis of the twilight gray — 
 Into green aisles of Epping or Ardenne 
 
 The level lines of print stretch far away. 
 
 The book-leaves whisper like the forest-leaves ; 
 
 A smell of ancient woods, a breeze of morn, 
 A breath of violets from the mossy paths, 
 
 And hark ! the voice of hounds — the royal horn, 
 
 Which, muffled in the ferny coverts deep, 
 
 Utters the three sweet notes that sound recall ; 
 
 As, riding two by two between the oaks, 
 Come on the paladins and ladies all. 
 
 The court will rest from chase in this smooth glade 
 That slopes to meet yon little rushy stream, 
 
 Where in the shallows nod the arrow-heads, 
 And the blue flower-de-luce's banners gleam. 
 
100 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 The gamekeepers are coupling of the hounds ; 
 
 The pages hang bright scarfs upon the boughs ; 
 The new-slain quarry lies upon the turf 
 
 Whereon but now he with the herd did browse. 
 
 The silk pavilion shines among the trees ; 
 
 The mighty pasties and the flagons strong 
 Give cheer to the dear heart of many a knight, 
 
 And many a dame whose beauty lives in song. 
 
 Meanwhile a staging improvised and rude 
 Rises, whereon the masquers and the mines 
 
 Play for their sport a pleasant interlude, 
 Fantastic, gallant, pointing at the times. 
 
 Their green-room is the wide midsummer wood ; 
 
 Down some far-winding gallery the deer — 
 The dappled dead-head of that sylvan show — 
 
 Starts as the distant ranting strikes his ear. 
 
 They use no traverses nor painted screen 
 To help along their naked, out-door wit : 
 
 (Only the forest lends its leafy scene) 
 Yet wonderfully well they please the pit. 
 
 The plaudits echo through the wide parquet 
 Where the fair audience upon the grass, 
 
AS YOU LIKE IT. IOI 
 
 Each knight beside his lady-love, is set, 
 While overhead the merry winds do pass. 
 
 The little river murmurs in its reeds, 
 
 And somewhere in the verdurous solitude 
 
 The wood-thrush drops a cool contralto note, 
 An orchestra well-tuned unto their mood. 
 
 As runs the play so runs the afternoon ; 
 
 The curtain and the sun fall side by side ; 
 The epilogue is spoke, the twilight come ; 
 
 Then homeward through the darkening glades 
 they ride. 
 
NARCISSUS. 
 
 Where the black hemlock slants athwart the stream 
 He came to bathe ; the sun's pursuing beam 
 Laid a warm hand upon him, as he stood 
 Naked, while noonday silence filled the wood. 
 Holding the boughs o'erhead, with cautious foot 
 He felt his way along the mossy root 
 That edged the brimming pool ; then paused and 
 
 dreamed. 
 Half like a dryad of the tree he seemed, 
 Half like the naiad of the stream below, 
 Suspended there between the water's flow 
 And the green tree-top world ; the love-sick air 
 Coaxing with softest touch his body fair 
 A little longer yet to be content 
 Outside of its own crystal element. 
 And he, still lingering at the brink, looked down 
 And marked the sunshine fleck with gold the 
 
 brown 
 And sandy floor which paved that woodland pool. 
 But then, within the shadows deep and cool 
 
NARCISSUS. 103 
 
 Which the close hemlocks on the surface made, 
 
 Two eyes met his yet darker than that shade 
 
 And, shining through the watery foliage dim, 
 
 Two white and slender arms reached up to him. 
 
 " Comest thou again, now all the woods are still, 
 
 Fair shape, nor even Echo from the hill 
 
 Calls her Narcissus ? Would her voice were thine, 
 
 Dear speechless image, and could answer mine ! 
 
 Her I but hear and thee I may but see ; 
 
 Yet, Echo, thou art happy unto me ; 
 
 For though thyself art but a voice, sad maid, 
 
 Thy love the substance is and my love shade. 
 
 Alas ! for never may I kiss those dumb 
 
 Sweet lips, nor ever hope to come 
 
 Into that shadow-world that lies somewhere — 
 
 Somewhere between the water and the air. 
 
 Alas ! for never shall I clasp that form 
 
 That mocks me yonder, seeming firm and warm ; 
 
 But if I leap to its embrace, the cold 
 
 And yielding flood is all my arms enfold. 
 
 All creatures else, save only me, can share 
 
 My beauties, be it but to stroke my hair, 
 
 Or hold my hand in theirs, or hear me speak. 
 
 The village wives will laugh and clap my cheek ; 
 
 The forest nymphs will beg me for a kiss, 
 
 To make me blush, or hide themselves by this 
 
104 NARCISSUS. 
 
 Clear brook to see me bathe. But I must pine, 
 Loving not me but this dear ghost of mine." 
 Then, bending down the boughs, until they dipped 
 Their broad green fronds, into the wave he slipped, 
 And, floating breast-high, from the branches hung, 
 His body with the current idly swung. 
 And ever and anon he caught the gleam 
 Of a white shoulder swimming in the stream,, 
 Pressed close to his, and two young eyes of black 
 Under the dimpling surface answered back 
 His own, just out of kissing distance : then 
 The vain and passionate longing came again 
 Still baffled, still renewed : he loosed his hold 
 Upon the boughs and strove once more to fold 
 To his embrace that fine unbodied shape ; 
 But the quick apparition made escape, 
 And once again his empty arms took in 
 Only the water and the shadows thin. 
 Thus every day, when noon lay bright and hot 
 On all the plains, there came to this cool spot, 
 Under the hemlocks by the deepening brook, 
 Narcissus, Phcebus' darling, there to look 
 And pore upon his picture in the flood : 
 Till once a peeping dryad of the wood, 
 Tracking his steps along the slender path 
 Which he between the tree trunks trodden hath, 
 
NARCISSUS. 105 
 
 Misses the boy on whom her amorous eyes 
 Were wont to feed ; but where he stood she spies 
 A new-made yellow flower, that still doth seem 
 To woo his own pale reflex in the stream; 
 Whom Phoebus kisses when the woods are still 
 And only ceaseless Echo from the hill 
 Unprompted cries Narcissus! 
 
CARQAMON. 
 
 His steed was old, his armor worn, 
 And he was old and worn and gray; 
 
 The light that lit his patient eyes 
 It shone from very far away. 
 
 Through gay Provence he journeyed on ; 
 
 To one high quest his life was true, 
 And so they called him Car$amo7i — 
 
 The knight who seeketh the world through. 
 
 A pansy blossomed on his shield ; 
 
 "A token 'tis," the people say, 
 That still across the world's wide field 
 
 He seeks la dame de ses pensees." 
 
 For somewhere on a painted wall, 
 
 Or in the city's shifting crowd, 
 Or looking from a casement tall, 
 
 Or shaped of dream or evening cloud — 
 
CARCAMON. 107 
 
 Forgotten when, forgotten where — 
 Her face had filled his careless eye 
 
 A moment ere he turned and passed, 
 Nor knew it was his destiny. 
 
 But ever in his dreams it came 
 Divine and passionless and strong, 
 
 A smile upon the imperial lips 
 
 No lover's kiss had dared to wrong. 
 
 He took his armor from the wall — 
 
 Ah ! gone since then was many a day — 
 
 He led his steed from out the stall 
 And sought la da?ne de ses fiensees. 
 
 The ladies of the Troubadours 
 
 Came riding through the chestnut grove : 
 " Sir Minstrel, string that lute of yours 
 And sing us a gay song of love." 
 
 "O ladies of the Troubadours, 
 
 My lute has but a single string; 
 Sirventes fit for paramours, 
 
 My heart is not in tune to sing. 
 
 "The flower that blooms upon my shield 
 It has another soil and spring 
 
108 C ARC AM ON. 
 
 Than that wherein the gaudy rose 
 Of light Provence is blossoming. 
 
 " The lady of my dreams doth hold 
 Such royal state within my mind, 
 No thought that comes unclad in gold 
 To that high court may entrance find.''' 
 
 So through the chestnut groves he passed, 
 And through the land and far away; 
 
 Nor know I whether in the world 
 He found la dame de ses penskes. 
 
 Only I know that in the South 
 
 Long to the harp his tale was told ; 
 
 Sweet as new wine within the mouth 
 The small, choice words and music old. 
 
 To scorn the promise of the real ; 
 
 To seek and seek and not to find ; 
 Yet cherish still the fair ideal — 
 
 It is thy fate, O restless Mind ! 
 
AMETHYSTS. 1 
 
 Not the green eaves of our young woods alone 
 Shelter new violets, by the spring rains kissed ; 
 
 In the hard quartz, by some old April sown, 
 Blossoms Time's flower, the steadfast amethyst. 
 
 " Here 's pansies, they 're for thoughts " — weak 
 thoughts though fair ; 
 June sees their opening, June their swift decay. 
 But those stone bourgeons stand for thoughts 
 more rare, 
 Whose patient crystals colored day by day. 
 
 Might I so cut my flowers within the rock, 
 And prison there their sweet escaping breath ; 
 
 Their petals then the winter's frost should mock, 
 And only Time's slow chisel work their death. 
 
 If out of those embedded purple blooms 
 
 Were quarried cups to hold the purple wine, 
 
 Greek drinkers thought the glorious, maddening 
 fumes 
 Were cooled with radiance of that gem divine. 
 
HO AMETHYSTS. 
 
 Might I so wed the crystal and the grape, 
 
 Passion's red heart and plastic Art's endeavor, 
 
 Delirium should take on immortal shape, 
 
 Dancing and blushing in strong rock forever. 
 
SONNET. 
 
 The little creek which yesterday I saw 
 
 Ooze through the sedges, and each brackish 
 vein 
 
 That sluiced the marsh, now filled and then 
 again 
 Sucked dry to glut the sea's unsated maw, 
 All ebb and flow by the same rhythmic law 
 
 That times the beat of the Atlantic main — 
 
 They also fastened to the swift moon's train 
 By unseen cords that no less strongly draw. 
 So, poet, may thy life's small tributary 
 
 Threading some bitter marsh, obscure, alone, 
 Feel yet one pulse with the broad estuary 
 
 That bears an emperor's fleets through half a 
 zone : 
 May wait upon the same high luminary 
 
 And pitch its voice to the same ocean's tone. 
 
BEAVER POND MEADOW. 
 
 Thou art my Dismal Swamp, my Everglades : 
 Thou my Campagna, where the bison wades 
 Through shallow, steaming pools, and the sick air 
 Decays. Thou my Serbonian Bog art, where 
 O'er leagues of mud, black vomit of the Nile, 
 Crawls in the sun the myriad crocodile. 
 Or thou my Cambridge or my Lincoln fen 
 Shalt be — a lonely land where stilted men 
 Stalking across the surface waters go, 
 Casting long shadows, and the creaking, slow 
 Canal-barge, laden with its marshy hay, 
 Disturbs the stagnant ditches twice a day. 
 Thou hast thy crocodiles : on rotten logs 
 Afloat, the turtles swarm and bask : the frogs, 
 When come the pale, cold twilights of the spring, 
 Like distant sleigh-bells through the meadows ring. 
 The school-boy comes on holidays to take 
 The musk-rat in its hole, or kill the snake, 
 Or fish for bull-heads in the pond at night. 
 The hog-snout's swollen corpse with belly white; 
 I find upon the footway through the sedge, 
 
BEAVER POND MEADOW. 113 
 
 Trodden by tramps along the water's edge. 
 Not thine the breath of the salt marsh below 
 Where, when the tide is out, the mowers go 
 Shearing the oozy plain, that reeks with brine 
 More tonic than the incense of the pine. 
 Thou art the sink of all uncleanliness, 
 A drain for slaughter-pens, a wilderness 
 Of trenches, pockets, quagmires, bogs where rank 
 The poison sumach grows, and in the tank 
 The water standeth ever black and deep 
 Greened o'er with scum : foul pottages, that steep 
 And brew in that dark broth, at night distil 
 Malarious fogs bringing the fever chill. 
 Yet grislier horrors thy recesses hold : 
 The murdered peddler's body five days old 
 Among the yellow lily-pads was found 
 In yonder pond : the new-born babe lay drowned 
 And throttled on the bottom of this moat, 
 Near where the negro hermit keeps his boat ; 
 Whose wigwam stands beside the swamp ; whose 
 
 meals 
 It furnishes, fat pouts and mud-spawned eels. 
 Even so thou hast a kind of beauty, wild, 
 Unwholesome — thou the suburb's outcast child, 
 Behind whose grimy skin and matted hair 
 Warm nature works and makes her creature fair. 
 
114 BEAVER POND MEADOW. 
 
 Summer has wrought a blue and silver border 
 
 Of iris flags and flowers in triple order 
 
 Of the white arrowhead round Beaver Pond, 
 
 And o'er the milkweeds in the swamp beyond 
 
 Tangled the dodder's amber-colored threads. 
 
 In every fosse the bladderwort's bright heads 
 
 Like orange helmets on the surface show. 
 
 Richer surprises still thou hast : I know 
 
 The ways that to thy penetralia lead, 
 
 Where in black bogs the sundew's sticky bead 
 
 Ensnares young insects, and that rosy lass, 
 
 Sweet Arethusa, blushes in the grass. 
 
 Once on a Sunday when the bells were still, 
 
 Following the path under the sandy hill 
 
 Through the old orchard and across the plank 
 
 That bridges the dead stream, past many a rank 
 
 Of cat-tails, midway in the swamp I found 
 
 A small green mead of dry but spongy ground, 
 
 Entrenched about on every side with sluices 
 
 Full to the brim of thick lethean juices, 
 
 The filterings of the marsh. With line and hook 
 
 Two little French boys from the trenches took 
 
 Frogs for their Sunday meal and gathered messes 
 
 Of pungent salad from the water-cresses. 
 
 A little isle of foreign soil it seemed, 
 
 And listening to their outland talk, I dreamed 
 
BEAVER POND MEADOW. 1 1 5 
 
 That yonder spire above the elm-tops calm 
 Rose from the village chestnuts of La Balme. 
 Yes, many a pretty secret hast thou shown 
 To me, O Beaver Pond, walking alone 
 On summer afternoons, while yet the swallow 
 Skimmed o'er each flaggy plash and gravelly shal- 
 low ; 
 Or when September turned the swamps to gold 
 And purple. But the year is growing old : 
 The golden-rod is rusted, and the red 
 That streaked October's frosty cheek is dead; 
 Only the sumach's garnet pompons make 
 Procession through the melancholy brake. 
 Lo ! even now the autumnal wind blows cool 
 Over the rippled waters of thy pool, 
 And red autumnal sunset colors brood 
 Where I alone and all too late intrude. 
 
POSTHUMOUS. 
 
 Put them in print ? 
 Make one more dint 
 In the ages' furrowed rock? No, no ! 
 Let his name and his verses go. 
 These idle scraps, they would but wrong 
 His memory, whom we honored long; 
 And men would ask : " Is this the best — 
 Is this the whole his life expressed ? " 
 Haply he had no care to tell 
 To all the thoughts which flung their spell 
 Around us when the night grew deep, 
 Making it seem a loss to sleep, 
 Exalting the low, dingy room 
 To some high auditorium. 
 And when we parted homeward, still 
 They followed us beyond the hill. 
 The heaven had brought strange stars to sight, 
 Opening the map of later night ; 
 And the wide silence of the snow, 
 And the dark whispers of the pines, 
 
POS THUMO US. 117 
 
 And those keen fires that glittered slow 
 
 Along the zodiac's wintry signs, 
 Seemed witnesses and near of kin 
 To the high dreams we held within. 
 
 Yet what is left 
 
 To us bereft, 
 
 Save these remains, 
 
 Which now the moth 
 
 Will fret, or swifter fire consume ? 
 
 These inky stains 
 
 On his table-cloth ; 
 
 These prints that decked his room ; 
 
 His throne, this ragged easy-chair ; 
 
 This battered pipe, his councillor. 
 
 This is the sum and inventory. 
 
 No son he left to tell his story, 
 
 No gold, no lands, no fame, no book. 
 
 Yet one of us, his heirs, who took 
 
 The impress of his brain and heart, 
 
 May gain from Heaven the lucky art 
 
 His untold meanings to impart 
 
 In words that will not soon decay. 
 
 Then gratefully will such one say: 
 
 This phrase, dear friend, perhaps, is mine ; 
 
 The breath that gave it life was thine." 
 
JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 Past midnight long ! The moon hath set ; 
 
 I heard the cock an hour ago. 
 Still dark ! no glimpse of dawn as yet, 
 
 Though morning winds begin to blow. 
 Dear Lord, how swift the time goes by! 
 There 's something in the air that rings — 
 Listen ! — a whirring as of wings — 
 The myriad moments as they fly. 
 O fold me in thine arms, sweet night ; 
 
 Sweet pitying darkness, longer stay, 
 And veil me from the cruel light 
 
 That creeps to steal my life away. 
 
 Lo ! even now the waning stars 
 
 Grow pale. The matin bell doth toll : 
 Prisoned like me by casement bars, 
 
 It wakes sad echoes in my soul. 
 
 For memories woven in the braid 
 Of sound, bring back the abbey bell 
 That wont to ring when twilight fell, 
 
 Through pastures where my childhood strayed, 
 
JEANNE PARC. I 1 9 
 
 What time, when flocks were in the fold, 
 Saint Agnes and Saint Catharine 
 
 Looked from the darkening heavens cold, 
 And wondrous Voices spake with mine. 
 
 Slow-winding Meuse, I would that still, 
 
 Along thy grassy valleys deep, 
 Or half-way up some neighboring hill, 
 
 I heard the bleat of simple sheep. 
 It might not be : Cassandra-wise 
 
 I caught in dreams the din of shields ; 
 
 Far trumpets blown on tented fields 
 Summoned to deeds of high emprise. 
 
 Sweet household cheer was not for me ; 
 The pleasant hum of spinning-wheel, 
 
 And children's prattle at my knee — 
 The bliss that lowly mothers feel. 
 
 My spirit winged to bolder flights, 
 Drawn skyward in ecstatic dreams — 
 
 An eagle on the lonely heights, 
 
 No ringdove haunting woodland streams. 
 
 O solemn joy ! O blessed trance, 
 
 That seized me when the drums did roll, 
 And chanting priests in hood and stole 
 
 Led on the bannered hosts of France ! 
 
120 JEANNE D'ARC. 
 
 In battle winds above me blown 
 — Fit sign for maiden chevalier — 
 
 AVhite lilies streamed, and round me shone 
 Strange lights, and Voices filled my ear 
 
 Foretelling victory, saying " Ride ! 
 
 Ride onward, mailed in conquering might. 
 God's legions muster on thy side 
 
 To stead thee in the coming fight." 
 When swords were sheathed and bows unstrung, 
 
 What visions awed me as I kneeled, 
 
 While down long aisles Te Deums pealed, 
 And such triumphant anthems rung, 
 
 As Miriam, on the Red Sea shore, 
 Exulting to the timbrel's sound, 
 
 Sung, when amid the loud waves' roar 
 Chariot and horse and rider drowned ! 
 
 Ay me ! 'Tis past ; the battle 's won ; 
 
 The Warrior breaks His useless brand. 
 Yet even so : His will be done 
 
 Who holdeth victory in His hand. 
 I know that ere the sun is high, 
 
 On housetop, wall, and balcony, 
 
 Children will clap their hands with glee, 
 To see the Witch of Orleans die ; 
 
JEANNE PARC. 121 
 
 And women flout me in the face 
 Who erst have crossed them at my name, 
 
 When in the gazing market-place 
 My flesh shall feed the hungry flame. 
 
 'Twere fit that guns should boom my knell, 
 Flags droop and funeral music roll ; 
 
 And through high minster vaults should swell 
 Sad requiems for my parted soul. 
 
 Crowned kings should kneel beside me dead : 
 Cathedral saints on storied panes, 
 Where daylight turns to ruby stains, 
 
 Should shed their halos round my head. 
 From nooks in arches twilight-dim, 
 
 And niches in the pictured wall, 
 Stone Christs and carven cherubim 
 
 Should look upon my broidered pall. 
 
 Alas ! for me nor passing bell, 
 
 Nor priest to shrive, nor nun to pray. 
 
 But rising smoke my death shall tell, 
 And whistling flames my masses say. 
 
 And if among the jeering crowd 
 
 Some lonely, beggared knight-at-arms 
 There be, who once in war's alarms 
 
 Hath seen me when the storm was loud, 
 
122 JEANNE D'ARC. 
 
 And followed where my banner led ; 
 He shall my only mourner be, 
 
 And from his pitying eyes shall shed 
 A soldier's tears for love of me. 
 
 holy Mary, stead me then — 
 
 A simple maid whose heart may fail : 
 
 1 would not these grim Island men 
 Should smile to see my cheek grow pale. 
 
 And yet what fairer winding-sheet 
 
 Than martyrs' flame ? What church-yard mould 
 
 More consecrated dust can hold ? 
 What missal claspeth words more sweet 
 
 To dying ears, than those He spake : 
 " Blessed are they — yea, doubly blest, — 
 
 Who suffer death for my dear sake. 
 For them bright crowns and endless rest. 1 ' 
 
 The night is spent. The early gray 
 
 Warms into sunrise in the skies ; 
 The sunrise of eternal day — 
 
 The threshold steps of paradise. 
 'Tis written, " After storm comes shine ; " 
 
 Fierce and more fierce the fires may burn, 
 
 But as my limbs to ashes turn, 
 My soul, O Lord, shall mix with Thine. 
 
JEANNE D'ARC. 123 
 
 Even as yonder trembling star 
 Melts into morning's golden sea, 
 
 So, rapt through Heavenly spaces far, 
 Shall this poor life be lost in Thee. 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 Down in the west a kingdom lay, 
 
 Within its coasts tall cities three : 
 One on a river that flowed from the south, 
 
 One forest-bound on an inland lea, 
 And one where the southern river's mouth 
 
 Drank the salt flood of the northern sea. 
 The two were fair as bridesmaids are, 
 
 But how more fair was Kinderlee ! — 
 Their sister bride who glassed her pride 
 
 In the pictured tide of the northern sea. 
 Through all the years I mourn for thee, 
 Dear mother-town, lost Kinderlee. 
 
 How goodly were her broad church-towers 
 And ancient houses steeple-high : 
 
 Their gable peaks and chimney stacks, 
 Where swallows on the wind went by 
 
 And storks sat brooding on the thatch 
 Were Babels to the burgher's eye : 
 It seemed, as standing tip-toe there, 
 One most could touch the roofing sky. 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 1 25 
 
 There sunning on the gargoyled eaves 
 The doves sat in a patient row, 
 
 While Gretchen with the dove-like eyes 
 Glanced through the lattice down below. 
 
 For there in painted garden pots 
 
 Sweet smelling herbs and colored blooms 
 
 She tended in the window seat; 
 
 Such sunshine filled the pleasant rooms. 
 
 The shops were fine with webs of price, 
 And on the market days and fairs 
 
 The wooden booths and corner stalls 
 Held store of town and country wares. 
 
 The merchants sent their ventures out 
 To sail beyond the rounding main : 
 
 Out of the south in many days 
 
 The ships came faring home again, 
 
 Down laden to the water's edge, 
 
 With ivory wealth and golden grain. 
 
 Secure within the harbor bowl 
 
 In hundred holds the freightage lay : 
 
 Sweet figs of Smyrna, Muscat gums, 
 And costly silks from far Cathay. 
 
126 THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 By noon, by night, thy streets were bright, 
 Gold days and silver eves in thee ; 
 
 And music filling day and night 
 Made life a song in Kinderlee. 
 
 Each hour the holy minster bells 
 
 With soft psalms blessed the upper airs. 
 The minstrels went about the streets ; 
 
 At noonday in the fountain squares 
 The maids would set their pitchers down 
 
 To hear the Swedes with yellow hairs, 
 Or dark Savoyards touch the harp 
 
 And pipe to apes and dancing bears. 
 
 When the round moon hung in the lift, 
 And lights were out in gay bazaar, 
 
 Adown the shadows of the street 
 Some northern ballad echoed far 
 
 From voices round the threshold stone 
 Accordant to the light guitar. 
 
 On martyrs' days and holy feasts 
 
 What cheer the simple townsfolk made ! 
 
 How swelled along the narrow ways 
 In civic pomp the plumed parade ! 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. \2*J 
 
 First went the friars six and six, 
 
 With scarlet gowns and shaven polls ; 
 
 Above them shone the crucifix 
 
 Where Christ hung bleeding for lost souls. 
 
 Next stepped the red-faced trumpeters 
 
 Winding the brazen snaky horn, 
 And last the mounted men at arms 
 
 With broidered banners high upborne. 
 
 On either side, the open doors 
 
 Made frames for happy groups ; down 
 rolled 
 From windows to the street's stone floors, 
 
 Hung rainbow mats and cloths of gold. 
 
 Where art thou, O my mother town ? 
 
 The piping winds from off the sea, 
 That rocked my cradle in thy walls, 
 
 Shall never more blow over thee. 
 Of all that spoke the kindly speech 
 
 I learned to lisp beside thy knee, 
 There lives not on the lonely earth 
 
 Or man or wife or child save me. 
 The tides shift over thy palace stones, 
 
 The grass grows green on Kinderlee. 
 
128 THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 'T was when the days were waxing long, 
 And Lent was now a fortnight old ; 
 
 When March came in with whistle shrill 
 
 And hares were mad and mornings chill ; 
 The ballads sung and stories told 
 
 At Whitsun ales, remembered still, 
 
 And Shrovetide ovens scarce grown cold. 
 
 Sudden like wind a trumpet blew : 
 The king of all the southern land, 
 
 With his stealthy hosts as still as ghosts, 
 Crept onto us over the desert sand. 
 
 Seven nights had their watch-fires lit the waste, 
 Where a thousand tents, like a fleet at sea, 
 
 Seemed steering over the barren plain. 
 Far off the wolves howled mournfully. 
 
 But when the seven days were eight, 
 
 In battle on the red frontier 
 We met them there, and met swift fate : 
 
 Some fell in fight, some fled in fear. 
 I saw my king's gray reverend head 
 
 Uplifted on the cruel spear 
 
 Discrowned, with bloody hair. Thenceforth 
 That grisly standard led the foe, 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 1 29 
 
 Its eyes fixed ever on the north, 
 As reading all the coming woe. 
 
 What boots it tell how Monksbridge fell, 
 And Stifton chimneys leaguered long; 
 
 How ebbed and flowed the southern tide 
 Till, scarce a score of thousands strong. 
 
 &i 
 
 Before our eyes the wasted land, 
 Behind our backs the desert sea, 
 
 Grasping a broken, hopeless brand, 
 We turned to bay in Kinderlee ? 
 
 CANTO 11. 
 
 The Easter evening sun was low, 
 
 The ebb went oozing out the bay, 
 The shadows of the quiet masts 
 
 Along the quiet water lay. 
 
 In that bright evening hush, to stay 
 Did seem twice sweet, twice hard to go : 
 
 Yet when the wakening Easter day 
 Shall feel the morning land-breeze blow, 
 That breeze within our sails shall sing, 
 
 And round our keel shall sing the sea, 
 And in our wake shall toss and wave 
 
 The beckoning flames of Kinderlee. 
 9 
 
130 THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 Sweet is revenge, the memory sweet 
 Of our slain kin ; O, sweet to feel 
 
 The foeman's stiffening muscles writhe 
 In anguish round our smoking steel : 
 
 Dear is this little ancient land 
 
 And this old city by the sea; 
 Yet dearer still our wives, our babes, 
 
 The folk, the tongue of Kinderlee. 
 
 Though the brave fear not death, they give 
 Their lives that those they love may live ; 
 But our lives are too few to save 
 All that we die for from the grave. 
 
 We '11 bear our city in our heart 
 And build it new beyond the sea ; 
 For where we are our land will be, — 
 There and not here is Kinderlee. 
 
 Yet keep once more our Easter eve 
 With feast and song ; for we will go 
 
 With paeans and with joyful hymns 
 To Him, who from the Egyptian woe 
 
 Exulting led his Israel forth, 
 
 Even from the presence of the foe. 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 1 3 I 
 
 But when the Easter bells give word 
 That Christ is risen, and in the east 
 
 The dawn hangs its gray signal out ; 
 
 Then leave the dance and leave the feast, 
 
 And, hastening to the port, embark; 
 
 That ere the morning land breeze die, 
 Far windward left behind, our home 
 
 May vanish 'twixt the sea and sky. 
 
 Only a thin white cloud that crawls 
 
 Into the sky from out the sea, 
 Will show where smoke the burning walls 
 
 Of our lost city, Kinderlee, 
 
 In thee, fair town, we '11 leave behind 
 
 A garrison of faithful fire. 
 Thou shalt not be the victor's spoil, 
 
 Dear city of our heart's desire. 
 
 And now throughout the town each door 
 Stood open to the warm spring night, 
 
 And festal windows all ablaze 
 
 Made every street an aisle of light 
 
132 THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 Across each threshold, where they would, 
 The maskers wandered out and in. 
 
 Low breathed the passionate soft flute, 
 Trembled and wailed the violin. 
 
 Yet in the pauses of the dance 
 
 Each ear was listening for a token : 
 
 The laugh would turn into a sob, 
 
 The word begun break off unspoken ; 
 
 And something in his partner's eye 
 
 Told each the other's heart was broken : 
 
 Till, as the night grew deep, a golden 
 
 Curtain rolled across the past. 
 A strange intoxication came 
 
 And said, " Enjoy 1 It is the last." 
 
 Sweet riot filled the enfranchised blood 
 That in our veins seemed turned to wine ; 
 
 The music thrilled exultingly ; 
 
 Bacchantic grew the dance and free; 
 The women's eyes began to shine 
 
 More brightly through their tears again, 
 
 Like moonlight on the falling rain. 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 1 33 
 
 Revel so mad, so wild, so sad 
 
 Was never, since the Assyrian king, 
 
 While rebels stormed his outer courts, 
 Held his last desperate banqueting. 
 
 Now I through all the lighted town 
 
 Had joined the maskers here and there ; 
 
 Had entered many a stranger door, 
 
 And climbed up many an unknown stair. 
 
 For all were hosts and guests that night ; 
 
 All came and went, without, within ; 
 Welcome to banquet or to dance, 
 
 Alike were comeling, kith and kin. 
 
 And many an unacquainted maid, 
 Whose beauty to my eyes was new, 
 
 Grown sweetly bold and unafraid, 
 Gave me the kiss to partners due. 
 
 And once I held a rosy pair 
 
 Of palms upon the balcony, 
 Where silken window curtains sighed 
 
 As the night wind blew off the sea. 
 
 I said, " Sweetheart, we meet to part : 
 To-morrow on the estranging sea 
 
134 THE LAST 0F HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 You will not blush for one more kiss 
 You gave me on this balcony." 
 
 The lips I kissed were sweet with wine ; 
 
 "Here's no one but the moon, can tell,' 
 The eyes I kissed were wet with tears ; 
 
 She whispered in my arms "Farewell." 
 
 But now the lamps burned large and dim ; 
 
 Muffled in yellow mist they shone : 
 The dancers seemed to wave and swim ; 
 
 Their voices took a drowsy tone. 
 
 The music sounded from far off 
 
 Like music that one hears in dreams. 
 
 Narcotic grew the ball-room flowers ; 
 The lustres shed unearthly gleams. 
 
 Heavy mine eyelids grew with sleep, 
 My heart forgot both joy and pain, — 
 
 To-night, to-morrow, yesterday, — 
 
 As though an opiate touched my brain. 
 
 I wandered from the crowded rooms, 
 And groped through darkened corridors, 
 
 And stumbled up long staircases, 
 Until I reached the upper floors; 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 135 
 
 And found a chamber far apart, 
 
 Where neither light nor sound there came ; 
 And fell upon the bed and sunk 
 
 To sleep, as sinks a dying flame. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 In weary dreams I seemed to hear 
 The ring of bells and trumpets blown, 
 
 And voices calling, and the tramp 
 Of feet upon the pavement stone. 
 
 And then I fathomed darker gulfs 
 
 Of sleep, too deep for dreams to sound ; 
 
 Until mine eyes unclosed and traced 
 The figures on the carpet's ground, 
 
 And idly watched a shadow vine, 
 Whose leaves did tremble evermore 
 
 Within the square of still sunshine 
 That lay upon the chamber floor. 
 
 But suddenly I started up ; 
 
 My heart stopped — like a deadly pain 
 That anodynes have put to sleep, 
 
 My thoughts came piercing back again. 
 
136 THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 I tottered to the window seat : 
 
 The port was empty, and die town 
 
 As silent in the broad full light 
 
 As though the midnight stars shone down. 
 
 Far off a hundred sunlit sails 
 
 Before the wind were running free, 
 
 Like flocks that browsing westward go 
 On the blue pasture of the sea. 
 
 As when a mother stands beside 
 
 Her darling's open grave, and hears 
 
 The priest speak words of holy cheer ; 
 Then softly come her sobs and tears 
 
 But when into the grave they lower 
 The little body of her child, 
 
 She thinks, " O never, never more, — 
 My baby ! " and her grief grows wild 
 
 Even so my great despair was dumb, 
 Until behind the rounding sea 
 
 The last sail vanished, with its freight 
 Of all that made life dear to me. 
 
 And then my agony broke forth 
 
 In groans and cries and hopeless prayers ; 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 1 37 
 
 But suddenly I started up 
 
 And hurried down the winding stairs, 
 
 And through the halls, where still the lamps 
 Burned sickly in the white sunshine, 
 
 And flowers lay fading on the board, 
 With cups half emptied of their wine. 
 
 I ran down all the silent streets, 
 
 And through the echoing market-place : 
 
 No shopman in his doorway lounged, 
 No window held the gossip's face. 
 
 The dead walls answered back my shouts : 
 Where the tall houses leaned together 
 
 Floated across the strip of sky 
 
 A white smoke, curling like a feather. 
 
 In every house the door stood wide, 
 The clocks were ticking on the wall, 
 
 The playthings strewed the nursery floor, — 
 Here lay a hat and there a shawl. 
 
 It seemed as though the inmates had 
 But stepped into the other room ; — 
 
 Shall I not find the goodwife there, 
 Or busy housemaid with her broom ? 
 
138 THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 Each home was with some presence warm 
 Whose life was here but yesterday; 
 
 Whose very pressure, mould and form 
 Still fresh on bed or sofa lay, 
 
 Whose image from the mirror's face 
 Seemed hardly to have passed away. 
 
 But now, as heavier plumes of smoke 
 Across the windows drifting came, 
 
 I mounted to the housetop high, 
 
 And saw where lines of sieging flame 
 
 Which all along the landward wall 
 
 Our men had kindled through the town, 
 
 With ever widening wings of smoke 
 
 Spread to the wind, sailed slowly down. 
 
 At moments when a fiercer gust 
 
 The sooty curtain blew aside, 
 On the plain's utmost southern edge 
 
 In the strong sunlight I descried 
 
 Something like steel that glittered, where 
 The vanguard of the foe came on. 
 
 Too late ! The ocean and the air 
 
 Had snatched the prize his arms had won. 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 1 39 
 
 At evening from the neighboring hill 
 I marked their watch-fires circling far. 
 The rising tide, the river's' flow 
 Came upward from the dark below ; 
 
 Over the ruins smouldering still 
 Hung in the west the evening star, — 
 
 A burning candle in the hand 
 
 Of a vast form that seemed to stand 
 
 Treading the sunset's hem, 
 
 Ready to light me on to them 
 Who in the black deep wandering are. 
 
 O planet, let me follow ; take 
 Me with thee 'in thy shining wake ! 
 Thou settest here, but risest there 
 Amid the ocean's twilight, where 
 Upon the deck dim figures stand, 
 
 Whisper and weep and talk of me. 
 " Whether has he been left on land, 
 
 Or is he somewhere on the sea 
 Among the vessels of the fleet ? " 
 "Trust me, he is ; and we shall meet 
 
 In port at last, if not before. 
 So dry your tears, it will be sweet, 
 Dear mother, sister, friends, to greet 
 
 Our lost one at the port once more." 
 
140 THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. 
 
 Alas ! no tongue of man can tell 
 
 What port that far-bound navy made. 
 
 No whaler, slaver, bark of trade, 
 Cruising for strange outlandish freight 
 In each remotest sound and strait 
 
 And archipelago, hath spoken 
 A single sail from Kinderlee. 
 
 The land's last corner gives no token, 
 Nor the uncommunicable sea. 
 
 These many years I haunt the wharves 
 
 And marts of every seaport town, 
 And question sailors in the street 
 For news of that long-vanished fleet, — 
 The Portuguese, tattooed and brown, 
 Seal-fishers, Holland skippers old, 
 With queues and earrings of rough gold, 
 Whose keels are thick with shells and weed 
 From Indian harbors, — all in vain : 
 On northern fiord or tropic main 
 No lookout yet hath seen them run 
 Close hauled or free, by moon or sun, 
 Windward or leeward e'er again. 
 
 Yet hope will tell how still they dwell 
 Within a loftier Kinderlee, 
 
THE LAST OF HIS PEOPLE. \i 
 
 On some green isle or some rich shore, 
 Unknown, beyond the western sea. 
 
 And when glad death shall close mine eyes, 
 O Christ, though bright thy kingdom be, 
 
 Yet ope them not in Paradise 
 But in that other Kinderlee.