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POEMS BY 
 EDWARD SANDFORD MARTIN 
 
POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD SANDFORD MARTIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "IN A NEW CENTURY," " COUSIN ANTHONY AND I, 
 "WINDFALLS OF OBSERVATION" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 MCMXIV 
 
Copyright, 1914, by Charles Scribner's Sons 
 Published September, 1914 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH 1 
 
 PROCUL NEGOTIIS 3 
 
 FUIT ILIUM 4 
 
 EPITHALAMIUM 6 
 
 MEA CULPA 10 
 
 AGAIN 14 
 
 SNOW-BOUND 16 
 
 TO MABEL 18 
 
 IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS 21 
 
 A SECOND THOUGHT 23 
 
 A PRACTICAL QUESTION 25 
 
 ET TU, BERGHE ! 26 
 
 INSOMNIA 27 
 
 CIVIL SERVICE 28 
 
 ALL OR NOT KING 30 
 
 296705 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A PHILADELPHIA CLAVERHOUSE 32 
 
 THROWING STONES 34 
 
 TOUCHING BOTTOM 38 
 
 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE 40 
 
 LOCHINVAR EX-COLORADO 43 
 
 A MORTIFYING SUBJECT 46 
 
 MIXED 48 
 
 AND WAS HE RIGHT ? 49 
 
 BALLADE OF THE GENERAL TERM 50 
 
 INFIRM 52 
 
 CRUMBS AND COMFORT 53 
 
 ASHORE 54 
 
 BARTER 57 
 
 BEGGARS' HORSES 59 
 
 TO-DAY 61 
 
 OF MISTRESS MARTHA: HER EYES 62 
 
 THE BEST GIFT OF ALL 64 
 
 AUTUMN 66 
 
 REMORSE 68 
 
 vi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 HUMPTY DUMPTY 69 
 
 RETIREMENT 70 
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 72 
 
 WHAT HE WANTS IN HIS 73 
 
 BE KIND TO THYSELF 74 
 
 LOST LIGHT 75 
 
 DATED "FEBRUARY THE 14TH" 77 
 
 LOOKING ON 79 
 
 REVULSION 80 
 
 FOLGER 82 
 
 GRANT 83 
 
 POEMS AND VERSES 
 
 THE SEA IS HIS 87 
 
 WORK 91 
 
 WORTH WHILE 95 
 
 EGOTISM 96 
 
 BROTHERHOOD 97 
 
 WILLIAM EUSTIS RUSSELL 99 
 
 vii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LINES INSCRIBED ON A HOSPITAL CLOCK 101 
 
 A GIRL OF POMPEII 102 
 
 GIFTS 103 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1898 104 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1900 106 
 
 NEW YEAR'S, 1900 108 
 
 AUGUST 109 
 
 BY THE EVENING FIRE 110 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS LOVER 111 
 
 LABUNTUR ANNI 112 
 
 TO CELESTINE IN BRAVE ARRAY 114 
 
 AS SUMMER WANES 115 
 
 IRRECONCILABLE 116 
 
 THEY SAY SHE FLIRTS 117 
 
 BLANDINA 120 
 
 AN URBAN HARBINGER 122 
 
 THE CONTEMPORARY SUITOR 124 
 
 UNCERTAINTY 126 
 
 ABOUT THE HORSE 128 
 
 viii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE REVOLT OF THE BONE 130 
 
 SPRING FEVER 132 
 
 EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 134 
 
 VERSES OF OCCASION 
 
 RETROSPECTIVELY SPEAKING 151 
 
 LIFE LOQUITUR 155 
 
 LIFE TO HIS FRIENDS 160 
 
 AD SODALES 163 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER 170 
 
 FIFTY YEARS OLD 173 
 THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY 176 
 
 THE STRENUOUS LIFE 182 
 
 WHAT FOR ? 189 
 
 TO PRESIDENT LOWELL 191 
 
 THE OLD STOCK 194 
 
 THIRTY YEARS AGO 197 
 
 THE PRUDENT FARMER 201 
 
 ix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE AUTOMOBILE SPEAKS 205 
 
 FORTITER OCCUPA PORTUM 208 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1912 211 
 
 TO AN AMBASSADOR 214 
 
POEMS BY 
 EDWARD SANDFORD MARTIN 
 
A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH 
 
 'THD put new shingles on old roofs; 
 
 * To give old women wadded skirts; 
 To treat premonitory coughs 
 
 With seasonable flannel shirts; 
 To soothe the stings of poverty 
 
 And keep the jackal from the door 
 These are the works that occupy 
 
 The Little Sister of the Poor. 
 
 She carries, everywhere she goes, 
 
 Kind words and chickens, jams and coals; 
 Poultices for corporeal woes, 
 
 And sympathy for downcast souls; 
 Her currant jelly her quinine, 
 
 The lips of fever move to bless. 
 She makes the humble sick-room shine 
 
 With unaccustomed tidiness. 
 
 A heart of hers the instant twin 
 
 And vivid counterpart is mine; 
 I also serve my fellow men, 
 
 Though in a somewhat different line. 
 1 
 
A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH 
 
 The Poor, and their concerns, she has 
 
 Monopolized, because of which 
 It falls to me to labor as 
 
 A Little Brother of the Rich. 
 
 For their sake at no sacrifice 
 
 Does my devoted spirit quail; 
 I give their horses exercise; 
 
 As ballast on their yachts I sail. 
 Upon their Tally Hos I ride 
 
 And brave the chances of a storm; 
 I even use my own inside 
 
 To keep their wines and victuals warm. 
 
 Those whom we strive to benefit 
 
 Dear to our hearts soon grow to be; 
 I love my Rich, and I admit 
 
 That they are very good to me. 
 Succor the Poor, my sisters, I, 
 
 While heaven shall still vouchsafe me health, 
 Will strive to share and mollify 
 
 The trials of abounding wealth. 
 
PROCUL NEGOTIIS 
 
 I THINK that if I had a farm, 
 I M be a man of sense; 
 And if the day was bright and warm 
 
 I 'd sit upon the fence, 
 And calmly smoke a pensive pipe 
 
 And think about my pigs; 
 And wonder if the corn was ripe; 
 And counsel Vhomme qui digs. 
 
 And if the day was wet and cold, 
 
 I think I should admire 
 To sit, and dawdle over old 
 
 Montaigne, before the fire; 
 And pity boobies who could lie 
 
 And squabble just for pelf; 
 And thank my blessed stars that I 
 
 Was nicely fixed myself. 
 
FUIT ILIUM 
 
 WERE you nurtured in the purple? 
 Were you reared a pampered pet ? 
 Did a menial throng encircle 
 
 You in waiting while you ate ? 
 When a baby had you lockets, 
 
 Silver cups, and forks, and spoons? 
 Were there coins in the pockets 
 Of your childhood's pantaloons? 
 
 Did hereditary shekels 
 
 Make your sweethearts deem you fair 
 Reconcile them to your freckles 
 
 And your carrot-colored hair? 
 In electrifying raiment 
 
 Were you every day attired? 
 Was the promptness of your payment 
 
 Universally admired? 
 
 Did your father, too confiding, 
 Sign the paper of his friends? 
 
 Did his railway stock, subsiding, 
 Cease to pay him dividends? 
 4 
 
FUIT ILIUM 
 
 Are his buildings slow in renting? 
 
 Did his banker pilfer, slope, 
 And absconding leave lamenting 
 
 Creditors to live on hope? 
 
 Ere you dissipate a quarter 
 Do you scrutinize it twice? 
 
 Have you ceased to look on water- 
 Drinking as a nauseous vice? 
 
 Do you wear your brother's breeches, 
 Though the buttons scarcely meet? 
 
 Does the vanity of riches 
 
 Form no part of your conceit? 
 
 I am with you, fellow pauper ! 
 
 Let us share our scanty crust 
 Burst the bonds of fiscal torpor 
 
 Go where beer is sold on trust ! 
 Let us, freed from res angustce, 
 
 Seek some fair Utopian mead 
 Where the throat is never dusty, 
 
 And tobacco grows, a weed. 
 
EPITHALAMIUM 
 
 PHE marriage bells have rung their peal, 
 * The wedding march has told its story. 
 I 've seen her at the altar kneel 
 
 In all her stainless, virgin glory; 
 She 's bound to honor, love, obey, 
 
 Come joy or sorrow, tears or laughter. 
 I watched her as she rode away, 
 And flung the lucky slipper after. 
 
 She was my first, my very first, 
 
 My earliest inamorata, 
 And to the passion that I nursed 
 
 For her I well-nigh was a martyr. 
 For I was young and she was fair, 
 
 And always bright and gay and chipper, 
 And, oh, she wore such sunlit hair ! 
 
 Such silken stockings ! such a slipper ! 
 
 She did not wish to make me mourn 
 She was the kindest of God's creatures; 
 
 But flirting was in her inborn, 
 Like brains and queerness in the Beechers. 
 6 
 
EPITHALAMIUM 
 
 I do not fear your heartless flirt, 
 
 Obtuse her dart and dull her probe is; 
 
 But when girls do not mean to hurt, 
 But do Orate tune pro nobis ! 
 
 A most romantic country place; 
 
 The moon at full, the month of August; 
 An inland lake across whose face 
 
 Played gentle zephyrs, ne'er a raw gust. 
 Books, boats, and horses to enjoy, 
 
 The which was all our occupation; 
 A damsel and a callow boy 
 
 There ! now you have the situation. 
 
 We rode together miles and miles, 
 
 My pupil she, and I her Chiron; 
 At home I revelled in her smiles 
 
 And read her extracts out of Byron. 
 We roamed by moonlight, chose our stars 
 
 (I thought it most authentic billing), 
 Explored the woods, climbed over bars, 
 
 Smoked cigarettes and broke a shilling. 
 
 An infinitely blissful week 
 
 Went by in this Arcadian fashion; 
 
 7 
 
EPITHALAMIUM 
 
 I hesitated long to speak, 
 
 But ultimately breathed my passion. 
 She said her heart was not her own; 
 
 She said she 'd love me like a sister; 
 She cried a little (not alone), 
 
 I begged her not to fret, and kissed her. 
 
 I lost some sleep, some pounds in weight, 
 
 A deal of time and all my spirits, 
 And much, how much I dare not state 
 
 I mused upon that damsel's merits. 
 I tortured my unhappy soul, 
 
 I wished I never might recover; 
 I hoped her marriage bells might toll 
 
 A requiem for her faithful lover. 
 
 And now she 's married, now she wears 
 
 A wedding-ring upon her finger; 
 And I although it odd appears 
 
 Still in the flesh I seem to linger. 
 Lo, there my swallow-tail, and here 
 
 Lies by my side a wedding favor; 
 Beside it stands a mug of beer, 
 
 I taste it how divine its flavor ! 
 8 
 
EPITHALAMIUM 
 
 I saw her in her bridal dress 
 
 Stand pure and lovely at the altar; 
 I heard her firm response that "Yes," 
 
 Without a quiver or a falter. 
 And here I sit and drink to her 
 
 Long life and happiness, God bless her ! 
 Now fill again. No heel-taps, sir; 
 
 Here 's to Success to her successor ! 
 
MEA CULPA 
 
 THERE is a thing which in my brain, 
 Though nightly I revolve it, 
 I cannot in the least explain, 
 Nor do I hope to solve it. 
 While others tread the narrow path 
 
 In manner meek and pious, 
 Why is it that my spirit hath 
 So opposite a bias ? 
 
 Brought up to fear the Lord, and dread 
 
 The bottomless abysm, 
 In Watts's hymns profoundly read 
 
 And drilled in catechism, 
 I should have been a model youth, 
 
 The pink of all that 's proper. 
 I was not, but to tell the truth 
 
 I never cared a copper. 
 
 I had no yearnings when a boy 
 To sport an angel's wrapper, 
 
 Nor heard I with tumultuous joy 
 The church-frequenting clapper. 
 10 
 
MEA CULPA 
 
 My actions always harmonized 
 With my own sweet volition. 
 
 I always did what I devised, 
 But rarely asked permission. 
 
 When o'er the holy book I 'd pore 
 
 And read of doings pristine, 
 I had a fellow-feeling for 
 
 The put-upon Philistine. 
 King David gratified my taste 
 
 He harped and danced boleros; 
 But first the Prodigal was placed 
 
 Upon my list of heroes. 
 
 I went to school. To study ? No ! 
 
 I dearly loved to dally 
 And dawdle over Ivanhoe, 
 
 Tom Brown, and Charles O'Malley; 
 In recitation I was used 
 
 To halt on every sentence; 
 Repenting, seldom I produced 
 
 Fruits proper to repentance. 
 
 At college, later, I became 
 Familiar with my Flaccus, 
 11 
 
MEA CULPA 
 
 Brought incense to the Muses' flame, 
 
 And sacrificed to Bacchus. 
 I flourished in an air unfraught 
 
 With sanctity's aroma; 
 Learned many things I was not taught, 
 
 And captured a diploma. 
 
 I am not well provided for, 
 
 I have no great possessions, 
 I do not like the legal or 
 
 Medicinal professions, 
 Were I of good repute I might 
 
 Take orders as a deacon; 
 But I 'm no bright and shining light, 
 
 But just a warning beacon. 
 
 Though often urged by friends sincere 
 
 To woo some funded houri, 
 I cannot read my title clear 
 
 To any damsel's dowry. 
 And could to wedlock I induce 
 
 An heiress, I should falter, 
 For fear that such a bridal noose 
 
 Might prove a gilded halter. 
 
MEA CULPA 
 
 My tradesmen have suspicious grown, 
 
 My friends are tired of giving; 
 Upon the cold, cold world I 'm thrown 
 
 To hammer out my living. 
 I fear that work before me lies 
 
 Indeed, I see no option, 
 Unless, perhaps, I advertise 
 
 "An orphan for adoption!" 
 
 A legacy of misspent time 
 
 Is all that I 'm the heir to; 
 I cannot make my life sublime 
 
 However much I care to. 
 And if as now I turn my head 
 
 In retrospect a minute, 
 'Tis but to recognize my bed, 
 
 Before I lie down in it. 
 
 I am the man that I have been, 
 
 And at the final summing, 
 How shall I bear to see sent in 
 
 My score, one long shortcoming ! 
 Unless when all the saints exclaim 
 
 With righteous wrath, "Peccant/" 
 Some mighty friend shall make his claim, 
 
 "He suffered, and amavit!" 
 13 
 
AGAIN 
 
 I WONDER why my brow is burning; 
 Why sleep to close my eyes forgets; 
 I wonder why I have a yearning 
 To smoke incessant cigarettes. 
 I wonder why my thoughts will wander, 
 
 And all restraint of mine defy, 
 And why excuse the rhyme a gander 
 Is not more of a goose than I. 
 
 I have an indistinct impression 
 
 I had these symptoms once before, 
 And dull discomfort held possession 
 
 Of this same spot that now is sore. 
 That sometime in a past that ranges 
 
 From early whiskers up to bibs, 
 My heart was ringing just such changes 
 
 As now against these selfsame ribs. 
 
 I wish some philanthropic Jenner 
 Might vaccinate against these ills, 
 
 And help us keep our noiseless tenor 
 Of life submissive to our wills; 
 14 
 
AGAIN 
 
 And ere our hearts are permeated 
 By sentiments too warm by half, 
 
 That we might be inoculated 
 With milder passion from a calf. 
 
 15 
 
SNOW-BOUND 
 
 A law office; two briefless ones; a clock strikes. 
 JAMES 
 
 ONE, two, three, four; it 's four o'clock. 
 There comes the postman round the block, 
 And in a jiff we '11 hear his knock 
 
 Most pleasant. 
 
 Inform me, Thomas, will he bring 
 To you deserving no such thing 
 Letters from her whose praises ring 
 Incessant ? 
 
 THOMAS 
 
 Friend of my bosom, James, refrain 
 From putting questions fraught with pain, 
 And seeking facts I had not fain 
 
 Imparted. 
 
 The said official on this stretch, 
 Will not, in my opinion, fetch, 
 Such documents to me, a wretch 
 
 Down-hearted. 
 16 
 
SNOW-BOUND 
 
 JAMES 
 
 Nay; but I prithee, Thomas, tell 
 
 To me, thy friend, who loves thee well, 
 
 What cause there is for such a fell 
 
 Deprival. 
 
 Why is it that the message fails? 
 Have broken ties, or twisted rails, 
 Or storm, or snow delayed the mail's 
 
 Arrival ? 
 
 THOMAS 
 
 Thou art, oh, James ! a friend indeed, 
 To probe my wound and make it bleed; 
 To know of my affairs thy greed 
 
 Hath no bound. 
 
 The reason why, thou hast not guessed, 
 If storm there were, 'twas in her breast, 
 For there my letter, unexpressed, 
 
 Lies snow-bound. 
 
 17 
 
TO MABEL 
 
 UPON this anniversary, 
 My little godchild, aged three, 
 My compliments I make to thee, 
 
 Quite heedless. 
 
 And that you '11 throw them now away, 
 But treasure them some future day, 
 Are platitudes, the which to say 
 Is needless. 
 
 You small, stout damsel, muckle mou'd, 
 With cropped tow-head and manners rude, 
 And stormy spirit unsubdued 
 
 By nurses, 
 
 Where you were raised was it in vogue 
 To lisp that Tipperary brogue? 
 Oh, you 're a subject sweet, you rogue, 
 
 For verses ! 
 
 Last Sunday morning when we stayed 
 At home you got yourself arrayed 
 In Lyman's clothes and turned from maid 
 To urchin. 
 
 18 
 
TO MABEL 
 
 And when we all laughed at you so, 
 You eyed outside the falling snow, 
 And thought your rig quite fit to go 
 To church in. 
 
 Play on, play on, dear little lass ! 
 Play on till sixteen summers pass, 
 And then I '11 bring a looking-glass, 
 
 And there be- 
 Fore you on your lips I '11 show 
 The curves of small Dan Cupid's bow, 
 And then the crop that now is "tow" 
 
 Shall "fair" be. 
 
 And then I '11 show you, too, the charms 
 Of small firm hands and rounded arms, 
 And eyes whose flashes send alarms 
 
 Right through you; 
 And then a half -regretful sigh 
 May break from me to think that I, 
 At forty years, can never try, 
 
 To woo you. 
 
 What shall I wish you ? Free from ruth, 
 To live and learn in love and truth, 
 19 
 
TO MABEL 
 
 Through childhood's day and days of youth, 
 
 And school's day. 
 For all the days that intervene 
 'Twixt Mab at three and at nineteen, 
 Are but one sombre or serene 
 
 All Fools' Day. 
 
IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS 
 
 WHAT? You here! Why, old man, I never 
 Felt more surprise or more delight; 
 Who would have dreamt that you would ever 
 
 Parade around in robes of white? 
 I always thought of you as dodging 
 
 The coals and firebrands somewhere else; 
 And here you are, with board and lodging, 
 Where not so much as butter melts. 
 
 Well, well, old man, if you can stand it 
 
 Up here, I '11 never make a fuss; 
 I had forebodings that they 'd planned it 
 
 A little stiff for men like us. 
 The boys were much cut up about you, 
 
 You got away so very quick; 
 And, as for me, to do without you 
 
 Just absolutely made me sick. 
 
 I wish you could have seen us plant you; 
 
 Why, every man squeezed out a tear, 
 And just imagine us, now, can't you ? 
 
 The gang, and yours the only bier ! 
 
IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS 
 
 Fred hammered out some bully verses; 
 
 We had them printed in the sheet, 
 With lines funereal as hearses 
 
 Around them didn't it look sweet ! 
 
 Halloo ! is that Sir Walter Raleigh? 
 
 I wish you 'd point the people out; 
 I want to look at Tom Macaulay; 
 
 Is Makepeace anywhere about? 
 Where 's Socrates ? Where 's Sydney Carton ?- 
 
 Oh, I forgot he was a myth; 
 If there 's a thing I 've set my heart on 
 
 It is to play with Sydney Smith. 
 
 What? Glad I came? I am for certain; 
 
 The other 's a malarious hole. 
 I always pined to draw the curtain, 
 
 And somehow knew I had a soul. 
 The flesh oh, wasn't it a fetter ! 
 
 You 'd get so tired of all your schemes; 
 But here, I think, I '11 like it better. 
 
 Oh dear, how natural it seems ! 
 
A SECOND THOUGHT 
 
 THIS world 's the worst I ever saw; 
 I 'd like to make it better; 
 I 'm going to promulgate the law, 
 And hold men to its letter. 
 Be respectable and stand 
 
 Esteemed of Mrs. Grundy; 
 Attend to business week-days and 
 Read moral books on Sunday. 
 
 On Sabbath-keepers, every one, 
 
 Approvingly I smile, and 
 Frown on those who spend their Sun- 
 Days down at Coney Island. 
 
 Don't play cards, young man; gobang 
 
 Affords amusement ample. 
 Speak carefully, eschewing slang, 
 And set a good example. 
 
 The theatres, how bad they be ! 
 
 The players, oh, how vicious ! 
 The waltz I shudder when I see, 
 
 And think it most pernicious. 
 23 
 
A SECOND THOUGHT 
 
 Shun the wine cup; don't be led 
 To drink by scoff or banter; 
 
 In the cup lurk pains of head, 
 And snakes in the decanter. 
 
 Ah, me ! I wonder if I 'm right ! 
 I say, "It 's wrong to do so !" 
 As though, without a soul in sight, 
 I ruled alone, like Crusoe. 
 
 Is it that I am partly wrong, 
 
 And partly right, my neighbor, 
 And that we get, who toil so long, 
 Half-truths for all our labor? 
 
A PRACTICAL QUESTION 
 
 DARKLY the humorist 
 Muses on fate; 
 Ghastly experiment 
 
 Life seems to him, 
 Subject for merriment 
 
 Sombre and grim; 
 Is it his doom or is 't 
 Something he ate? 
 
ET TU, BERGHE! 
 
 A ND art thou, Bergh, so firmly set 
 ** Against domestic strife, 
 As to correct with stripes the man 
 Who disciplines his wife? 
 
 Such action doth not of thy creed 
 
 Appear the normal fruit; 
 Thou shouldst befriend a being who 
 
 Behaves so like a brute ! 
 
INSOMNIA 
 
 , vagrant sleep, and close the lid 
 Upon the casket of my thought; 
 Come, truant, come when thou art bid, 
 And let thyself be caught. 
 
 For lonely is the night, and still; 
 
 And save my own no breath I hear, 
 No other mind, no other will, 
 
 Nor heart nor hand is near. 
 
 Thy waywardness what prayer can move ! 
 
 Canst thou by any lure be brought? 
 Or art thou then like woman's love 
 
 That only comes unsought? 
 
 Up ! Where 's my dressing-gown ? My pipe is here. 
 Slumber be hanged ! Now for a book and beer. 
 
CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 Pennsylvania Avenue 
 He stood and waited for a car; 
 He turned to catch a parting view 
 
 Of where the Public Buildings are: 
 He looked at them with thoughtful eye; 
 
 He took his hat from off his head; 
 He heaved a half-regretful sigh, 
 And thus he said: 
 
 "My relative, I do the bidding 
 
 Of Fate, and say to thee good-by. 
 I think thee fortunate at ridding 
 
 Thyself of such a clerk as I. 
 Thy sure support, though somewhat meagre, 
 
 Hath much about it to commend; 
 Nor am I now so passing eager 
 
 To leave so provident a friend. 
 
 "Light was thy yoke could I have borne it 
 
 With tranquil mind and step sedate; 
 Why did my feeble shoulders scorn it 
 
 And seem to crave a heavier weight? 
 Extremely blest is his condition 
 
 Whose needs thy bounteous hands supply, 
 8 
 
CIVIL SERVICE 
 
 If he but fling away ambition 
 And let the world go rushing by. 
 
 " Indocilis pauperiem pati, 
 
 I must get out of this damp spot. 
 Away ! away ! Whatever fate I 
 
 May have in store, I fear it not. 
 Away from all my soul despises, 
 
 From paltry aims, from sordid cares; 
 Fame, honor, love, time's richest prizes, 
 
 Lie waiting for the man who dares. 
 
 "The man who calls no man his master, 
 
 Nor bows his head to tinsel gods; 
 Who faces debt, disease, disaster, 
 
 And never murmurs at the odds; 
 Although his life from its beginning 
 
 Marks only fall succeeding fall, 
 Let him fight on and trust to winning 
 
 In death the richest prize of all." 
 
 He jammed his hat down on his head; 
 
 He turned from where the Buildings are; 
 Precipitately thence he fled, 
 
 And caught a passing car. 
 29 
 
ALL OR NOTHING 
 
 T TAPPY the man whose far remove 
 * * From business and the giddy throng 
 Fits him in the paternal groove 
 
 Unquestioning to glide along. 
 Apart from struggle and from strife, 
 
 Content to live by labor's fruits, 
 And wander down the vale of life 
 
 In gingham shirt and cowhide boots. 
 
 He too is blessed who, from within, 
 
 By strong and lasting impulse stirred, 
 Faces the turmoil and the din 
 
 Of rushing life; whom hope deferred 
 But more incites; who ever strives, 
 
 And wants, and works, and waits, until 
 The multitude of other lives 
 
 Pay glorious tribute to his will. 
 
 But he who, greedy of renown, 
 
 Is too tenacious of his ease, 
 Alas for him ! Nor busy town 
 
 Nor country with his mood agrees; 
 30 
 
ALL OR NOTHING 
 
 Eager to reap, but loath to sow, 
 He longs monstrari digito, 
 And looking on with envious eyes, 
 Lives restless and obscurely dies. 
 
 31 
 
A PHILADELPHIA CLAVERHOUSE 
 
 'TH3 the fathers in council 'twas Witherspoon spoke: 
 
 * "Our best beloved dogmas we cannot revoke; 
 God's infinite mercy let others record, 
 And teach men to trust in their crucified Lord; 
 The old superstitions let others dispel, 
 I feel it my duty to go in for Hell ! 
 
 "Perdition is needful; beyond any doubt 
 Hell fire is a thing that we can't do without. 
 The bottomless pit is our very best claim; 
 To leave it unworked were a sin and a shame; 
 We must keep it up, if we like it or not, 
 And make it eternal and make it red-hot. 
 
 "To others the doctrine of love may be dear 
 I own I confide in the doctrine of fear; 
 There 's nothing, I think, so effective to make 
 Our weak fellow mortals their errors forsake, 
 As to tell them abruptly, with unchanging front, 
 * You '11 be damned if you do ! You '11 be damned if you 
 don't!' 
 
 32 
 
A PHILADELPHIA CLAVERHOUSE 
 
 "Saltpetre and pitchforks, with brimstone and coals, 
 Are arguments suited to rescue men's souls. 
 A new generation forthwith must arise 
 With Beelzebub pictured before their young eyes; 
 They '11 be brave, they '11 be true, they '11 be gentle and 
 
 kind, 
 Because they '11 have Satan forever in mind." 
 
 33 
 
THROWING STONES 
 
 ' T LOVE my child," the actress wrote; 
 * "My duty is to guide 
 The child I bore; and in my arms 
 
 The child I love shall hide- 
 Shall hide from missiles cast at me, 
 
 Because I have so odd 
 A conscience that I choose to rear 
 
 The child I took from God." 
 
 There is a sin from which us all 
 
 May gracious Heaven guard, 
 That is its own worst punishment, 
 
 Itself its sole reward. 
 And of it social law has said 
 
 To man: "If sin you must, 
 Go, then, and come again, but leave 
 
 The woman in the dust ! " 
 
 Ah ! who can know, save Him Allwise 
 
 Who watches from above, 
 The awful hazard women dare 
 
 To run for men they love; 
 34 
 
THROWING STONES 
 
 Or tell how many a craven heart, 
 To shield his own bad name, 
 
 Has caused a woman's trustful love 
 To bring her lasting shame? 
 
 To her who, when the dream has passed, 
 
 Finds herself left alone, 
 And in her crushed, repentant heart, 
 
 A yearning to atone, 
 Heaven, more pitiful than man 
 
 Who erst upon her smiled, 
 By love to win her to itself 
 
 May send a little child. 
 
 Then, if the lonely mother's heart 
 
 Accepts the gracious gift; 
 And if the charge she dared to take 
 
 She does not dare to shift; 
 Shall we, untempted and untried, 
 
 To ease and virtue born, 
 Visit upon her shrinking head 
 
 Our unrelenting scorn? 
 
 We, who have all our lives been taught 
 Truths other men have learned, 
 35 
 
THROWING STONES 
 
 And walked by what celestial light 
 
 In other bosoms burned; 
 We, whose sublimest duty is 
 
 To do as we are bid; 
 How shall we judge a soul from which 
 
 The face of God is hid? 
 
 Know you the loneliness of heart 
 
 That courts release from death? 
 That makes it burdensome to draw 
 
 Each slow, successive breath? 
 That longs for human sympathy, 
 
 Until, when hope is lost, 
 A respite from its agony 
 
 It buys at any cost? 
 
 Of erring human nature, we 
 
 Are born, each with his share; 
 We all are vain; we all are weak, 
 
 And quick to fly from care. 
 And if we keep our footing, 
 
 Or seem to rise at all, 
 'Twere well for us with charity 
 
 To look on those who fall. 
 
THROWING STONES 
 
 And if our hands are strengthened, 
 
 And if our lips can speak, 
 'Twere well if with them we might help 
 
 Our brothers who are weak; 
 And well if we remember 
 
 God's love is never grudged, 
 And never sit in judgment, 
 
 If we would not be judged. 
 
 37 
 
TOUCHING BOTTOM 
 
 T THINK that I have somewhere read 
 
 About a man whose foolish head, 
 By mischievous intention led, 
 
 A sprite 
 
 Had with an ass's visage decked, 
 That all who met him might detect 
 His intellectual defect 
 
 At sight. 
 
 The trite remark of man and book 
 That many men are men in look, 
 But donkeys really, thus the spook 
 
 Reversed; 
 
 The victim of the imp's design 
 Had such a head as yours or mine, 
 Although his did seem asinine 
 
 At first. 
 
 But Love I think the story ran 
 Was proof against the fairy's plan, 
 Discerning through the mask the man, 
 
 Perhaps; 
 
 38 
 
TOUCHING BOTTOM 
 
 Or, is it true that women try, 
 But very faintly, to descry 
 Long ears on heads that occupy 
 Their laps ! 
 
 I know a youth whose fancy gropes 
 For headgear finer than the Pope's, 
 So him his bright and treacherous hopes 
 
 Delude; 
 
 But, in the mirror of his fears, 
 When this too sanguine person peers, 
 Alas ! behold the jackass ears 
 
 Protrude ! 
 
 Titania, mine, if I could find 
 
 You always to my follies blind, 
 
 So great content would rule my mind 
 
 Within, 
 
 That even though myself aware 
 Of pointed ears adorned with hair, 
 I do not think that I would care 
 
 A pin. 
 
 39 
 
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE 
 
 TT was my happy lot to meet 
 
 * Upon a late occasion, 
 
 While seeking of the summer's heat 
 
 Agreeable evasion, 
 By visiting at a resort 
 
 Of fashion where, no matter 
 A maid whom there was none to court, 
 
 And very few to flatter. 
 
 Her head had not the graceful poise 
 
 Of Aphrodite's statue; 
 Her hair reminded you of boys; 
 
 Her nose was pointed at you. 
 A Derby hat, the self-same sort 
 
 The fashionable male owes 
 Money for, she used to sport 
 
 As angels do their halos. 
 
 She seldom walked in silk attire, 
 
 But commonly in flannel: 
 Not yet in oils did she aspire 
 
 To figure on a panel; 
 40 
 
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE 
 
 Because she could not help but see 
 
 She was not tall nor slender; 
 Nor did she deem her curves to be 
 
 Superlatively tender. 
 
 Some prudish dames did her abuse 
 
 With censure fierce and scathing; 
 Because she, happening to lose 
 
 Her stocking while in bathing, 
 Deemed such a loss of little note, 
 
 And simply tied the plagued 
 Stocking 'round her little throat 
 
 And reappeared barelegged. 
 
 I do not think that for the pelf 
 
 Of eligible boobies, 
 Or for the chance to deck herself 
 
 With diamonds and rubies, 
 Or for her standing in the books 
 
 Of prim and proper ladies, 
 Or for their disapproving looks, 
 
 She cared a hoot from Hades. 
 
 Though competent to hold her tongue, 
 When circumstance demanded 
 41 
 
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE 
 
 Speech, she was, for one so young, 
 
 Astonishingly candid. 
 She sang the vulgarest of songs, 
 
 Which sung by her were funny, 
 And never brooded o'er her wrongs 
 
 Nor hoarded up her money. 
 
 'Tis true this careless damsel's fame 
 
 At last grew somewhat shady; 
 But if the man disposed to name 
 
 Her fast, or not a lady, 
 Will in the present writer's way 
 
 Considerately toddle, 
 This writer thinks that person may 
 
 Get punched upon his noddle. 
 
LOCHINVAR EX-COLORADO 
 
 OH, the cow-puncher Budge has come in from the 
 West; 
 
 In all Colorado his ranch is the best; 
 And, barring a toothbrush, he baggage had none, 
 For he came in some haste, and he came not for fun; 
 Nor vigils nor gold to his quest doth he grudge 
 On an errand of love comes the cow-puncher Budge. 
 
 A telegram reached him; he called for a horse. 
 He rode ninety miles as a matter of course; 
 The last twenty-seven he galloped, and then 
 Just caught the Atlantic Express at Cheyenne. 
 He stayed not to eat nor to drink, for he knew 
 He could pick up a meal on the C. B. & Q. 
 
 He got to Chicago the second day out, 
 
 But right through Chicago he kept on his route, 
 
 Nor stayed to buy linen, not even a shirt; 
 
 He liked flannel best and he didn't mind dirt. 
 
 With trousers tucked into his boots, said he " Fudge ! 
 
 Small odds if I get there," said bold Robert Budge. 
 
 43 
 
LOCHINVAR EX-COLORADO 
 
 From Worth, the Parisian of awful repute, 
 
 Had come divers gowns to Angelica Bute, 
 
 And parcels from Tiffany daily were stowed 
 
 Away in strong rooms of her father's abode; 
 
 But she languished, nor heeded she hint, cough or nudge; 
 
 She was bound to Fitz James, but she cottoned to Budge. 
 
 But hark ! 'Tis the door-bell ! a symptom of joy 
 Lights her eye "Ah ! at last !" 'Tis a telegraph boy; 
 The maid brings a message; she takes it, half -dead 
 With mingled excitement, hope, eagerness dread: 
 " Mayor's house on Thursday, at nine; let me judge 
 What next ! only meet me there. 
 
 Faithfully, 
 
 Budge." 
 
 On Thursday at nine, to the house of the Mayor 
 
 Two persons came singly, but left it a pair, 
 
 A man and a bride in a travelling dress, 
 
 Went Westward at ten on the Lightning Express. 
 
 A wedding at Grace Church, which should have occurred 
 
 At twelve, was, for reasons not given, deferred. 
 
 The dowagers called it the greatest of shames. 
 The men said, "It 's rough on that fellow Fitz James"; 
 
 44 
 
LOCHINVAR EX-COLORADO 
 
 The damsels declared it was awfully nice, 
 
 And vowed they could do it and never think twice. 
 
 "It 's a chore to get housemaids; you may have to 
 
 drudge 
 At the start; but I love you," said cow-puncher Budge. 
 
A MORTIFYING SUBJECT 
 
 WHAT is to be, I do not know: 
 What is, I do esteem 
 To be so undesirable 
 
 And worthless, that I deem 
 There must be something good in store, 
 
 Something to keep in view, 
 To compensate us living here, 
 For living as we do. 
 
 For life oh life, it seems a chore ! 
 
 Its surface is so blurred 
 By cares and passions that it makes 
 
 One long to be interred; 
 To occupy a tranquil spot 
 
 Some seven feet by two, 
 And just serenely lie and rot, 
 
 With nothing else to do. 
 
 I think that when there ceased to be 
 
 Sufficient tenement 
 To hold my conscience, then I would 
 
 Begin to be content. 
 46 
 
A MORTIFYING SUBJECT 
 
 And if I should be there to see 
 My stomach take its leave, 
 
 I 'd gather up my mouldering shroud 
 And chuckle in my sleeve. 
 
 I think that when the greedy worm 
 
 Began upon my brains, 
 I 'd wish him luck, and hope he 'd get 
 
 His dinner for his pains. 
 I 'd warn him that they would be apt 
 
 With him to disagree, 
 For if they fed him well 'twere what 
 
 They seldom did for me. 
 
 But when I should be certain that 
 
 My scarred and battered heart 
 Was of my corporality 
 
 Not any more a part, 
 Though I 'd no voice, I 'd rattle in 
 
 My throat, with joyous tones; 
 And with no feelings left, I would 
 
 Feel happy in my bones. 
 
 47 
 
MIXED 
 
 WITHIN my earthly temple there 's a crowd. 
 There one of us that 's humble; one that 's 
 proud. 
 
 There 's one that 's broken-hearted for his sins, 
 And one who, unrepentant, sits and grins. 
 There 's one who loves his neighbor as himself, 
 And one who cares for naught but fame and pelf. 
 From much corroding care would I be free 
 If once I could determine which is me. 
 
 48 
 
AND WAS HE RIGHT? 
 
 'M going to marry not you," she said, 
 * "But a better fellow in your stead. 
 You 're not so bad not bad at all; 
 I 'd like to keep you within my call, 
 But not to take you for good and all. 
 I 'm going to live on yonder street; 
 Do you live near me," she said; "so sweet 
 As I '11 be to you whenever we meet ! 
 And in my house there '11 be a seat 
 Where you can sit and warm your feet, 
 And your contentment shall be complete 
 Come ! Isn't it a divine conceit ? " 
 
 She said. 
 
 Softly his breast a sigh set free: 
 He said, "Dear Heart, it may not be. 
 Not for the perfume of the rose 
 Would I live near to where it grows. 
 If not for me the bud has blown, 
 I 'd rather leave the flower alone. 
 Who by the bush sits down forlorn 
 Is only fit to feel the thorn," 
 
 He said. 
 49 
 
BALLADE OF THE GENERAL 
 TERM 
 
 EACH in his high official chair; 
 One who presides; two plain J. J. 
 Decent of mien and white of hair 
 They sit there judging all the day. 
 The gravity of what they say 
 Bent brows and sober tones confirm; 
 Brown, Jones and Robinson are they, 
 Justices of the General Term. 
 
 I see the learned counsel there 
 Rise up and argue, move and pray; 
 Attorneys with respectful air 
 Their perspicacity display. 
 Serenely joyous if they may 
 Of justice keep alive the germ; 
 Motion and argument they weigh, 
 Those justices of General Term. 
 
 That court I haunt, not that I care 
 For justice in a general way; 
 Nor yet because I hope to share 
 With any one a client's pay. 
 50 
 
BALLADE OF THE GENERAL TERM 
 
 The reason why I there delay 
 And on the court's hard benches squirm 
 Is that of Love I am the prey 
 Her father's of the General Term. 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 I look at him with dire dismay 
 Scorched by his eye I seem a worm. 
 "Dismissed with costs," is what he '11 say 
 That Justice of the General Term. 
 
INFIRM 
 
 " T WILL not go," he said, "for well 
 * I know her eyes' insidious spell, 
 And how unspeakably he feels 
 Who takes no pleasure in his meals. 
 I know a one-idea'd man 
 Should undergo the social ban, 
 And if she once my purpose melts 
 I know I '11 think of nothing else. 
 
 "I care not though her teeth are pearls 
 The town is full of nicer girls ! 
 I care not though her lips are red 
 It does not do to lose one's head ! 
 I '11 give her leisure to discover, 
 For once, how little I think of her; 
 And then, how will she feel ? " cried he 
 And took his hat and went to see. 
 
CRUMBS AND COMFORT 
 
 TET no man, irked by tedious fate, 
 ~ The worth of victuals underrate; 
 But thankful be if so he may 
 Environ three square meals a day; 
 
 For, barring drink, there 's naught so good, 
 
 Up to its limit's edge, as food. 
 
 Up to its limit? Yes, but will 
 
 Food satisfy as well as fill? 
 
 Hear humankind responsive groan 
 
 : Man cannot live by bread alone !" 
 
 Oh, tell me, Sibyl, tell me whether 
 A man might live on bread together ! 
 
 53 
 
ASHORE 
 
 Man's happiness depends upon the views 
 He takes of circumstances that he's in. 
 
 To some it is a greater joy to lose 
 Than it, to others, ever is to win. 
 
 SINCE our poor hopes, like vessels tempest-tossed, 
 Are duly wrecked, and all illusion ceases; 
 Now that the game is up, let 's count the cost 
 And estimate the value of the pieces. 
 
 And first, our heart: It was a flimsy thing 
 Already when we dared this last adventure; 
 
 And if it 's flimsy still why that should bring 
 No added liability to censure. 
 
 A serviceable organ is it still, 
 
 That does our turn in absence of a better; 
 And very shortly, we believe, it will 
 
 As calmly thump as though we 'd never met her. 
 
 If tissues are so delicately spun 
 
 As not to stand a reasonable racket, 
 Their anxious owner has as little fun 
 
 As Master Thomas in his Sunday jacket. 
 54 
 
ASHORE 
 
 Give tender hearts to those who like that kind, 
 And gain in strength with every pang they suffer; 
 
 We praise that sort, but with relief we find 
 That ours is tough and yearly growing tougher. 
 
 Our head remains the same indifferent pate, 
 Guiltless alike of learning and of laurels. 
 
 We notice, though, with thankfulness, of late 
 A measure of improvement in our morals. 
 
 Our purse was always lean, so it amounts 
 To little that it yet remains depleted; 
 
 Though florists' and confectioners' accounts 
 Are in, and payment of the same entreated. 
 
 We Ve lost a heap of time, but being rid 
 Of time, one always gets along without it. 
 
 Could we have spent it better than we did ! 
 Another might; but, for ourself, we doubt it. 
 
 And we have learned nothing. We knew before 
 
 The folly and the vanity of wooing: 
 And if we chose to try it still once more, 
 
 'Twas not to win, but simply to be doing. 
 55 
 
ASHORE 
 
 It was not that we hoped to gain a heart; 
 
 That that were vain required no further proving. 
 It only meant that souls that live apart 
 
 Yield sometimes to the human need of loving. 
 
 Is this the last? While yet his garments drip 
 The stranded mariner forgets his pain, 
 
 And rescuing the remnants of his ship, 
 Already plans to make them float again. 
 
 56 
 
BARTER 
 
 YES, there 's a hole; you needn't be 
 At pains to point it out to me: 
 
 I know it. 
 
 I do not claim the piece is whole, 
 Or that its yard of width is full: 
 I merely show it. 
 
 Fast color? Do I really think 
 That being soaked it will not shrink 
 
 When dried? 
 
 Now that I 've got it off the shelf, 
 You 'd better test the dyes yourself, 
 
 And so decide. 
 
 Cotton ? I dare surmise it 's full 
 
 Of threads that one might wish were wool, 
 
 If wishing did it. 
 
 Look sharp; but if through being blind 
 Some flaw or fault you fail to find, 
 
 Don't say I hid it. 
 57 
 
BARTER 
 
 The price is high? You think it so? 
 Well, this is not, I 'd have^ou know, 
 
 A bankrupt sale. 
 
 These wares of mine if you despise, 
 Some other dealer's merchandise 
 May find more favor in your eyes; 
 To hold mine over for a rise 
 
 I shall not fail. 
 
 58 
 
BEGGARS' HORSES 
 
 T WISH that altitude of tone, 
 
 The waistband's due expansion, 
 The faculty to hold one's own 
 
 In this and t' other mansion; 
 And shirts and shoes and moral force, 
 
 Topcoats and overgaiters, 
 Were things that always came of course 
 
 To philosophic waiters. 
 
 I wish that not by twos and threes, 
 
 In squads and plural numbers, 
 Young women would destroy one's ease 
 
 Of mind and rout one's slumbers; 
 But that if by a poor heart's squirms 
 
 Their pleasures know accession, 
 They 'd hold it for successive terms 
 
 In several possession. 
 
 I wish I had been changed at birth, 
 
 And in my place maturing 
 Some infant of surpassing worth, 
 
 Industrious past curing, 
 59 
 
BEGGARS' HORSES 
 
 Had grown up subject to my share 
 
 In Father Adam's blunder, 
 And left me free to pile up care 
 
 For him to stagger under. 
 
 I wish that some things could be had 
 
 Without foregoing others; 
 That all the joys that are not bad 
 
 Were not weighed down with bothers, 
 We can but wonder as we test 
 
 The scheme of compensations, 
 Is happiness with drawbacks best, 
 
 Or grief with consolations. 
 
TO-DAY 
 
 SEE that what burdens Heaven may lay 
 Upon your shrinking neck to-day, 
 
 To-day you bear; 
 
 Nor seek to shun their weary weight, 
 Nor, bowed with dread, anticipate 
 To-morrow's care. 
 
 Not with too great a load shall Fate, 
 That knows the end, your shoulders freight 
 
 Or heart oppress; 
 If but to-day's appointed work 
 You grapple with, nor wish to shirk 
 
 Its due distress. 
 
 The coward heart that turns away 
 From present tasks, with justice may 
 
 Forebodings fill. 
 
 Fools try to quaff to-morrow's wine; 
 As though to-morrow's sun could shine 
 
 Unrisen still. 
 
 61 
 
OF MISTRESS MARTHA: HER 
 EYES 
 
 'yRANSFIXED and spitted in my heart 
 * By Mistress Martha's eyes, their dart, 
 Which has within me raised a great 
 Commotion and uneasy state. 
 
 Or are they black or are they blue 
 I know not any more than you, 
 Nor could I for a wager say 
 If they be hazel, brown or gray. 
 
 But when it comes to diagnosis 
 Of what the outcome of their use is 
 Full, comprehensive and exact 
 Is my conception of the fact. 
 
 When first their witchery nas begun 
 You might be saved if you would run: 
 But who would look for cause for fear 
 In depths so limpid, calm and clear? 
 Too soon, poor fool, you find you Ve stayed 
 Till it 'a too late to be afraid. 
 
OF MISTRESS MARTHA: HER EYES 
 
 Alas for him who thus misreckons, 
 For friendly lights mistaking beacons. 
 Better it were if he had found 
 Clarence, his fate, in Malmsey drowned, 
 Than Mistress, in thine eyes to sink, 
 Nor make a tear o'erflow its brink. 
 
THE BEST GIFT OF ALL 
 
 /^VNE-AND-TWENTY, one-and-twenty, 
 ^^^ Youth and beauty, lovers plenty; 
 Health and riches, ease and leisure, 
 Work to give a zest to pleasure; 
 What can a maid so lucky lack ? 
 What can I wish that Fate holds back? 
 
 Youth will fade and beauty wanes; 
 Lovers, flouted, break their chains. 
 Health may fail and wealth may fly you, 
 Pleasures cease to satisfy you; 
 Almost everything that brings 
 Happiness is born with wings. 
 
 This I wish you this is best: 
 Love that can endure the test; 
 Love surviving youth and beauty, 
 Love that blends with homely duty, 
 Love that 's gentle, love that 's true, 
 Love that 's constant wish I you. 
 
 Still unsatisfied she lives 
 Who for gold mere silver gives. 
 64 
 
THE BEST GIFT OF ALL 
 
 One more joy I wish you yet, 
 
 To give as much love as you get. 
 
 Grant you, heaven, this to do, 
 
 To love him best who best loves you. 
 
 65 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 I HAVE sundry queer sensations 
 When the year gets round to Autumn. 
 What they are, and how I caught 'em 
 
 Is obscure, but they are there 
 Certain gay exhilarations 
 
 Half-and-half, as Bass with Guinness, 
 With a sad what-might-have-been-ness 
 In the brisk September air. 
 
 Back come hopes and young ambitions 
 With the golden-rod and sumach, 
 But impregnated with true Mach- 
 iavellian despair. 
 
 Taking note of changed conditions; 
 Weighing powers with limitations ! 
 Facts with futile aspirations 
 Born of bracing autumn air. 
 
 Now I see myself grown famous, 
 Bold of voice and free of gesture, 
 Grave, superb, of stunning vesture, 
 Flood with eloquence the court. 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 Soon ascends my Gaudeamus 
 As I realize there aren't 
 Any facts that seem to warrant 
 Premonitions of that sort. 
 
 Welcome each hallucination: 
 
 Welcome, none the less, discerning 
 Common sense in time returning 
 
 To obliterate the spell. 
 As a means of elevation 
 As a sort of moral derrick, 
 This autumnal, atmospheric 
 Spirit-hoister bears the bell. 
 
 67 
 
REMORSE 
 
 IV A Y spirit sits in ashes, heapi] 
 * ** I Ve said a silly thing, 
 
 heaping dust upon its head; 
 
 and now it cannot be 
 unsaid. 
 What boots it that to only two the wretched truth is 
 
 known, 
 If of the conscious pair who know it I myself am one ? 
 
 I have my doubts more doubts the more I think of what 
 
 I said 
 
 If, really, half a loaf is so much better than no bread; 
 For if a person is an ass, and duly bound to show it, 
 Cold comfort 'tis that he should have just sense enough 
 
 to know it. 
 
 68 
 
HUMPTY DUMPTY 
 
 THEY say that folks who perch upon the brink 
 Of canon deep or awful precipice 
 A morbid impulse feel as back they shrink, 
 
 To jump the edge off into the abyss; 
 And now and then some feather-head will dash 
 Over the cliff to fundamental smash. 
 So often with a man when he has won 
 
 The passing favor of a maid demure, 
 Not satisfied with having well begun, 
 
 And over-eager to make all secure, 
 Blind to his fate and heedless of his stops, 
 With mad, spasmodic previousness, he pops. 
 
 Poor, dizzy fool; instead of winning more 
 
 He only loses what he had before. 
 
 69 
 
RETIREMENT 
 
 XT AY, do not ask why I who late 
 
 * ^ First in the giddy throng disported, 
 
 Now choose the solitary state 
 
 And live alone unmissed, uncourted. 
 Is it so strange that sometimes man 
 
 His own poor company should cherish ? 
 Must I go on as I began 
 
 And dance, whoever pipes, or perish? 
 
 It may be that some stocks I had 
 
 At lower figures now are quoted. 
 It may be that my liver 's bad; 
 
 It may be that my tongue is coated. 
 It may be that malarial pains 
 
 Are of the ills my flesh inherits 
 That fever rages in my veins 
 
 And chills disintegrate my spirits. 
 
 It may be that my friends are dead; 
 
 It may be that my foes are not; 
 Colds may have settled in my head, 
 
 My coppers may be always hot. 
 70 
 
RETIREMENT 
 
 It may be that I feel above 
 
 My peers, and think myself a swell; 
 It may be that I 'm crossed in love; 
 
 It may be that I will not tell. 
 
 I own I find a mean relief, 
 
 Confining to myself my dealings; 
 A cheap community of grief 
 
 Between me and my battered feelings, 
 I shun the haunts of happier men; 
 
 Their mirth my misery increases; 
 My little bark is wrecked again 
 
 And I am busy with the pieces. 
 
 71 
 
SELF-SACRIFICE 
 
 SHE said, "I admire and approve you, 
 My intellect's voice is for you; 
 But when you entreat me to love you, 
 
 I own I 'm at loss what to do. 
 How I wish that on one or the other 
 
 My heart and my head might agree; 
 
 I esteem you so much ! but Oh, bother ! 
 
 My heart's choice is Barney McGee." 
 
 Which the reason is why dissipation 
 
 Has ravaged the bloom from my cheek, 
 And nothing but liquid damnation 
 
 Has slipped past my lips for a week. 
 Since, I hope, as depravity marks me, 
 
 To make him by contrast so shine 
 That all her approval may his be, 
 
 And her love irretrievably mine. 
 
WHAT HE WANTS IN HIS 
 
 T DO not ask thee, Fate, to bake 
 
 * For me so very large a cake; 
 
 Choose thou the size but I entreat 
 
 That though but small, it shall be sweet. 
 Let those who like it have it, I 
 Feel no desire for sawdust pie. 
 
 I have no wail for all the years 
 
 I 've lived on crusts washed down with tears. 
 
 If I must drain the bitter cup 
 
 As heretofore, why fill it up. 
 
 But when my cake, if ever, comes, 
 Vouchsafe it to me full of plums ! 
 
 73 
 
BE KIND TO THYSELF 
 
 COMES the message from above 
 "As thyself, thy neighbor, love." 
 With myself so vexed I grow 
 Of my weakness weary so, 
 Easier may I tolerate 
 My neighbor than myself not hate. 
 
 Take not part of thee for whole, 
 
 Thou art neighbor to thy soul. 
 
 The ray from heaven that gilds the clod 
 Love thou, for it comes from God. 
 
 Bear thou with thy human clay 
 
 Lest thou miss the heaven-sent ray. 
 
LOST LIGHT 
 
 CANNOT make her smile come back- 
 That sunshine of her face 
 That used to make this worn earth seem, 
 
 At times, so gay a place. 
 The same dear eyes look out at me; 
 
 The features are the same; 
 But, oh, the smile is out of them, 
 And I must be to blame ! 
 
 Sometimes I see it still. I went 
 
 With her the other day 
 To meet a long-missed friend, and while 
 
 We still were on the way, 
 Her confidence in waiting love 
 
 Brought back for me to see 
 The old-time love-light to her eyes 
 
 That will not shine for me. 
 
 They tell me money waits for me, 
 
 And reputation, too. 
 I like those gewgaws quite as well 
 
 As other people do, 
 75 
 
LOST LIGHT 
 
 But I care not for what I have, 
 
 Nor lust for what I lack 
 One tithe as much as my heart longs 
 
 To call that lost light back. 
 
 Come back, dear banished smile, come back, 
 
 And into exile drive 
 All thoughts, and aims, and jealous hopes, 
 
 That in thy stead would thrive. 
 Who wants the earth without its sun, 
 
 And what has life for me 
 That 's worth a thought, if, as its price, 
 
 It leaves me stript of thee? 
 
 76 
 
DATED 'FEBRUARY THE 14TH' 
 
 niEST be St. Valentine, his day, 
 
 That gives a man a chance to say 
 What shall his state of mind disclose, 
 As much as though he should propose. 
 
 DEAR MAID : I 'd offer you this minute 
 My hand, but lo ! there 's nothing in it. 
 Enmeshed my heart by your dear lures is, 
 But I 'm forbid to ask where yours is. 
 
 And why ? Why, dear, at twenty-three 
 A man is what he 's going to be; 
 Futures are actual in one's head, 
 But z'sness is what women wed. 
 Clients nor patients, nor their fees, 
 Your slave at three-and-twenty sees, 
 And girls with nineteen-year-old blushes 
 Are birds he must leave in the bushes. 
 
 Yet somehow feelings don't agree 
 With circumstances: Look at me 
 With naught in hand and all to get, 
 
 77 
 
DATED 'FEBRUARY THE 14TH 
 
 Rapping at Fortune's gate and yet 
 In spite of all I know, and see, 
 And listen to, I could not be 
 More hopelessly in love with you 
 If I were rich and sixty-two. 
 
 That 's all: It 's nothing that you '11 find 
 Important, but it 's off my mind. 
 If one must boil and keep it hid 
 The long year through, to blow the lid 
 Off once helps some, and one may gain 
 Patience therefrom to stand the pain 
 Until the calendar's advance 
 Gives suffering hearts another chance. 
 
 78 
 
LOOKING ON 
 
 r ~T v HE dolce far niente is a delightful game 
 
 * If only he can spare the time who plays it. 
 If one is three-and-twenty and doesn't covet fame, 
 And cares less what he says than how he says it 
 If one deliberately can (and never think it loss) 
 Earn women's smiles in hours in which he might be earn- 
 ing dross 
 
 If one can be content to sit and watch, year after year, 
 The world's great ships go sailing by, and never want to 
 
 steer 
 If one is not aware that standing still means slipping 
 
 back, 
 
 Or if one 's not averse to retrograding on one's track 
 The dolce far niente is a delightful game 
 For people who have lives to spare to play it. 
 
 79 
 
REVULSION 
 
 HPHE very bones of me rebel; 
 
 1 I cannot be resigned; 
 I am so all-too-tired-to-tell, 
 
 Of being so refined. 
 My instincts are too nasty nice, 
 
 I 'd rather be more brute, 
 And not so easy to disgust, 
 
 And difficult to suit. 
 
 My fun is all a razor-edge 
 
 And needle-point affair, 
 That has no substance back of it. 
 
 My very woes are spare, 
 And decorous, and qualified. 
 
 A robust grief to me, 
 With groans, and tears, and takings on, 
 
 Would be a luxury. 
 
 I vow I 'm going to learn to chew, 
 And navy-plug, what 's more; 
 
 I 'm going to wear a gingham shirt, 
 And spit right on the floor. 
 80 
 
REVULSION 
 
 Cravats and collars I '11 abjure, 
 
 A slouch shall be my hat, 
 My diet pork, with cabbage (boiled), 
 
 And beer bock-beer at that ! 
 
 I '11 learn to drive a speedy nag, 
 
 And laugh a boisterous laugh; 
 To down men bluntly in dispute, 
 
 Or shut them up with chaff. 
 I *d go to Congress if I could, 
 
 And since I can't go there, 
 I 'd gladly be an alderman 
 
 Or even run for mayor. 
 
 I cannot stand it any more, 
 
 My culture 's not the stuff; 
 For though it 's pretty to be nice, 
 
 It 's wholesome to be tough. 
 Perhaps when I 've grown coarser-grained, 
 
 I '11 have less cause to sigh, 
 At finding that my fellows have 
 
 So much more fun than I. 
 
 81 
 
FOLGER 
 
 TJE died in harness, like the brave 
 * * Old warrior he was, who dared 
 To lead a hopeless charge, nor spared 
 His strength, nor sought himself to save. 
 
 His learning freights the lawyer's shelf; 
 Praise him who played so high a part ! 
 But honor more the loyal heart 
 That calmly sacrificed itself. 
 
 It is not ours to choose what prize 
 Our manhood's hopes shall satisfy; 
 That we must leave to destiny, 
 And work out that which in us lies; 
 
 Content, if justly may be carved 
 Upon the slab our dust that guards, 
 Not a mere list of earth's rewards, 
 But nobler tribute, this: "He served." 
 
GRANT 
 
 NO faultless man was he whose work is done. 
 It is not giv'n men to be wholly wise: 
 Still shall our deeds be sometimes ill-advised, 
 While in our veins still human blood shall run. 
 But sundered States, now one again, attest 
 That what he gave his country was his best. 
 
 'Spoiled of his fortune, rifled of his ease, 
 
 Above all ills his stubborn spirit rose. 
 
 Declining proffered affluence, he chose 
 
 Though wrung with pain and weakened by disease 
 That his own shoulders should support the weight 
 Of woe laid on them by ungentle fate. 
 
 The silent soldier; not with fulsome gaud 
 
 May we oppress the chaplet that he wears. 
 
 Freed from his pain, nor hears he now nor cares 
 
 If men his fame disparage or applaud. 
 Of his renown be this the mighty meed 
 He served his country in his country's need. 
 
POEMS AND VERSES 
 
THE SEA IS HIS 
 
 A LMIGHTY wisdom made the land 
 ** Subject to man's disturbing hand, 
 And left it all for him to fill 
 With marks of his ambitious will, 
 But differently devised the sea 
 Unto an unlike destiny. 
 
 Urgent and masterful ashore, 
 
 Man dreams and plans, 
 
 And more and more, 
 
 As ages slip away, Earth shows 
 
 How need by satisfaction grows, 
 
 And more and more its patient face 
 
 Mirrors the driving human race. 
 
 But he who ploughs the abiding deep 
 No furrow leaves, nor stays to reap. 
 Unmarred and unadorned, the sea 
 Rolls on as irresistibly 
 As when, at first, the shaping thought 
 Of God its separation wrought. 
 87 
 
THE SEA IS HIS 
 
 Down to its edge the lands-folk flock, 
 And in its salt embraces mock 
 Sirius, his whims. Forever cool, 
 Its depths defy the day-star's rule: 
 Serene it basks while children's hands 
 Its margin score and pit its sands. 
 
 And ever in it life abides, 
 And motion. To and fro its tides, 
 Borne down with waters, ever fare. 
 However listless hangs the air, 
 Still, like a dreamer, all at rest, 
 Rises and falls the ocean's breast. 
 
 Benign, or roused by savage gales; 
 
 Fog veiled, or flecked with gleaming sails; 
 
 A monster ravening for its prey, 
 
 Anon, the nations' fair highway 
 
 In all its moods, in all its might, 
 
 'Tis the same sea that first saw light. 
 
 The sea the Tyrians dared explore; 
 The sea Odysseus wandered o'er; 
 The sea the cruising Northmen harried, 
 That Carthage wooed, and Venice married; 
 88 
 
THE SEA IS HIS 
 
 Across whose wastes, by faith led on, 
 Columbus tracked the westering sun. 
 
 Great nurse of freedom, breeding men 
 Who dare, and baffled, strive again ! 
 A rampart round them in their youth, 
 A refuge in their straits and ruth, 
 And in their seasoned strength, a road 
 To carry liberty abroad ! 
 
 When all about thy billows lie, 
 Sole answer to the questioning eye, 
 To where the firmament its bound 
 Stretches their heaving masses round, 
 With that above, and only thee, 
 Fixed in thine instability 
 
 Then timely to the soul of man 
 Come musings on the eternal plan 
 Which man himself was made to fit, 
 And Earth and waters under it; 
 Wherewith in harmony they move, 
 And only they, whose guide is love. 
 
 Who made the plan and made the sea 
 Denied not man a destiny 
 89 
 
THE SEA IS HIS 
 
 To match his thought. Though mists obscure 
 And storms retard, the event is sure. 
 Each surging wave cries evermore 
 "Death, also, has its farther shore !" 
 
 90 
 
WORK 
 
 r "F l HE Inscrutable who set this orb awhirl 
 
 * And peopled it with men and mysteries, 
 With height and vale diversified its face, 
 Left beast to prey on beast and fish on fish, 
 Geared life to death, conditioned each on each, 
 Sore price of growth, but indispensable. 
 To poverty He gave its warning sting, 
 And poisoned luxury with seeds of sloth. 
 Gave power to strength that effort might attain: 
 Gave power to wit that knowledge might direct; 
 And so with penalties, incentives, gains, 
 Limits and compensations intricate, 
 He dowered this earth, that man should never rest 
 Save as his Maker's will be carried out. 
 
 On toward his destiny the creature drives, 
 Tumultuous, incessant, mutinous, 
 Usurping now his weaker fellow's share, 
 Yielding again his own to stronger might, 
 Aye seeking such a place or such a hoard 
 That he and his the common lot may cheat, 
 And live un vexed by fate. 
 91 
 
WORK 
 
 Vain wish ! fond dream 
 That ever fades on eve of coming true ! 
 There is no easy, unearned joy on earth 
 Save what God gives; the lustiness of youth, 
 And love's dear pangs. All other joys we gain 
 By striving, and so qualified we are 
 That effort's zest our needs as much consoles 
 As effort's gain. Both issues are our due. 
 Sore lot it is to sweat and not be filled, 
 But sore as well aye to be filled, nor sweat. 
 Ever to plough and see another reap 
 Oh, that is hard; but ease that stretches far 
 Beyond the space that labor's waste repairs, 
 Speeds to decay. Death lies hid in that, 
 And seeds of every sin that rots the strength 
 And stains the soul. Better when work is past 
 Back into dust dissolve and help a seed 
 Climb upward, than with strength still full 
 Deny to God his claim and thwart his wish. 
 
 Fond fools with gold in store whose end they 
 
 miss, 
 
 Glutted with unused opportunity, 
 Behold, drift idle on inglorious tides, 
 Nor ever trim a sail nor make a port; 
 92 
 
WORK 
 
 Playing that life is play, until at last 
 They sink at anchor. 
 
 Sorrier still the wights 
 Whom poverty's distresses vainly goad, 
 Whose wants too grasping for their shiftless powers 
 Drive not to work but from it. This too hard 
 They deem, and that too slow, and ever seeking ease 
 And shunning toil, nor gold nor strength they win, 
 But weak, inapt, unskilled, incapable, 
 Their bitter cry assails the tranquil stars 
 While labor's trampling hosts surge over them. 
 
 To our dim sense God's plan seems often harsh. 
 Big fish eats small; earthquakes and storms destroy; 
 Greed strips the poor; guile plunders righteousness. 
 But watch ! see empires fall; see greed o'erreach 
 Its lust ! see power in fear of rival power 
 Raise up its subject strength, clothe hands with skill, 
 Teach minds to think; were strength not powerful 
 Whose need would nourish thew and burnish thought? 
 Could not the leader and the learner claim 
 Their effort's guerdon, on a stagnant earth 
 Successive races round and round might move, 
 But never forward. Wounds and wants and fears, 
 The seething urgency of discontent, 
 
 93 
 
WORK 
 
 And groans and tears, grim tokens in themselves, 
 May help mankind fulfil its destiny. 
 
 Oh, Prodigal of means and men and time, 
 But in decree and aim immutable, 
 Our doom, black sometimes when we shrink from it, 
 Shines glorious when we face it sturdily, 
 And see the shaping and compelling hand 
 That leads who will be led and drives the rest! 
 
 94 
 
WORTH WHILE 
 
 I PRAY Thee, Lord, that when it comes to me 
 To say if I will follow Truth and Thee, 
 Or choose instead to win as better worth 
 My pains, some cloying recompense of earth 
 
 Grant me, great Father, from a hard-fought field, 
 Forespent and bruised, upon a battered shield, 
 Home to obscure endurance to be borne 
 Rather than live my own mean gains to scorn. 
 
 Far better fall with face turned toward the goal 
 At one with wisdom and my own worn soul, 
 Than ever come to see myself prevail, 
 When to succeed at last is but to fail. 
 
 Mean ends to win and therewith be content 
 Save me from that ! Direct Thou the event 
 As suits Thy will: where'er the prizes go, 
 Grant me the struggle, that my soul may grow. 
 
EGOTISM 
 
 WITHOUT him still this whirling earth 
 Might spin its course around the sun, 
 And death still dog the heels of birth, 
 And life be lived, and duty done. 
 
 Without him let the rapt earth dree 
 What doom its twin rotations earn; 
 
 Whither or whence, are naught to me, 
 Save as his being they concern. 
 
 Comets may crash, or inner fire 
 Burn out and leave an arid crust, 
 
 Or earth may lose Cohesion's tire, 
 And melt to planetary dust. 
 
 It 's naught to me if he 's not here. 
 
 I '11 not lament, nor even sigh; 
 I shall not feel the jar, nor fear, 
 
 For I am he, and he is I. 
 
 96 
 
BROTHERHOOD 
 
 T^HAT plenty but reproaches me 
 1 Which leaves my brother bare. 
 Not wholly glad my heart can be 
 
 While his is bowed with care. 
 If I go free, and sound and stout 
 
 While his poor fetters clank, 
 Unsated still, I '11 still cry out, 
 
 And plead with Whom I thank. 
 
 Almighty: Thou who Father be 
 
 Of him, of me, of all, 
 Draw us together, him and me, 
 
 That whichsoever fall, 
 The other's hand may fail him not,- 
 
 The other's strength decline 
 No task of succor that his lot 
 
 May claim from son of Thine. 
 
 I would be fed. I would be clad. 
 
 I would be housed and dry. 
 But if so be my heart is sad, 
 
 What benefit have I? 
 97 
 
BROTHERHOOD 
 
 Best he whose shoulders best endure 
 
 % The load that brings relief, 
 And best shall he his joy secure 
 Who shares that joy with grief. 
 
 98 
 
WILLIAM EUSTIS RUSSELL 
 
 06., 1896 
 
 [From a poem read at the dinner of the Harvard Class of 1877, in 
 Boston, June 29, 1897.] 
 
 TJ ARD hit? Ah, yes ! denial's vain 
 * * Far from our thoughts and wishes too. 
 Stripped of our best, we meet again 
 
 To share a cup that 's tinged with rue. 
 Dear man, how proud he made us all ! 
 
 Our honest statesman, patriot, mate, 
 Whose very rivals lived to call 
 
 His death a mischief to the State ! 
 
 With shining eyes we watched his course 
 
 Impetuous to an early goal; 
 A man of an inspiring force, 
 
 Whose pockets could not hold his soul ! 
 Who strove without surcease or fear, 
 
 Nor from his task withdrew his hand, 
 Until the fame of his career 
 
 Edged the far corners of the land. 
 
 His head was clear, his heart was good, 
 His speech was plain, without pretence; 
 99 
 
WILLIAM EUSTIS RUSSELL 
 
 Men trusted him as one who stood 
 For honesty and common-sense. 
 
 Ah ! not unshared is our distress, 
 Nor here alone is missed his face; 
 
 A million freemen, leaderless, 
 
 Still wonder who shall take his place. 
 
 100 
 
LINES INSCRIBED ON A 
 HOSPITAL CLOCK* 
 
 OING, little hours, of Edith, as you pass, 
 ^ Who had too few of you, but those she had 
 Spent like a Queen of Time. 
 Sing of her as you chime ! 
 How. as she spent you, generous and glad, 
 To help the suffering and cheer the sad, 
 Time turned his glass. 
 
 * E. B. W., ob., 1907. 
 
 101 
 
A GIRL OF POMPEII 
 
 A PUBLIC haunt they found her in: 
 J ** She lay asleep, a lovely child; 
 
 The only thing left undefiled 
 Where all things else bore taint of sin. 
 
 Her supple outlines fixed in clay 
 
 The universal law suspend, 
 
 And turn Time's chariot back, and blend 
 A thousand years with yesterday. 
 
 A sinless touch, austere yet warm, 
 Around her girlish figure pressed, 
 Caught the sweet imprint of her breast, 
 
 And held her, surely clasped, from harm. 
 
 Truer than work of sculptor's art 
 Comes this dear maid of long ago, 
 Sheltered from woful chance, to show 
 
 A spirit's lovely counterpart, 
 
 And bid mistrustful men be sure, 
 That form shall fate of flesh escape, 
 And, quit of earth's corruptions, shape 
 
 Itself, imperishably pure. 
 102 
 
GIFTS 
 
 THE imperial Child to whom the wise men brought 
 Their gifts, and worshipped in His lowly nest, 
 Gave no gift back. It was Himself they sought, 
 
 And, finding Him, were sated in their quest. 
 Their gifts, not expectation, but their joy expressed. 
 
 Now was the world's long yearning satisfied ! 
 Now was the prize long waited for possessed ! 
 
 Their gifts meant love, unmarred by lust or pride. 
 Be it so with ours: our aim, not debts to pay, 
 
 Nor any recompense save love to win, 
 Nor any grosser feeling to convey 
 
 Than brought the wise men's gifts to Bethlehem's 
 
 inn. 
 
 Those rate we best that no return afford 
 Save the pure sense of having found our Lord. 
 
 103 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1898 
 
 THOUGH doubters doubt and scoffers scoff, 
 And peace on earth seems still far off; 
 Though learned doctors think they know 
 The gospel stories are not so; 
 Though greedy man is greedy still 
 And competition chokes good-will, 
 While rich men sigh and poor men fret, 
 Dear me ! we can't spare Christmas yet ! 
 Time may do better maybe not; 
 Meanwhile let 's keep the day we 've got ! 
 
 On Bethlehem's birth and Bethlehem's star 
 Whate'er our speculations are, 
 Where'er for us may run the line 
 Where human merges with divine, 
 We 're dull indeed if we can't see 
 What Christmas feelings ought to be, 
 And dull again if we can doubt 
 It 's worth our while to bring them out. 
 "Glory to God: good- will to men!" 
 Come ! Feel it, show it, give it then ! 
 104 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1898 
 
 Come to us, Christmas, good old day, 
 
 Soften us, cheer us, say your say 
 
 To hearts which thrift, too eager, keeps 
 
 In bonds, while fellow-feeling sleeps. 
 
 Good Christmas, whom our children love, 
 
 We love you, too ! Lift us above 
 
 Our cares, our fears, our small desires ! 
 
 Open our hands and stir the fires 
 
 Of helpful fellowship within us, 
 
 And back to love and kindness win us ! 
 
 105 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1900 
 
 OD bless all givers and their gifts, 
 
 And all the giftless, too, 
 And help them by whatever shifts 
 
 Their kindly will to do. 
 When seasons, which our hearts expand, 
 
 Our purses fail to fill, 
 A word, a smile, a clasp of hand 
 Shall carry our good-will. 
 
 Let him who hath his plenty share, 
 
 And him who lacks, his lack. 
 Give, each one, what he may, nor care 
 
 What recompense comes back. 
 If only love his heart shall swell 
 
 And kindness guide his hand, 
 His Christmas he shall keep as well 
 
 As any in the land. 
 
 Out, greed ! Out, guile ! Out, jealousy 1 
 
 Out, envy ! Out, despair ! 
 Come, hope ! Come, faith ! Come, charity ! 
 
 And ease the pains of care. 
 106 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1900 
 
 Come, Christmas, with thy message dear, 
 
 And all thy gentle mirth, 
 To teach that love shall cast out fear, 
 
 And peace shall reign on earth. 
 
 107 
 
NEW YEAR'S, 1900 
 
 greeting more to one of noble fame. 
 Our comrade since our birth; our fathers', too; 
 Into whose spring-time hopes our grandsires came, 
 
 Whose promises to them for us came true. 
 * 
 What struggles and what gains have filled his day ! 
 
 What peerless triumphs of a mind set free ! 
 What stubborn shrinking, oftentimes, to pay 
 The woful birth-price of the is-to-be. 
 
 Hoary, sublime, deathless yet doomed to die, 
 No other New Year's dawning his shall be. 
 
 Vouchsafe him, Time, such end that men shall cry, 
 " Grand was thy passing, Nineteenth Century ! " 
 
 108 
 
AUGUST 
 
 WHEN vagrant clouds drift in the summer sky, 
 And in the heavy air, 
 The odors and the fruitful heat supply 
 
 Sensation everywhere, 
 
 And zephyrs that caress, and sounds that lull, 
 And colors, fill the senses' measure full, 
 
 Blessed is the man whose thoughts from effort cease, 
 
 While pass such golden hours; 
 Who saturates his spirit with the peace 
 
 That healing Nature pours, 
 A soothing, charming, vivifying flood, 
 Through every sense, to prove that life is good. 
 
 109 
 
BY THE EVENING FIRE 
 
 IF mothers by their failings were condemned, 
 Oh, what an orphaned planet this would be ! 
 That 's not its fate. Their loving makes amend 
 
 For all the tale of their deficiency. 
 Though tempers by the long day's cares are tried, 
 
 And sharp words sometimes fall, and tears ensue; 
 Though hasty tongues unseasonably chide, 
 
 And little faults look bigger than is true 
 Comes evening and anew with strength equips 
 
 Love's steady current strenuous to bless. 
 Smoothed, then, Care's lines by childish finger-tips; 
 
 Cured the heart's pangs by babyhood's caress. 
 Clasped in the mother's arms, close to her breast, 
 Wrapped in her love, the restful child finds rest. 
 
 110 
 
THE CHRISTMAS LOVER 
 
 'HPIS love that makes the stars revolve; 
 
 * Tis love that makes the world go round. 
 This Christmas purpose I resolve 
 
 On earth to make love more abound. 
 On me, dear maid, thy love bestow, 
 And match my full heart's overflow ! 
 
 Nor gems nor gear to thee I bring; 
 Nor gauds nor merchandises rare. 
 Love's offerings I may not sing, 
 But love itself I have to spare 
 
 In boundless store, and all for thee, 
 If but thy heart responds to me. 
 
 Ill 
 
LABUNTUR ANNI 
 
 T OST man ! Lost man ! 
 
 * ' People, have you met him? 
 
 Idle fellow; loath to delve, 
 
 Indisposed to scheme. 
 Liked too well to shirk his task. 
 
 When circumstances let him; 
 Loved to sit about and loaf, 
 
 And strum the strings and dream. 
 
 What he dreamt of, Heaven knows ! 
 
 Love and faith and beauty 
 Towers that glittered in the sun 
 
 Vales of sheltered peace. 
 Gone is he this twenty years; 
 
 Baffling all pursuit, he 
 Loiters where ? While fast on me 
 
 The sober years increase. 
 
 Lost man ! Lost man ! 
 
 People, have you met him ? 
 Meditative-seeming chap of 
 
 Maybe twenty-three ? 
 
LABUNTUR ANNI 
 
 Good riddance, very probably, 
 And yet I can't forget him. 
 
 I wish I had him back to dream 
 My Christmas dream for me. 
 
 113 
 
TO CELESTINE IN BRAVE 
 ARRAY 
 
 QHIELDED and hid by such a panoply; 
 ^ Garbed for defence; feathered to fortify 
 
 And add to stature; 
 Oh, but it seems a far, far cry 
 
 From thee to nature ! 
 
 Bless thy capitulating eyes, whose ray 
 Out of this fort of raiment finds a way 
 
 To prove thee human, 
 By signals sure, that to my signal say, 
 
 This is a woman ! 
 
 114 
 
AS SUMMER WANES 
 
 1 DROPPED a seed in a cold, cold heart 
 Far back in the early spring; 
 I J ve tried and tried to make it start, 
 Oh, I Ve tried like anything! 
 
 The garden flowers that the sun has freed 
 
 With bloom are all areek. 
 Ah, when shall a bud from that little seed 
 
 Blush pink in my true love's cheek? 
 
 115 
 
IRRECONCILABLE 
 
 MALIGNANTS always, they adjust 
 Their stings to needs of different days, 
 As long as censure harmed, they cussed, 
 When praise is hurtfuller, they praise. 
 
 116 
 
THEY SAY SHE FLIRTS 
 
 HPHEY say she flirts; sore news that she 
 
 * Should flirt at all and not with me. 
 Sam Rogers so the tale expands 
 Has gone for good to foreign lands, 
 And left her free to go and live 
 In whichsoever State will give 
 Release from matrimonial gyves 
 With least display of jarring lives. 
 The trouble? Oh, some say Sam beat her. 
 But others claim that what's the matter 
 Is that he didn't. Some, again, 
 Hear rumors about "other men," 
 And add, explaining all that 's hid 
 "She flirts; you know she always did." 
 
 Flirt ! Well, perhaps she did, and yet 
 It seems too bad that Sam should let 
 Such coquetry as hers advance 
 To such calamitous mischance. 
 Her smiles on mankind to confer 
 Comes just as natural to her 
 As to the sun in shining mood 
 117 
 
THEY SAY SHE FLIRTS 
 
 To warm the evil and the good. 
 Are there not flowers that bloom and blush, 
 Sweet-scented, on a thorny bush, 
 Whose nature 'tis, not thinking wrong, 
 To every bee that comes along 
 To give some honey? But for these 
 'Twould be short commons for the bees. 
 And other splendid blooms there are, 
 Gorgeous to gaze on from afar, 
 But scentless; ravishing to see, 
 But without sweets to tempt a bee. 
 Getting a rose, Sam should have grown 
 Sharp thorns enough to keep his own, 
 Leaving the world some usufruct 
 Of sweetness from his rose unplucked. 
 Or else, if it were his desire 
 That everybody should admire, 
 But none appreciate his prize, 
 Save by the tribute of their eyes, 
 'Twere better if he had become 
 The stalk of a chrysanthemum, 
 That needs no thorns and safely grows, 
 Without alluring bee or nose. 
 Poor Sam ! What thorns he had the power 
 To grow, have pierced his own sweet flower 
 118 
 
THEY SAY SHE FLIRTS 
 
 Till, of that gracious bloom bereft, 
 His thorns are all that he has left. 
 
 Oh, bootless conquest, to be bold 
 And win a maid one cannot hold ! 
 Oh, wrack to her, and woe and pain, 
 To be once won, then lost again ! 
 Oh, sharp aforesaid pang, to see 
 Her flirt at all, and not with me ! 
 One cure for all, and only one 
 To get the whole black snarl undone 
 To call Odysseus back once more, 
 Shoo all the suitors from the door, 
 And trim the thorns of misplaced score, 
 And spray the rose with hellebore, 
 And gag the gossips who 'd deplore, 
 Or carp at what had gone before ! 
 Ah, those were services that would 
 Befit a friend, if one but could! 
 To stand compassioning her plight 
 Avails no jot to set her right. 
 Yet far more pleased were I to see 
 Her flirt no more, than e'en with me. 
 
 119 
 
BLANDINA 
 
 BLANDINA'Snice; Blandina 's fat; 
 Joyous, and sane and sound and sweet, 
 And handsome too, and all else that 
 In persons of her years is meet. 
 
 Behold Blandina ! 
 She 's alive, and testifies 
 With all the emphasis that lies 
 In busy hands and dancing eyes 
 
 That life 's a prize 
 That all the mischief that provokes 
 Doubt in the matter lies in folks, 
 And that, provided folks are fit, 
 Life 's not a failure not a bit. 
 
 Blandina loves a picture-book, 
 Blandina dearly loves a boy; 
 She loves her dinner, loves the cook, 
 
 Her nurse, her doll, her brother's toy; 
 And best of all she loves a joke, 
 
 And laughs at it. 
 And laughing at it testifies 
 With all the emphasis that lies 
 120 
 
BLANDINA 
 
 In joyous tones and beaming eyes, 
 
 That life 's a prize 
 That all the mischief that provokes 
 Doubt in the matter lies in folks, 
 And that, provided folks are fit, 
 Life 's not a failure not a bit. 
 
 121 
 
AN URBAN HARBINGER 
 
 TN the sweet country, as the spring's 
 * Advance decks out the scenery, 
 And limns with hues the colored things 
 And gives the greens their greenery, 
 I love to watch when I am there 
 Each little step of Nature's care; 
 The wiles with which she goes about 
 To coax the shivering crocus out, 
 And, day by day, succeeding troops 
 Of blooms, to marshal in their groups. 
 
 In town, it 's different ! All 's wrought out 
 
 With least of her complicity, 
 By man-power, helped, as I misdoubt, 
 
 By steam and electricity. 
 The bed that yesterday was snow 
 To-morrow's plants, set all arow; 
 You press a button and they blow 
 Just watch them and you '11 see it 's so. 
 I 'm told, too, that in open sight 
 The park men turn them off at night. 
 
AN URBAN HARBINGER 
 
 You can't rely on city plants, 
 
 Whose habits have been tampered with. 
 I always look at them askance. 
 
 Such culture as they 're pampered with 
 Might well their little minds upset, 
 Confuse their dates, make them forget 
 The calendar, their proper times 
 As set by use and nursery rhymes 
 All, all, except, come sun, come cold, 
 They 're bound to blossom when they 're told. 
 
 I trust them not, but when it 's fair 
 
 I note in garb delectable 
 Sophronia driving out for air 
 
 With parent most respectable. 
 And when she leaves her furs at home 
 I say the season 's ripening some. 
 Successive hats, new brought from France, 
 Denote to me the sun's advance, 
 And, when her parasols appear, 
 I cry, "Now bless me ! summer 's here." 
 
 123 
 
THE CONTEMPORARY SUITOR 
 
 r I MME was that Strephon, when he found 
 
 * A Chloe to his mind, 
 Sought not how Dun reported her, 
 Nor lagged while Time distorted her, 
 But rushed right in andv courted her, 
 As Natilre had designed. 
 
 It 's different now; my Lucy, there, 
 
 How gladly would I woo ! 
 But shapes of such monstrosity 
 Confront with such ferocity 
 My impecuniosity, 
 
 What is a man to do? 
 
 Strephon and Chloe had a hut, 
 
 And though, about the door, 
 The wolf might raise his serenade, 
 No latter-day menagerie bayed 
 Its warning, grim, to man and maid: 
 
 "Wed not if ye are poor!" 
 
 "My goats,*' might Strephon say, "will yield 
 Us milk, our vineyard wine; 
 
THE CONTEMPORARY SUITOR 
 
 By olive groves my cot is hid, 
 No pressing wants our joy forbid, 
 And I can always kill a kid 
 When people come to dine." 
 
 But I, what monsters must I face 
 
 When I for Lucy sue ! 
 What landlords roaring for their rent ! 
 What troops of duns by grocers sent, 
 And shapes of want and discontent 
 
 Calamitous to view! 
 
 Stay, Lucy, stay ! I 'm bold and stout, 
 
 I '11 rout the grisly crew. 
 Be constant, love ! and hope and wait, 
 And by the time you 're thirty-eight 
 I may, perhaps, have conquered Fate, 
 And when I 've won the right to mate, 
 If you 're not too much out of date, 
 
 I '11 surely mate with you ! 
 
 125 
 
UNCERTAINTY 
 
 NOW that again the nearing sun slants warm each 
 southern slope on, 
 
 Belinda, of a sudden, leaves the noisy town behind, 
 And slowly fares across the fields (with rubbers, let us 
 
 hope, on), 
 
 While shadows on her forehead tell of something on 
 her mind. 
 
 What is it in the spring-time drives a maid to meditation ? 
 What brings her out to tramp the fields in chosen 
 
 solitude ? 
 
 Some matter of finance, or faith, or heart, or station ? 
 It must be what would all these four and most things 
 else include. 
 
 Oh, what is man, Belinda dear, that you are mindful of 
 
 him? 
 Caressed of fortune, can it be there 's anything you 
 
 lack? 
 Ay, there 's the rub ! so much to lose so great a risk to 
 
 love him ! 
 
 And yet, who dares not love may miss what never may 
 come back ! 
 
 126 
 
UNCERTAINTY 
 
 Take heed, Belinda ! Life is long, with many a snare to 
 
 gin him. 
 Be sure he 's straight, as gallants go, and sound and 
 
 sane and true; 
 
 Be sure he has withal the saving streak of iron in him 
 To make him deaf when sirens sing, and calm when 
 notes fall due J 
 
 Wise choice to you, Belinda ! Man 's no easy thing to 
 
 measure, 
 For now and then he justifies the shape he 's moulded 
 
 in; 
 
 And then again he doesn't: still, an able woman's lei- 
 sure 
 
 May find worse use than steering him, and helping 
 him to win. 
 
 127 
 
ABOUT THE HORSE 
 
 WHAT will not men consent to do 
 For to improve the horse's breed, 
 And make him comelier to view, 
 
 And mend his gait and lift his speed ! 
 Supreme the work ! Nor time, nor gold, 
 
 Nor skill, nor strategy they stint, 
 From long before the colt is foaled 
 Until the veteran's final sprint. 
 
 Whatever is there about Horse 
 
 That stirs this tireless zeal in man 
 To make him do a stated course 
 
 A little faster than he can? 
 The locomotive long ago 
 
 Upset the claim that he was fast; 
 On common roads the automo- 
 
 Bile has him hopelessly outclassed. 
 
 Good animal to ride, to plough, 
 Or to embellish rural scenes; 
 
 But if you really want to go, 
 He isn't in it with machines. 
 128 
 
ABOUT THE HORSE 
 
 And yet the brains of men still buzz 
 With zeal the horse's breed to bless, 
 
 And call it bettered when he does 
 His mile in hah 7 a second less. 
 
 The tracks they build ! the crowds they lure ! 
 
 The Legislatures they enthrall; 
 Protesting that their aims are pure, 
 
 And mostly agricultural ! 
 Queer, isn't it ? that equine weal 
 
 Should seem so geared to human ruth. 
 Do men dissemble what they feel ? 
 
 They like a horse-race, that 's the truth. 
 
 They always did; they always will 
 
 Some of them, anyhow and risk 
 A wager on it, or a spill, 
 
 And reck not, so the pace be brisk. 
 Best was the good old rural way, 
 
 Afar from cops and pool-rooms, too, 
 When John and James, each in his sleigh, 
 
 Debated what their nags could do. 
 
 129 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE BONE 
 
 IV /I AN being shaped and complete ! 
 * ^ 1 Shivered as life through him blew; 
 Went and got something to eat; 
 
 Then didn't know what to do. 
 Sighed the All- wise " But he 's queer ! 
 
 He 'II never manage alone ! 
 Some one must give him a steer!" 
 
 Straightway He fashioned the Bone. 
 
 Bossed man that Bone from the start. 
 
 Teased him and told him and taught; 
 Learned him the lines of his part; 
 
 Trained him to do as he ought. 
 Till, in his huge self-conceit, 
 
 He set up aims of his own; 
 Fancied his mind was complete; 
 
 Learned to disparage the Bone. 
 
 Patient, she bore with his brass; 
 
 Humored him, pampered, endured 
 All, till things came to a pass, 
 
 When they just had to be cured. 
 130 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE BONE 
 
 " Won't do his share of the work ! 
 
 I '11 add it then to my own ! 
 Power to the drudge from the shirk ! 
 
 Give me my vote!" said the Bone. 
 
 Scary the outlook for man, 
 
 Warned and defied by the Bone ! 
 
 Let him be good while he can ! 
 Woman can go it alone ! 
 
 131 
 
SPRING FEVER 
 
 WANT to go to Boston ! There 's something in the 
 * air 
 The breath of spring; some restless germ unnamed; it 's 
 
 everywhere 
 That somehow makes my spirit loathe all tasks and 
 
 discipline, 
 And seasonably stirs it up to bolt the rut it 's in. 
 
 Oh, clang of gongs on cable-cars ! Oh, rattling trains 
 
 o'erhead ! 
 Oh, hustle of this driving town! Oh, life too briskly 
 
 sped! 
 
 'Twixt you and me 'twere sweet to put a temporary gap, 
 And go and sit awhile in Boston's calm, commodious lap. 
 
 'Tis true, it 's not the town it was some twenty years 
 
 ago, 
 
 For even Boston can't neglect its Yankee right to grow; 
 But still, one finds a peerless club just where one found 
 
 it then, 
 And gazing out on Beacon Hill those same good Boston 
 
 men. 
 
 132 
 
SPRING FEVER 
 
 I want to play with them awhile, and hear their Boston 
 
 prate, 
 And note their spreading dearth of hair and irksome 
 
 gains in weight; 
 And, just as an experiment, there might perhaps be 
 
 tried 
 One Boston cocktail's work in an abstemious inside. 
 
 I want to drive on Brookline roads, past homes where 
 lives are spent 
 
 In fiscal ease, and sport, and intellectual content; 
 
 And see the Dedham polo sharps their livers' weal pro- 
 mote, 
 
 And hear on India wharf the lay that greets the Port- 
 land boat. 
 
 Oh, Boston, sweet are your delights, and though they 
 
 may seem vain 
 To minds austere, my spirit craves the taste of them 
 
 again. 
 Oh, heavenly town when one is tired ! this good one may 
 
 discern 
 In you that Heaven has not, since one may taste you, 
 
 and return. 
 
 133 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 1892 
 
 PYNCHOT was sad, Eben Pynchot was 
 gloomy, 
 
 While it might be a trifle too much to assume he 
 Was ready to vacate this vortex of strife, 
 There was no denying he didn't like life. 
 He had tried it both ways, tried it just as it came, 
 And gone out of his way to make of it a game 
 Of elaborate methods and definite plan, 
 With ends fit to serve as the chief ends of man. 
 Either way it seemed now he 'd been chasing a bubble, 
 And the fun he had had hardly paid for the trouble. 
 
 First trying it poor, with his living to work for, 
 He had used as much strength as he had to exert for 
 That purpose and stopped there; not that he was lazy, 
 But going without to him always came easy, 
 And he greatly preferred to have less and economize, 
 With a mind free to meditate, read, or astronomize, 
 Than to hustle, with due acquisition of dross, 
 But with no mind for aught except profit or loss. 
 
 134 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 " In his work," said his boss, "he 's a youth to be counted on 
 Very much as you 'd trust to a clever automaton, 
 But for all that he cares for commercial adventure, he 
 Would go through the same daily round for a century." 
 
 For a while once he did show some symptoms of go 
 That promised in time into "business" to grow; 
 He worked overtime, and his questions betrayed 
 Such a wish to discover how money was made 
 That his increase of zeal by his owners was noted 
 And he stood on the sharp edge of being promoted, 
 When his eagerness all of a sudden dispersed 
 And he lapsed into just what he had been at first. 
 It was never explained, but it seemed to come pat 
 That Miss Blake married Rogers the June after that. 
 
 'Twas the following spring that his great-uncle Eben, 
 Whose toil in "the Swamp" long had lucrative proven, 
 Caught a cold riding home insufficiently clad 
 And promptly developed the prevalent fad. 
 "Pneumonia; age much against him," 'twas whispered. 
 His life had been frugal and leather had prospered. 
 The will spattered off at the start with bequests 
 To cousins, and colleges, hospitals, rests 
 For the wayworn, old servants, familiars, and clerks, 
 
 135 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 Till it showed a round sum gone for love and good works. 
 "All of which," it ran on, "being paid with due care, 
 Being still of sound mind, I appoint and declare 
 Eben Pynchot, my nephew and namesake, to be 
 Of the whole of the residue sole legatee." 
 
 "His nephew! Don't know him," Executor Willing 
 
 said. 
 
 "Never heard of him!" echoed Executor Hollingshed. 
 "Was here at the funeral," said Executor Prince, 
 "I saw him, but haven't laid eyes on him since. 
 Never mind, he '11 turn up." But all three of them 
 
 guessed 
 That his share would be small after paying the rest. 
 
 Then came the post-mortem. The trio selected to 
 Operate found what they hadn't expected to. 
 The autopsy dazed them. A simple tin box, 
 Excised from behind a Trust Company's locks, 
 Developed securities in lots and varieties 
 So ample and with such regard for proprieties 
 In the matter of dividends, that those worthy men 
 Sat speechless till, getting their wind back again, 
 An admission each gasped in such voice as he could 
 Of how old Eben's worth had been misunderstood. 
 
 136 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 "That young man is well off," said Executor Willing; 
 "Eight millions in pocket as sure as a shilling." 
 Mused Executor Prince: "Nearer twelve, I should say, 
 And he 'd better be sent for without more delay." 
 
 He took it all calmly, incredulous first, 
 
 Then wonder-eyed, lastly resigned to the worst. 
 
 Being quit of the need to beg, labor, or rob, 
 
 He made sure of the facts and then threw up his job, 
 
 Bought a sharp, shining shears fit his coupons to sever, 
 
 And regarding himself done with labor forever, 
 
 Set out with serene disposition to measure 
 
 What profit might lie in existence at leisure. 
 
 Five years passed, they left him well on in his twenties, 
 
 But still to his new trade a willing apprentice; 
 
 Deliberate still in his manner, and spare 
 
 In his frame, fitly dressed and with not too much care, 
 
 Eating all things and drinking all freely, and yet with 
 
 The sort of instinctive discretion that 's met with 
 
 In monkeys, and men who from testing it find 
 
 That less fun with the gullet means more with the 
 
 mind. 
 
 For he realized young that though houses may burn 
 And be built again finer, and jewels return 
 
 137 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 That were lost, and a fortune misused be replaced 
 By a windfall in spite of inordinate waste, 
 And a man's very ancestors sometimes may be 
 Swapped off, a job lot, for a fresh pedigree, 
 Though his babes he may shift too, and even his wife, 
 The stomach he starts with stays by him through life; 
 And too much or too little care what he shall put in it 
 Is likely to leave him at last with his foot in it. 
 
 Five years he had travelled, by gradual stages 
 
 Finding out what a million a year in this age is, 
 
 And inuring himself to the startling effects 
 
 Wrought by gold on deposit responsive to checks. 
 
 Circumventing the globe on a track loosely planned, 
 
 He had got some idea of the lay of the land, 
 
 Supplementing the same with deliberate diligence 
 
 By study of people and human intelligence. 
 
 Wise men and wise virgins and fools of all statuses, 
 
 Promoters, scamps, anarchists, young Fortunatuses, 
 
 Russian princes, dukes, beggars, lords, common Cook's 
 
 tourists, 
 
 Diplomatists, gamblers, mind-readers, faith-curists, 
 Grooms, couriers, mandarins, pashas, bagmen, colonels, 
 Professors, cads, spendthrifts, correspondents of jour- 
 nals, 
 
 138 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 He had rubbed against all of them and hundreds more too, 
 Getting aspects of life from diverse points of view. 
 Pall Mall, Piccadilly, Bois, Boulevard, Corso 
 Had grown trite to his eye as Fourteenth Street, or 
 
 more so. 
 
 The famed bank of Neva, each Rings trasse mart, 
 The paths Unter Linden, he knew all by heart. 
 Duly vouched for in letters of forceful variety, 
 He had dabbled two seasons in London society. 
 A house in Park Lane had disputed his stay 
 With a suite that he kept in the Rue de la Paix. 
 The Derby those years 'twas worth doing, to see 
 The swells on his drag: ditto more at Grand Prix. 
 On a stem-winder yacht in the Mediterranean 
 He had cruised in such guise as Jove visited Danae in, 
 Putting in at his whim where there chanced to appear a 
 Fe"te worthy to share in the bright Riviera; 
 Waking up Monte Carlo by way of a prank, 
 By testing new methods of breaking the bank; 
 Storing Venice, her stones and canals, in his memory, 
 The Bosporus cleaving, romantic and glamoury; 
 Then the Nile, thence Suez, by his craft percolated, 
 Let him in on the East with a mind not yet sated: 
 Bombay and Colombo, Calcutta and Delhi, 
 Simla, Bangkok and Singapore, Canton and Shanghai, 
 
 139 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 Tientsin and Pekin, and flowery Japan 
 Had all fitted into his nebulous plan. 
 Seeing all that he might and inferring the rest, 
 He had drifted on, gaining, with modified zest, 
 Much lore of carved ivory, lacquers and pottery, 
 Theosophy, Buddhism, jade, gems, and tottery 
 Shrines, flavored all by things mentioned or written 
 By the all-supervising, ubiquitous Briton. 
 
 Nor had he neglected that signally filling 
 Device known as "sport," euphemistic for killing. 
 Constrained by the vogue that that pastime secures, 
 He had bagged countless pheasants, stalked deer on 
 
 Scotch moors, 
 
 Chased foxes on horseback, tracked Muscovite bears, 
 Met tigers at home in their Bengalese lairs, 
 And capped African beasts with assorted quietuses, 
 From lions and elephants down to mosquitoeses. 
 Discerning how great and how cheap is the credit 
 Accorded to blood, he continued to shed it, 
 Till his mentors admitted he couldn't do more, 
 And Phil Armour himself wasn't deeper in gore. 
 
 So, too, horse. Though his globe-trotting didn't permit 
 Him to feel for that beast the concern he is fit 
 
 140 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 To awaken in man, he became with his looks 
 
 Well acquainted enough to know withers from hocks; 
 
 And if all of his good points he couldn't detect, 
 
 He acquired at the least an unstinted respect 
 
 For a brute in whose structure one great end in view 'tis 
 
 To help idle men to exist without duties. 
 
 Exhausting at last the incentives to roam, 
 Eben gathered his trophies and turned toward home. 
 Despatching his yacht her own passage to work, 
 He sailed on a "liner" himself for New York, 
 And arrived, duly sanctioned that town to possess 
 By that title unchallenged, a London success. 
 In due time joining clubs and his birthright renewing 
 He got some idea what his fellows were doing, 
 And ventured to make his desire understood 
 To share their proceedings as far as he could. 
 Obtaining a villa not too far away 
 He put himself up there, not meaning to stay 
 By himself, but desiring some haven to fly to 
 When he wanted to think, or had reason to try to. 
 On the Hudson it stood, on whose fresh-water tide 
 His boat lay prepared to vex waters untried 
 Any moment her owner whim-prompted might happen 
 To step on her deck with his wishing (sea) cap on. 
 
 141 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 In a couple more years by more long-distance gadding, 
 Whenever one place or one crowd got too madding, 
 He 'd conversant become with this land's superficies 
 And the palpable traits of American species. 
 Playing polo at Newport and coaching at Lenox, 
 Mount Desert's hazards daring unshattered, and then oo 
 Cidentally threading the fresh-water seas, 
 Thence off to the land of hot springs and big trees, 
 Adding big-horns and elk to the list of his slaughtered, 
 Back to bow to she-Patriarchs, bejewelled, bedaugh- 
 
 tered, 
 
 Watching Congress dispute through a Washington win- 
 ter, 
 
 Leading germans the pace of a misapplied sprinter 
 It was fun, but for all it diverted and pleased 
 Eben Pynchot, it left in him, all unappeased, 
 A gnawing distrust of how long to beguile 
 Life by dodging its problems was really worth while. 
 So back to that villa he had on the brink 
 Of the Hudson he drifted and paused there to think. 
 
 He took time to it; building a little and planting, 
 Assorting the fruits of his wide gallivanting, 
 Disposing his porcelains, pictures, and bric-a-brac 
 (Hitherto jumbled out helter-skelter and pick-a-back). 
 
 142 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 So that other collectors, inspecting his plunder, 
 
 Might covet his bits with due envy and wonder; 
 
 That his Japanese swords, when his rivals should call on 
 
 'em, 
 
 Might stir in them desperate longings to fall on 'em; 
 That his peachblows and sang-de-boeufs, and various 
 
 glazes 
 
 Might rouse into violent mania the crazes 
 Of persons whose cherished and costly insanity 
 Makes them suitable objects of man's inhumanity. 
 
 Some orchids he got too, not many but curious, 
 And a notable lot of chrysanthemums glorious. 
 Also horses enough for his uses vehicular, 
 And to make spavins, ringbones, diseases navicular, 
 Splints, curbs, and most species of equine affection 
 Familiar enough to him soon for detection. 
 Yet with all of these manifold means of distraction 
 He still found time for thought, for the blues, for inac- 
 tion. 
 
 The newspapers came with the world's motley annals, 
 And into his mind through unfortified channels 
 Ran the story of enterprise, effort, success, 
 Mishap, want, and failure that reels from the press, 
 And stuck there, corroding his lights, and his liver's 
 
 143 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 Performance so marring it gave him the shivers, 
 Because with no authorized permit to shirk, 
 He was living as quit of humanity's work 
 As a grasshopper is, in a June meadow playing, 
 Of the trite agricultural duty of haying. 
 It was then that his spirits began to succumb 
 To that duly hereinbefore hinted at gloom, 
 Week by week, month by month, grew his dissatisfac- 
 tion 
 Till at last came the climax that foreshadowed action. 
 
 "What is it," he mused, "that makes life worth the 
 
 living ? 
 
 Is it endless receiving and spending, or giving? 
 Is it lollipops, flapdoodle, horses, and yachts; 
 Having pennies to drop in all possible slots ? 
 Is it hustle and get-there, the genius for trade 
 And commercial combines, by which fortunes are made? 
 I never liked that. Was it luck or mishap 
 That a fortune without it fell into my lap ? 
 A bowlder of size has been rolled to the crown 
 Of a hill: I can start it and let it roll down. 
 If you set a great trap and within my reach bring it, 
 No doubt I can jump on the bait-plate and spring it. 
 But the question keeps pressing what fellow gets caught 
 
 144 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 Whose legs the trap shuts on who is it that 's bought ? 
 I 'm not sure, but at odd times I own I opine 
 That the limbs that I see held so firmly are mine ! 
 Must I keep to the end of the chapter, I wonder, 
 This purposeless role of idealized rounder ! 
 It is really a good gift that snatches away 
 The motives for labor and substitutes play ! 
 The fellows that do things and are things attain 
 Their lead by hard discipline seasoned with pain. 
 Their characters grow by the sort of endeavor 
 That seizes on time as a slice of forever. 
 It begins just a little to get through my head 
 What the grave Seer of Galilee meant when He said 
 What he did to that youth who disliked His advice 
 And went off disconcerted to pause and think twice. 
 If the spirit 's the man, what in thunder 's the use 
 Of indulging the senses with pains so profuse 
 If the more you indulge them the harder it is 
 For the spirit to get what is lawfully his ! 
 Not the best behorsed drag can keep up very far 
 With a tuppenny cart that is hitched to a star. 
 Having fun with one's money 's a good thing to do, 
 But how about letting it have fun with you ! 
 Mine shall serve, not possess; and unless I can keep 
 My place soul end upward, on top of my heap, 
 
 145 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 I vow that by way my defeat to acknowledge 
 
 I '11 dump the whole pile on a Methodist college." 
 
 Eben Pynchot's become a laborious man. 
 
 He went back to work with more purpose than plan, 
 
 And his purpose was no more than this, that he would 
 
 With himself and his pile do the best that he could. 
 
 But he followed the rule, both in person and pelf, 
 
 That who does best for others does best for himself. 
 
 He 's occupied now with an office and clerks, 
 
 Deep in politics, business concerns, and good works. 
 
 Much he gives, but how much, or to whom, or to what, 
 
 Are things that this rhyming deponent learns not. 
 
 Of a dozen great charities yearly one sees 
 
 His name lettered out in the list of trustees. 
 
 He owns model tenements, too, and I know 
 
 Of his trying experiments not long ago 
 
 To see whether a system of loan-shops could thrive 
 
 Where borrowers needn't be quite skinned alive. 
 
 As for politics, knowing that folks can make shift 
 
 To do without help if so be they have thrift, 
 
 But good government's something they can't thrive 
 
 without, 
 
 He does his best efforts to bring that about. 
 And he sticks to it so, with such dogged persistence, 
 
 146 
 
EBEN PYNCHOT'S REPENTANCE 
 
 Such energy here, and again such resistance, 
 That I own there are times when I almost prepare 
 To see some hall or other run Eben for mayor. 
 
 His liver works better now, thanks to this whirl 
 Of industry, and oh ! besides, there 's a girl ! 
 Such a dear ! such a heart ! and such wits ! such a head ! 
 Such a hang to her gown ! such a poise of her tread ! 
 She has stock in that loan-office scheme I was speak- 
 ing of. Eben consults with her four times a week. 
 And so arch is her smile and so cheerful his scoff 
 That I own I think sometimes they will hit it off. 
 'Twould be great luck for Eben if those two should pair, 
 For who needs so much help as an arch-millionaire ! 
 
 147 
 
VERSES OF OCCASION 
 
RETROSPECTIVELY SPEAKING 
 
 From Life, January, 1893. 
 
 WHEN Life began, experienced persons said: 
 "See Lachesis her shears snip that slim thread, 
 A line so slender can't protracted be: 
 Lo, Punchinello's early tomb ! and see 
 Yon tumulus whose cut-off hump declares 
 How premature an end was Vanity Fair's. 
 Brightness and brevity as surely mate 
 As pork and beans. It isn't chance; it 's fate ! 
 A few brief months of coruscation, then 
 Life will go out." So said experienced men. 
 
 A decade swift since then this Earth has sped, 
 And every day has turned things on their head. 
 Croakers who moaned "short Life!" themselves have 
 
 died, 
 
 Strong banks have bursted; men whose means defied 
 All turns of fortune have been brought to use 
 The surer plan of having naught to lose. 
 "Assured success" has gone through bankruptcy. 
 Merit in partnership with Industry 
 Have somehow failed to justify presumption, 
 
 151 
 
RETROSPECTIVELY SPEAKING 
 
 And draw a salary now, employed by Gumption. 
 
 New journals, solemn, fiscal, economic, 
 
 Religious, newsy, sporty, spicy, comic, 
 
 Diurnal, weekly every kind you take 
 
 Have mostly left depression in their wake. 
 
 Still round this world has spun, nor lost a minute, 
 
 And Life "brief, fitful Life" Life still is in it. 
 
 Ten times around the freckled orb of day, 
 Hebdomadally blazing out the way, 
 What a procession of its blessed self 
 Stalks through that score of volumes on Life's shelf ! 
 What old, old friends perennially appear ! 
 What new ones come and go, to chide or cheer ! 
 Fair Chloe, both ways drawn, choosing by toss 
 'Twixt Strephon's ardor and old Bullion's dross; 
 Lucy and Jack kept single by the curse 
 Of large requirements and a slender purse; 
 The joys ornate in which the rich compete; 
 The simple pastimes of a Thompson Street; 
 Shanty-bred Romeo's high-flown speeches poured 
 Into the infant ears of his adored; 
 Cesnola's fragments joined with too much skill; 
 The summer-girl, by ennui driven to kill 
 Too sluggish hours by stirring with her fan 
 
 152 
 
RETROSPECTIVELY SPEAKING 
 
 The smouldering passion of the casual man; 
 
 The Sabbatarian, aye obtusely prone 
 
 To estimate the Lord's day as his own; 
 
 The anxious tests the newly married make 
 
 To learn what course two lives when lumped must take; 
 
 In all his uses in recurring course 
 
 That dearest quadruped to man, the horse; 
 
 Dudes, chappies, flunkies, bishops, statesmen, sports; 
 
 Brusque millionaires; professors of all sorts; 
 
 Managing matrons, doctors, perfect dears; 
 
 Prudes, politicians, fortune-hunting peers; 
 
 Prigs, flirts, small boys chock full of devilment; 
 
 Wrong-headed folks who err with good intent; 
 
 Policemen, parsons, all the recurring train 
 
 That cross the boards of time, and come again, 
 
 While down in front in strongest light confer 
 
 The score-score stars of the McAllister. 
 
 Dear hundred thousand friends to whom Life owes 
 The vital force by which it lives and grows, 
 Your prompt support its infant steps that propped 
 And never since has wavered, much less stopped, 
 Is still its best possession its very self 
 Since when that ceases Life goes on the shelf. 
 For any good Life has availed to do, 
 
 153 
 
RETROSPECTIVELY SPEAKING 
 
 The lion's share of praise belongs to you. 
 
 'Twas you that opened Gotham's museum's door 
 
 And helped make Sunday useful to the poor; 
 
 'Twas you, last summer, and your fostering care, 
 
 That gave, through Life, four thousand babes fresh air. 
 
 Your laugh has turned purse-proud Assumption pale, 
 
 Your scornful eyes have seen Imposture quail, 
 
 And driven the bigot skulking from his niche, 
 
 And checked the follies of the idle rich. 
 
 Life, truly, fits the shafts to proper strings, 
 
 But 'tis your hands that give the missiles wings. 
 
 Be still the sun that brings Life's buds to bloom ! 
 
 Forgive its faults; its failings still assume 
 
 To be such griefs as come to every man 
 
 When what he would mismatches what he can: 
 
 Still speed its darts at Folly as she flies; 
 
 Still laugh down ostentation, meanness, lies; 
 
 Still share its mirth; still help its humor's point 
 
 To jab the times where'er they 're out of joint. 
 
 Whate'er befalls this world of greed and strife, 
 
 While Life has you, be sure you shall have Life. 
 
 Let 's keep on trying, without undue fuss, 
 
 To make the world less gloomy, having us. 
 
 154 
 
LIFE LOQUITUR 
 
 From Life, January 2, 1908. 
 
 \ JO, I am not so young as I was, 
 I ^ Not new in the world any more. 
 There 's little that any one does 
 
 But I Ve seen it done often before. 
 If I 've come to observe and reflect, 
 
 If I don't have to wait to be told, 
 It 's only what 's right to expect 
 
 I 'm a full quarter-century old. 
 
 Twenty-five 's no great age, but, dear me ! 
 
 When I pass in review what has been, 
 And match up the marvels I see 
 
 With the notable things I have seen, 
 And count the good men that ar' n't here, 
 
 And reckon the haps that befell, 
 I own, tally woe, tally cheer, 
 
 I 've been hanging around quite a spell. 
 
 Presidents six have I known, 
 
 Chester and Grover and Ben, 
 Grover, more requisite grown, 
 
 Back in the White House again, 
 155 
 
LIFE LOQUITUR 
 
 William McKinley twice called, 
 In his fifth summer laid low, 
 
 Theodore duly installed, 
 
 And sakes alive ! Theodore now. 
 
 Good times and bad I 've been through, 
 
 Saw and outlived ninety-three, 
 Bryan's first vagaries knew 
 
 Silver's dire threat to be free. 
 Hard combination to beat ! 
 
 Just when the crash seemed in sight, 
 Dollar a bushel for wheat 
 
 Won us the Sound Money fight. 
 
 Confidence rising again, 
 
 Straightway prosperity's tide 
 Turned and began pouring in. 
 
 Hark ! Was that Cuba that cried? 
 Shrieked to us "Save me from Spain!" 
 
 While we considered our answer 
 Down to her doom went the Maine 
 
 In the mud of the Tropic of Cancer ! 
 
 War ! Couldn't stay it then. War ! 
 Vain the appeals of outsiders. 
 156 
 
LIFE LOQUITUR 
 
 Bristled the sea and the shore; 
 
 Roosevelt raised the Rough Riders. 
 Dewey Manila Bay May Day 
 
 Turn the long page full of lines; 
 See us in Glory's huge heyday, 
 
 Stuck with the far Philippines. 
 
 Theodore, master of luck; 
 
 Theodore, marvel of vigor; 
 Toe in the stirrup, tongue on the cluck, 
 
 Finger not far from the trigger; 
 Eager to swim in the tide's swiftest eddy, 
 
 Fatefully steered on his way there, 
 Him in the White House finding already, 
 
 We-all cried: "Theodore, stay there!" 
 
 Every one now must be good, 
 
 No one the laws may ignore, 
 Magnates must do as they should, 
 
 Trusts may not hog any more. 
 Righteousness garnished with rue ! 
 
 (Hark to the stock-ticker's click !) 
 As you 'd be done by, so do ! 
 
 Failing, beware the Big Stick ! 
 
 157 
 
LIFE LOQUITUR 
 
 So here we are, and p'raps you know 
 Where we '11 come out; I don't. 
 
 The yeast 's been working in the dough. 
 
 That 's good, I guess. Oh, yes ! but oh ! 
 
 It 's agitating; differing so 
 From old-time use and wont. 
 
 But let it work; so history 's made, 
 While we stand by and gape. 
 
 Nor is Time's stormy current stayed 
 
 Because onlookers are afraid. 
 
 When Destiny's big games are played, 
 They 're played, and no escape. 
 
 My Gibson girls are mothers now 
 
 Of daughters fair as they, 
 And of prospective voters, too: 
 Wise voters, doubtless; anyhow 
 As wise in prospect, all allow, 
 
 As are their sires to-day. 
 
 A country's strength is in its men; 
 
 Ours are their mothers' sons. 
 The breed 's been duly tried, and when 
 Have problems stumped it? Duly then 
 158 
 
LIFE LOQUITUR 
 
 We '11 see our problems solved again: 
 So history's forecast runs. 
 
 Let 's all be good and trim our sails, 
 
 And hold our courses true; 
 For never mind what mischief ails, 
 Unless the human factor fails, 
 The old God-fearing grit avails 
 To pull the patient through. 
 
 159 
 
LIFE TO HIS FRIENDS 
 
 From Life, January 2, 1913. 
 
 Dear hundred thousand friends to whom Life owes 
 
 The vital force by which it lives and grows, 
 
 Your prompt support its infant steps that propped 
 
 And never since has wavered, much less stopped, 
 
 Is still its best possession its very self 
 
 Since when that ceases, Life goes on the shelf. 
 
 For any good Life has availed to do, 
 
 The lion's share of praise belongs to you. 
 
 Let 's keep on trying, without undue fuss, 
 
 To make the world less gloomy, having us! 
 
 SO Life at ten years old, and so the tale 
 Runs on, trite maybe, but in no wise stale. 
 Dear friends, grown now to be a million strong, 
 To faithful you the pseans still belong. 
 Somehow you Ve stuck, through slender and through 
 
 thick, 
 
 And many a hoof have dodged, and many a brick. 
 For fifteen hundred weeks and more, your aid 
 The mordant forces of decay have stayed, 
 At censure blinked and calumny ignored, 
 And damned the fatal charge that you were bored. 
 Something has held you, comrades; what it was 
 Has puzzled experts. What a mortal does 
 
 160 
 
LIFE TO HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Has always blemishes. Mischance, mistake, 
 
 False inference and misconception, make 
 
 Blots on his record, do the best he may. 
 
 For this, one squad, for that, another, say 
 
 "Out on him!" "Do him up!" "Not fit to live !" 
 
 "No more of him !" and proper orders give. 
 
 But where the vital spark burns really strong, 
 
 That doesn't end it. Still he plods along: 
 
 Scolded, finds balm in thought that many men 
 
 Have many minds, and downed, bobs up again. 
 
 Nothing on Earth 's quite right. Lots of it 's good, 
 But nothing goes precisely as it should, 
 Nor so near right but that a skilful dab 
 Lancfs near some spot in it that needs a jab. 
 Now jabs are what Life's office 'tis to yield; 
 Jester and critic, that 's his proper field; 
 Not wantonly, nor fiercely, but polite, 
 Good-natured, with attentive skill, to bite. 
 But, friends, this world of comfortable folk 
 Is full, who think a jab or bite 's no joke. 
 Respectable and solvent, they make known 
 Th' existing order 's good to let alone; 
 They like it, faults, absurdities and all, 
 And when you bite their end of it, they bawl. 
 161 
 
LIFE TO HIS FRIENDS 
 
 To them, Life's obvious office is to show 
 
 What other fellows think is partly so. 
 
 Perhaps, because you think they should be shown, 
 
 Dear million friends, you never quite disown 
 
 Your faulty, barking Life, so bad, so bold, 
 
 That never would or could do as it 's told. 
 
 No, never ! Do you wonder why ? Demand 
 
 To know its master; then you '11 understand. 
 
 A sense of letters and a sense of art; 
 
 A sense of justice and a decent heart; 
 
 No mule to drive more obstinate than he, 
 
 But on the team he drives a hand so free, 
 
 So light, so sure, controlled by such a wit, 
 
 The driven speed on unconscious of the bit; 
 
 Erroneous, sympathetic, ever young; 
 
 Shrewd like the Pilgrim stock from which he sprung; 
 
 Not fooled by praise, by censure not unnerved, 
 
 Nor yet by Vanity's distraction swerved; 
 
 Free thinker, zealot, Pan, all rolled in one 
 
 And penetrated with a sense of fun 
 
 And breeze of Gaul. You have him ! There 's your 
 
 man ! 
 Maker of Life the only way he can. 
 
 162 
 
AD SODALES 
 
 Read at a dinner of the Class of 1877, Harvard College, June 27, 1882. 
 
 IS it a dream? Can it be true 
 That we, ungalled by business fetters, 
 Four careless years once loitered through, 
 
 Sojourners in the home of letters? 
 Beyond a doubt it is a fact 
 
 Well ascertained and well attested: 
 The classic shades, though not intact, 
 Are still the shades that we infested. 
 
 Across from Holyoke House still bloom 
 
 Horse-chestnut trees with fragrant blossom; 
 Old Jarvis Field is still the home 
 
 Of balls, and men who love to toss 'em. 
 The shriek of car-wheel rounding curve, 
 
 The listener's blood still duly curdles; 
 Their graceful height the elms preserve, 
 
 Oblivious to their tarry girdles. 
 
 And still across the winding Charles 
 
 Come shells, and smells, and rapid barges; 
 
 The Freshman still, in force at Carl's, 
 His knowledge of the world enlarges. 
 163 
 
AD SODALES 
 
 The Sophomore is still assured 
 
 That wisdom with himself shall perish; 
 
 To Clubs the Junior still is lured; 
 Still tender fancies Seniors cherish. 
 
 But yesterday, and we, like these, 
 
 Were nursing our jejune affections, 
 And putting in for our degrees, 
 
 And squabbling over class elections. 
 That Class Day night, the window-seat, 
 
 From which all thought of else was banished 
 While She sat there, so dear so sweet 
 
 Ah, since that night five years have vanished ! 
 
 Another grinds where once we ground; 
 
 Another loafs where once we idled; 
 And others still cavort around 
 
 With spirits like ours were unbridled. 
 New fellows now presume to woo 
 
 New girls, whose charms we never wot of; 
 New scouts there are and goodies too, 
 
 A whole new world that we are not of. 
 
 But still, when dismal howls the wind, 
 And sweeps the rain in gusts and flurries, 
 164 
 
AD SODALES 
 
 When he who walks looks not behind 
 But turns his collar up and hurries, 
 
 On certain granite blocks is brought 
 To light, an ancient legend,* showing 
 
 Where, in the days we knew, 'twas thought 
 The University was going. 
 
 And was it going there, or can 
 
 There truly be a place infernal 
 Where Justice takes it out of man 
 
 For transient sins by pains eternal? 
 I do not know ! It is not worth 
 
 One's while to disinter dead issues; 
 1 know that what make Hell of Earth 
 
 Are weakened wills and worn-out tissues. 
 
 And to these mundane hells, they say, 
 The paths that lead at first are cheerful 
 
 And bright, but further on, the way, 
 If still pursued, grows dark and fearful. 
 
 It may be some of us did get 
 Too far along I do not say so 
 
 * NOTE. On the front of University Hall appeared one morning the 
 inscription, "The University is Going to Hell." It was scrubbed off, 
 but is still legible in damp weather. 
 
 165 
 
AD SODALES 
 
 But Well ! we '11 do to pray for yet: 
 We are survivors: let us stay so. 
 
 The voices of the gentlest tone, 
 
 The truest eyes, and hearts the kindest; 
 The minds most conscious of their own ^ 
 
 Shortcomings, and to ours the blindest; 
 Ah ! one by one, and year by year, 
 
 Beneath the graveyard's grassy hummocks 
 We see them laid, and we meet here, 
 
 Worse men, perhaps, with better stomachs. 
 
 Death, Flaccus says, with equal kick 
 
 Salutes the door of prince and peasant; 
 Nor comes he slower or more quick 
 
 If life be burdensome or pleasant. 
 'Tis fit that in his steps should tread 
 
 Sweet Charity, the all-forgiving 
 Nil nisi bonum of the dead: 
 
 Be all our censure for the living. 
 
 We, who are left, be ours to keep 
 Our harnesses from getting rusty; 
 
 What wit we have from going to sleep; 
 Our wisdom from becoming musty: 
 166 
 
AD SODALES 
 
 To catch the rein our fellow drops, 
 Mount, and in action growing bolder, 
 
 Reck not that at the crupper stops 
 
 His Care with ours, behind our shoulder. 
 
 And though we realize what dross 
 
 And fleeting things our hearts are set on; 
 How much of seeming gain is loss; 
 
 How many truths we dare not bet on; 
 Regret the protoplastic germs 
 
 That launched us in this higgle piggle, 
 And feel ourselves but wriggling worms, 
 
 Still, being worms, do let us wriggle. 
 
 Who scorns, for aught the world can give, 
 
 To stoop to lie, or trick, or juggle; 
 Who knows that he has got to live 
 
 Though only pain rewards the struggle; 
 Who nurses to their fullest growth 
 
 The talents to his care committed, 
 And runs his race, and nothing loath, 
 
 Be he who may against him pitted, 
 
 He acts the man, and though the prize 
 May not reward his long endeavor; 
 167 
 
AD SODALES 
 
 Though at the goal which lured his eyes 
 He comes too late, perhaps, or never; 
 
 Still day by day by what he does 
 
 He forms the fact by which to grade him. 
 
 'Twas not Sardanapalus, 'twas 
 Leonidas, whose venture paid him. 
 
 Perhaps your poet's jester's cap 
 
 But ill conceals a care-worn wrinkle; 
 The bells he rattles have, mayhap, 
 
 Too, too lugubrious a tinkle; 
 Fill then each glass, and join with me 
 
 In wine for just such uses given, 
 To whoop her up, with three-times three 
 
 And bumpers all for Seventy-Seven ! 
 
 Our Alma Mater's naughty child, 
 
 Whose conscience never seemed to quicken; 
 Whom even now she calls her wild- 
 
 Est, most disreputable chicken: 
 Whose conduct with a wish to please 
 
 Had seldom much that was in keeping; 
 Who sowed, Ah me ! a lively breeze, 
 
 Heaven send no whirlwinds for our reaping,- 
 168 
 
AD SODALES 
 
 But grant that while our heads grow cool, 
 
 Our hearts beat still a genial patter; 
 That with increased regard for rule, 
 
 And pocketbooks grown somewhat fatter, 
 The sluggish mass of things to be 
 
 May find in us a sprightly leaven; 
 To make it lighter and more free, 
 
 I give the Class of Seventy-Seven. 
 
 169 
 
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER 
 
 Read at dinner at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Class of '77, 
 Harvard College, June 24, 1902. 
 
 HERE at the top of the divide, 
 Sit we together, 
 And smile as we look back, 
 To mark our tortuous track; 
 And sigh to see outspread 
 The long down-grade ahead; 
 And face the past, and then the coming fate, 
 And sigh, and smile; and prate 
 Of years long sped and good men gone, 
 And drink a glass, and sing another song. 
 
 This being forty-six, or thereabouts, 
 
 Isn't it queer? 
 
 This getting gray and trying to get wise ! 
 
 This seeing younger men lift many a prize ! 
 
 This having boys and girls at seats of learning 
 
 Spending more money than their sires are earning ! 
 
 'Tis not in nature unconcerned to view 
 
 This slipping past the point of going-to-do, 
 
 But glad in gains, our losses we endure. 
 
 There's life left in the old class yet; that's sure. 
 
 170 
 
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER 
 
 They say there sits with us, his cheek still ruddy, 
 Charles William Eliot's likeliest understudy.* 
 Dear, dear; 'twould be a sight to flout the scorner 
 To see old Seventy-seven head that corner ! 
 
 Arcadians all, we deprecate all fuss. 
 
 Let Fame sweat on a-keeping tab on us ! 
 
 Let Eighty swell with pride, and cheer and bustle: 
 
 We could have given her odds with Billy Russell ! 
 
 Dear man with thought of him our hearts are moved 
 
 Of him, and Sigourney, the well-beloved, 
 
 Whose hand and heart and voice in charmed accord 
 
 Brought warmth and mirth and kindness to our board. 
 
 Here, at the top of the divide, 
 Sitting together, 
 Not at loss shall we repine, 
 But sit tight and drink our wine, 
 Better wives we couldn't have, 
 Better children don't deserve, 
 Better men we may be yet, 
 Better prizes, maybe, get, 
 
 But whatsoever 
 Fate for us may have in store, 
 
 * Abbott Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard University, 1909. 
 
 171 
 
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER 
 
 Be it less or be it more, 
 Be it gold or be it lead, 
 Be it tail or be it head, 
 Be it odd or be it even 
 Here's again to Seventy-seven ! 
 
 172 
 
FIFTY YEARS OLD 
 
 Read at the Class Dinner of Harvard, '77, June 25, 1907. 
 
 IT is not a matter that needs rubbing in, 
 If it hurts anybody it needn't be told; 
 It 's only that none of us youths will again 
 
 Be a day less than fifty-and-some thing years old. 
 
 Don't want to, say I; it 's a wonderful age. 
 
 Good as new. And so many sound reasons to praise it. 
 Soft end of the job and big end of the wage, 
 
 And all the good work you 've done counting to raise it. 
 
 It 's true that disbursements with winnings agree. 
 
 That 50-year incomes have suckers to suit. 
 That 's nothing. What profits a fifty-year tree, 
 
 If not to give shade and yield adequate fruit? 
 
 Such valuable folk as are fifty years old ! 
 
 Such burdens they carry, such currents they stem ! 
 It 's good to be of them and help to uphold 
 
 The chin of a world that might sink, but for them. 
 
 Sodales, who thirty years since became men, 
 
 Aspiring to reach what their fingers might clutch, 
 
 173 
 
FIFTY YEARS OLD 
 
 Ahead still our gaze is, intently as then. 
 
 We hope, we desire, we aspire just as much. 
 
 But this is the difference: Our own future then 
 Enlisted our hopes and aroused our misgivings; 
 
 What calls to us now is the new race of men, 
 
 Our sons and our daughters, their fates and their liv- 
 ings. 
 
 God bless them ! We give them the best that we Ve got 
 Young hearts bound to ours on the old human plan, 
 
 Coming now, squad by squad, year by year to the spot 
 Where we stood erstwhile when our friendship began. 
 
 We coddle them, counsel them, settle their bills; 
 
 To prosper their running we sweat and we strive. 
 They follow, as we did, the bent of their wills. 
 
 They don't do what we did. I guess they '11 survive. 
 
 Bend, bend your backs, brothers, the spine 's in them 
 
 still. 
 
 Being fifty years old is the grandest thing yet; 
 The age of wise service, of disciplined will, 
 
 When the heart does not change, nor the stomach 
 forget; 
 
 174 
 
FIFTY YEARS OLD 
 
 When prudence her lessons has taught and got through; 
 
 When choices are settled and courses denned; 
 When what we are doing is what we should do, 
 
 And fifty years back of us drive from behind. 
 
 The age of arrival, of wisdom, of light, 
 
 Of passion grown pale by affection supplanted; 
 
 When men know enough to go home when it 's night, 
 And get when they do what they ought to have 
 wanted. 
 
 Not so young as we were, but still passable men; 
 
 Not so aged that all of our story 's yet told. 
 Come, whoop her up, brothers, be juniors again ! 
 
 There 's lots of life left in us fifty years old. 
 
 175 
 
THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, 
 AND THE GLORY 
 
 Read before the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa at Cambridge, June 30, 1898. 
 
 WHEN forth the shepherd boy in Elah's vale 
 To meet Goliath fared, no coat of mail 
 Nor sword nor spear he took, nor anything 
 Except one little penny-dreadful sling. 
 His pebble sped. The big Philistine's fall 
 Gave humble means a license once for all, 
 And helps your bard a warrant to construe 
 To launch light verse at learned men like you. 
 
 Masters of erudition, chosen sirs, 
 
 Whose knowledge close with all that 's known concurs, 
 
 Who taste all fruits on wisdom's tree that grow 
 
 After all 's said, what do we need to know ? 
 
 Knowledge is power. What knowledge? Power for 
 
 what? 
 
 To do, or not to do? To have, or not? 
 Shall learning make our hearts or pockets stout ? 
 Bring things, or teach us how to go without? 
 Prompt us to spare, or qualify to spend? 
 Is it a means, or shall it be an end? 
 
 176 
 
THE KINGDOM, THE POWER 
 
 All day the Hindoo sits and contemplates 
 His navel. Earth spins onward while he waits. 
 No loss of time his brooding hope concerns; 
 His concentrated thought serves all his turns 
 His food, the least that soul and body joins; 
 His raiment, but the clout about his loins. 
 To think is all he asks; indeed, it 's more 
 He only seeks to keep an open door 
 Whereinto may perhaps in time be turned 
 A consciousness transcending all things learned. 
 Heedless of force, oblivious to fact, 
 Broken of every wish or power to act, 
 Under his bo-tree, rapt, behold him sit, 
 A patient mark for wisdom's darts to hit. 
 
 In violent, prodigious contrast, view 
 Our devotee who lives to put things through ! 
 Intense in aim, tremendous in attempt, 
 He dares such feats as wizards might have dreamt. 
 Prompt from a bed too briefly kept he springs 
 To giant struggles with material things. 
 He wrests from earth her treasures and her fruits, 
 Stays time, and grubs up distance by the roots. 
 Titanic in his hands' resourceful play, 
 He fits to needs, a thousand leagues away, 
 177 
 
THE KINGDOM, THE POWER 
 
 Supplies extorted by his conjuring brain 
 
 From mine and factory, forest, sea, and plain. 
 
 As nature's secrets, yielded one by one 
 
 To searching science, meet the revealing sun, 
 
 His hail exultant glorifies the hour 
 
 That still extends the boundaries of his power. 
 
 To have, to hold, to shift, to give and take, 
 
 And from each transfer still a profit make 
 
 That is his life; we watch him and admire, 
 
 Yet envy not his toil nor grudge his hire. 
 
 To each his task: our civilization's need 
 Includes things as diverse as love and greed 
 As brooding thought and bustling energy 
 As abstract truth and prompt utility. 
 His right to earth is best who best can use it; 
 His birthright man must justify or lose it. 
 This we should learn, then, and to this end strive, 
 Living to keep continuously alive, 
 And daily meet the debt we owe the day 
 That irksome, wholesome debt, to make it pay. 
 Call us utilitarian those who will, 
 A warrant for our Yankee impulse still 
 Stands in the immemorial decree 
 That linked with labor human life shall be. 
 178 
 
AND THE GLORY 
 
 For liberty and progress, hand in hand 
 
 With pushing thrift, have gone in many a land, 
 
 And mastery of earth and nature brings 
 
 The key to endless stores of precious things. 
 
 Wealth earned, not filched, power not usurped, but based 
 
 On freemen's choice, are mighty tools that, placed 
 
 In fitting hands, spread civilization's sway, 
 
 And speed the dawning of millennium's day. 
 
 Be honor, then, to him who makes the field 
 To wiser tillage fuller harvests yield; 
 Who harnesses the lightning, and constrains 
 Indocile steel to save the fingers pains; 
 Who teaches us new wants, and, turn about, 
 Supplies these things we cannot do without, 
 And makes us hope, so much do wares abound, 
 There '11 some time be enough to go around. 
 
 To those devoted souls be honor, too, 
 Who steadfastly the quest for truth pursue; 
 Who, rifling history's treasure-house, forecast 
 The future's hopes and perils from the past; 
 Who seek creation's darkest depths to plumb 
 What man has been, and is, and may become, 
 Whence brought, and by what trail, and whither bound, 
 
 179 
 
THE KINGDOM, THE POWER 
 
 Asking, they wrest its secrets from the ground, 
 The depths of earth and sea, the celestial vault, 
 They dredge and sift and span in an assault 
 So fierce and steady that the hosts of night 
 Fall ever back before its fervent might, 
 And Sol each morning rises with a shout, 
 Surprised at what those fellows have found out. 
 
 But honor more be his whose instincts own 
 The truth, "Man cannot live by bread alone" 
 Who sees in righteousness, far more than wealth, 
 The prime essential to a nation's health; 
 Whom neither ease, nor quest, sublime or base, 
 Makes inconsiderate of his brother's case; 
 Whose effort is, come plenty or come dearth, 
 God's will to learn, and see it done on earth. 
 A lack of sturdy men whose aims are high 
 No surging tide of plenty can supply. 
 Doomed is the state, whatever its avails, 
 Where probity falls down and conscience fails. 
 Not gold nor iron, grain nor ships nor coal, 
 Can make a nation great that lacks a soul. 
 
 This above all, then, brethren, we should know, 
 
 How by our growth to make our country grow 
 
 180 
 
AND THE GLORY 
 
 In that true glory whose foundations lie 
 
 In justice, freedom, and integrity 
 
 Our country whose we are, and in whose fate 
 
 Our stake is so immeasurably great, 
 
 Whose honor ours involves, her fame our fame, 
 
 Her misdirection our remorse and shame. 
 
 Manila's guns, reverberating still, 
 
 Witness how well her sons can do her will. 
 
 Beleaguered Cuba's marching hosts attest 
 
 How swells the love of freedom in her breast. 
 
 Whatever befall, God grant her flag may fly 
 
 In sign of righteousness and liberty, 
 
 Ne'er at ambition's beck to be unfurled 
 
 In triumph o'er the weaklings of the world, 
 
 Ne'er borne in battle save in mercy's cause 
 
 To spread the realm of peace and honest laws ! 
 
 May Heaven, who gave us strength, give wisdom too, 
 
 Our duty teach us, and what not to do; 
 
 And so on force may moderation wait 
 
 So match our men of war, our chiefs of state 
 
 That the chief fame our victories shall produce 
 
 May be the high renown of victory's use. 
 
 So be our arms, our flag, our future blest 
 
 God save the Great Republic of the West ! 
 
 181 
 
Iw 
 I 
 
 THE STRENUOUS LIFE 
 
 Read at the Harvard Club Dinner, New York, 1900. 
 
 WENT down East to a football match; great game; 
 
 '11 go again. 
 There played a chap they called McBride, who had the 
 
 strength of ten, 
 
 And divers more, whose names I miss, but they seemed 
 to be all good men. 
 
 Thirty men or thereabouts competed there that day. 
 Thirty thousand anxious souls observed their urgent 
 
 play. 
 All Harvard went prepared to yell; all Harvard stayed to 
 
 pray. 
 
 Bless me, how those lusty youths toiled round that 
 
 leather sphere, 
 Lined up, rushed, tackled, bucked, and strove with ardor 
 
 most severe, 
 While earnest lads in moving tones besought the crowd 
 
 to cheer ! 
 
 182 
 
THE STRENUOUS LIFE 
 
 Governors, senators, ministers, judges, presidents of 
 
 banks, 
 College presidents, mothers of families, matrons and 
 
 maids, on ranks 
 Of benches steeple-high, sat round and watched those 
 
 football cranks. 
 
 I sat next to a mossy fossil, forty years old, named Jim. 
 Neither one of us knew the game, but we went with 
 
 purpose grim 
 Yet humble too to see the show and learn if it took 
 
 a limb. 
 
 "They say it's dangerous!" said I, but he said, "I 
 don't care; 
 
 We '11 get back seats. I understand there '11 be police- 
 men there." 
 
 So there we sat and viewed the whole preposterous 
 affair. 
 
 It turned out safe enough for us, and as for those young 
 chaps 
 
 Who played, they all made nothing of astonishing mis- 
 haps, 
 
 Enduring superhuman-seeming strains without collapse. 
 
 183 
 
THE STRENUOUS LIFE 
 
 They 'd kill a player frequently, and on his corpse would 
 pile 
 
 A score of them, and then pile off, and he 'd get up and 
 smile, 
 
 And kick the ball; the blessed crowd all hollering mean- 
 while. 
 
 A player 'd get the ball and run; another, just as 
 
 fleet, 
 Would grab him passing, ankle-high, and throw him 
 
 forty feet. 
 He 'd land upon his head, but still continue to compete. 
 
 "Sure that one's dead," I'd cry; and Jim "What 
 
 odds ! there 's plenty more. 
 What stubborn brutes those Yale men are ! Why can't 
 
 our chappies score?" 
 "Hit Daly 's got the ball! Now go! Down ? Bless me ! 
 
 What a bore!" 
 
 Our beings to their cores were stirred that day by those 
 
 young men, 
 
 Egregious heroes doing stunts far too sublime for pen. 
 Down to Yale's one-yard line they fought; Yale fought 
 
 them back again. 
 
 184 
 
THE STRENUOUS LIFE 
 
 "And all that work and no one's game !" sighed I as we 
 
 turned away. 
 "They jolly well got their exercise, you bet," said Jim, 
 
 "this day. 
 In the strenuous life 'tisn't wins that count, so much as 
 
 how hard you play. 
 
 " Don't bother about what 's gained, or whether you wal- 
 lop the proper man. 
 
 In the strenuous life, to do hard things in the hardest 
 way is the plan, 
 
 And to keep the biggest possible crowd as crazy as ever 
 you can." 
 
 "Poor liver-saddened old croak," said I, "whose thews 
 
 have lost their power; 
 Whose muscles are soft and his spunk collapsed, and his 
 
 spirit subdued and sour, 
 Grand is strife of the strenuous life, and the world's 
 
 best hope in this hour!" 
 
 " Granny ! " said he, " those were fine young lads, and 
 
 vigorous through and through. 
 They put commendable snap, I own, in the singular 
 
 things they do. 
 
 185 
 
THE STRENUOUS LIFE 
 
 Still granting a sport is a right good sort, need we make 
 it religion too? 
 
 "Must we add to the cross we Ve had so long another 
 
 upright pole, 
 And shove the bar along a bit, till it 's what they call a 
 
 goal, 
 And say you must drive between the posts as you hope 
 
 to save your soul? 
 
 "There 's more to life than hustling, man, though hus- 
 tling has its place, 
 
 There 's virtue in contentment still; tranquillity 's a 
 grace; 
 
 According to his legs and lungs, must each man set his 
 pace." 
 
 I Ve thought about it often since, and doubtless shall again. 
 
 The strenuous life 's a tip-top thing, I guess, for strenu- 
 ous men 
 
 Whose necks are short, and whose heads are hard, and 
 who have the strength of ten. 
 
 They 're skittish creatures anyhow; unless they have 
 due vent 
 
 186 
 
THE STRENUOUS LIFE 
 
 We '11 have them putting up on us with maybe good 
 intent, 
 
 Hair-raising jobs, to which we could not possibly as- 
 sent. 
 
 To get them in between the shafts and let their shoul- 
 ders feel 
 
 The public load, 's a scheme that well to prudence may 
 appeal. 
 
 While we, the timid, stand by to clamp on brakes and 
 shoe the wheel. 
 
 Our strenuous friends who can't be cured, let them be 
 
 strenuous still. 
 If they '11 be strenuous to our taste, we '11 cheer them 
 
 to their fill, 
 And plank our dollars duly down to pay their long, long 
 
 bill. 
 
 But as for us, the meek and mild, our racket 's to ad- 
 here, 
 
 To docile virtue's modest path, nor let ambition queer 
 Our sense, nor ever lure us off a strenuous course to 
 steer. 
 
 187 
 
THE STRENUOUS LIFE 
 
 To pose as strenuous half a day, and spend a week in 
 
 bed 
 Would never do; we 'd lose our jobs; our babes would 
 
 wail unfed. 
 Better to save our puny strength to earn our daily bread. 
 
 About one strenuous man to every thousand folks is 
 
 right. 
 
 Five hundred lean and vigilant to keep him aye in sight; 
 Five hundred fat to sit on him hard when he happens 
 
 to want to fight. 
 
 188 
 
WHAT FOR? 
 
 Read at the Harvard Dinner in New York, January 31, 1908. 
 
 WHAT do we go to Harvard for? 
 What is it all about? 
 Our fathers knew of something there 
 They thought it worth our while to share; 
 Something we think our boys can't spare, 
 So they go, too; and all the more 
 The riddle presses "What 's it for?" 
 What 's in Harvard that men misdoubt 
 'Twere futile thrift to do without? 
 
 Wisdom 's there for youth to get: 
 
 Follies galore to do. 
 Did ever youth learn wisdom yet 
 
 But glanced at Folly too? 
 Between the covers of books 
 
 Stands knowledge in noble store, 
 But it 's not all there; it 's everywhere: 
 And to learn to know its looks, 
 
 And find, and use it more and more, 
 
 Is what we go to Harvard for. 
 189 
 
WHAT FOR? 
 
 To get in touch with many men, 
 
 And to get close up to a few: 
 To make wise marks with a doubtful pen; 
 
 And to guess, and have it come true. 
 To learn to make food and drink 
 
 With labor and mirth agree; 
 To learn to live, and learn to think; 
 
 And to learn to be happy though free 
 
 These at Harvard seek our Youth, 
 
 Nor in their seeking fail. 
 And they gain betimes the vision of truth; 
 
 And they play some games with Yale. 
 If they don't 'most always win, 
 
 The reason 's easily shown; 
 The board at home 's so rich in fare 
 They can't get hungry enough to care 
 With due concern and enough despair, 
 
 Who gets contention's bone. 
 
 190 
 
TO PRESIDENT LOWELL 
 
 Read at the Harvard Dinner in New York, January 28, 1910. 
 
 DEAR Sir, to this aspiring town 
 That bursts its belt off every year, 
 And, paved with shekels, thrusts its crown 
 Aye to the stars more near, 
 
 Thrice welcome ! First, because you 're you, 
 And next, because you 're Harvard's chief, 
 
 And third there 's something you might do, 
 We think, for our relief. 
 
 The buildings here have grown so tall, 
 They somehow tend to dwarf the men. 
 
 Ere Harvard graduates seem small, 
 Please stock us up again ! 
 
 The West, the South, the Nor-nor-west, 
 South-west, and all the hungry East, 
 
 Keep dumping in on us their best 
 To share our civic feast. 
 
 From Ind. and Wis. and Mich, and Minn., 
 The Slope, the Rockies, and the Soo, 
 191 
 
TO PRESIDENT LOWELL 
 
 And eke from Texas, folks surge in, 
 To show us how; and do. 
 
 Ohio man and railroad king, 
 
 Miner and steel man, men with rolls, 
 Smart men from everywhere here bring 
 
 Their wits to try our souls. 
 
 If Harvard's chin 's to be upheld 
 In this competing flood of powers, 
 
 Some special orders must be filled, 
 And this, please, Sir, is ours. - 
 
 Oh Dr. Lowell, train and teach 
 
 And send, oh, send, to help us here, 
 
 High minds, bold hearts, with gift of speech 
 Preferred, and vision clear. 
 
 One Joseph Choate each twenty year, 
 
 One Carter every twenty too, 
 And once a cycle should appear 
 
 A Roosevelt; one will do. 
 
 More Huntingtons we need them sore, 
 To train the town in works of grace 
 192 
 
TO PRESIDENT LOWELL 
 
 More Beamans, Baldwins, Bulls, and more 
 McKims to deck its face. 
 
 "More of the same," our order runs 
 The same old stock that must not fail, 
 
 Articulate with speech or guns, 
 To make the truth prevail. 
 
 Articulate to balk the swine, 
 To call the money-mad to heel, 
 
 To make an old tradition shine, 
 And back up faith with zeal. 
 
 193 
 
THE OLD STOCK 
 
 Read at the Harvard Dinner in New York, March 24, 1911. 
 
 NOW in the shade for a moment's space reposes 
 (This is just a figure for he 's on another ramp), 
 He who but lately was his country's Moses, 
 
 Fetching us along on the road we 've got to tramp. 
 
 What Harvard hand shall be next to grasp the throttle ? 
 
 What Harvard voice the rising faiths expound? 
 Who in the corner hold the sponge and bottle 
 
 While our democracy fights another round? 
 
 Old are the issues, known since time's beginnings, 
 Right of man and right of thrift drifting into strife; 
 
 Right of the bold to have and hold his winnings; 
 Right of the worker to keep his hold on life. 
 
 Need is of men, who, all men's needs discerning, 
 Practise to make come peaceably what must; 
 
 Lovers of men, whose love is armed with learning; 
 Leaders of men, whose wisdom men can trust. 
 
 Not so much heroes we need as steady drivers, 
 
 Handy with brakes when there 's peril in our speed; 
 
 194 
 
THE OLD STOCK 
 
 Prompt to yield a fair half the road to all and divers; 
 Stubborn with a stiffened back against stampede. 
 
 Such men as he we lately lost and mourn for,* 
 Rugged and bountiful, bold and wise to plan, 
 
 Strong in the faith and the service he was born for, 
 Stanch for the weal and honor of the clan. 
 
 Stock of the Puritans, from ocean spread to ocean, 
 111 be the time when your consecration fails ! 
 
 Now when these rival needs threaten such commotion, 
 Whose hand than yours should truer hold the scales ! 
 
 Years, years ago your fathers built a cradle; 
 
 Rocked in it all of us, drew us to their heart; 
 Down into wells of truth freely dipped the ladle; 
 
 Gave us to drink and made us of themselves a part. 
 
 Heirs of the Puritans, compact of their spirit, 
 
 Nursing in liberty strong souls of men, 
 Proof against hysteria and never used to fear it, 
 
 Yours be to make the old flame blaze again. 
 
 Ill wins the winner who tramples on his fellow, 
 Sore are the gains that no service done redeems; 
 
 *J. J. H., ob., January 5, 1911. 
 195 
 
THE OLD STOCK 
 
 Futile must still be the demagogue, his bellow, 
 
 Save when the grafter has carried through his schemes. 
 
 Curbs for the grasping, then, but chances for the able, 
 Cheers for the faithful, whatever task they find; 
 
 Men can't be fortunate nor institutions stable, 
 Save as they do their part in lifting up mankind. 
 
 Out on the sky-line there, looms our flying Dutchman. 
 
 Sharp-eyed for tasks that other hands neglect; 
 No duty 's safe for us to shirk with any such man 
 
 Warning the negligent what to expect. 
 
 196 
 
THIRTY YEARS AGO 
 
 Read at Phillips Academy, Andover: Commencement, June 27, 1900. 
 
 WE learned some Latin thirty years ago, 
 Some Greek; some other things geometry; 
 Baseball; great store of rules by which to know 
 
 When thus was so, and if it was so, why. 
 And every day due share of pie we ate, 
 And Sunday under hour-long sermons sate. 
 And thrived on both; a sound New England diet, 
 And orthodox. Let him who will decry it. 
 
 We spoke our Latin in the plain old way. 
 
 Tully was Cicero to Uncle Sam, 
 And Caesar, Caesar. Footballs in our day 
 
 Were spheres of rubber still. When autumn came 
 We kicked them, chasing after; but the sport 
 Was a mere pastime, not at all the sort 
 Of combat strenuous, Homeric, fateful 
 Whence heroes now wrest glory by the plateful. 
 
 The higher criticism was an infant then. 
 
 Curved pitching had not come, nor yellow shoes, 
 Nor bikes, nor telephones, nor golf, nor men 
 
 In knickerbockers. No one thought to use 
 197 
 
THIRTY YEARS AGO 
 
 Electric force to haul folks up a hill. 
 We walked, or rode on Concord coaches still. 
 Expansion's quirks stirred then no fiercer tussles 
 Than such as vexed the growing vogue of bustles. 
 
 Girls then, as now, to seminaries went, 
 
 But not so much as now to colleges. 
 The female understanding's scope and bent 
 
 Was thought to crave a round of 'ologies 
 Less full than man's. We 've learned, it seems, since 
 
 then 
 
 That women need whatever 's good for men, 
 And that, though boys are tough and girls more ten- 
 der, 
 Knowledge is power, without regard to gender. 
 
 The shade austere of Puritan restraint 
 
 Showed sharper outlines, may be, then than now. 
 
 But not to hurt. For now the old complaint 
 Of joys curtailed gives place to wonder how, 
 
 'Twixt stress of sports and pleasant things to do, 
 
 And waxing claims of growing knowledge, too, 
 
 The modern lad gets time to feel the joy 
 
 It was, and still must be, to be a boy. 
 
 198 
 
THIRTY YEARS AGO 
 
 A checkered joy ! Progress is man's desire. 
 
 And boys progress with swifter strides than men 
 To greater changes. Little boys aspire 
 
 To bigness, and it comes; nor turn again 
 Regretful eyes toward childhood. To grow strong, 
 And apt, and swift; to learn; to press along 
 Up life's first steeps and glory in each rise 
 That 's boyhood, as it seems to older eyes. 
 
 Time dwarfs the bulk of most material things. 
 
 The giants of our youth less monstrous seem, 
 Its wonders shrink when wider knowledge brings 
 
 The great world's standards to amend our dream. 
 But youth itself to backward glances looms 
 Up bigger than it is. The boy assumes, 
 To eyes that comprehend, the form and place 
 That gathering years may summon him to grace. 
 
 And what place is it he should strive to gain? 
 
 What ends achieve, to what his powers apply? 
 The same old simple precepts still obtain 
 
 That served for all men fit to pattern by. 
 Dear lads, we say, the greatest thing on earth 
 Is service : that 's what justifies our birth. 
 Life can't be made worth living to a shirk. 
 You can't have even fun, unless you work. 
 199 
 
THIRTY YEARS AGO 
 
 Go make your bodies strong, your minds alert; 
 
 Train both to do for you the most they can. 
 Life's goal no runner reaches by a spurt; 
 
 Doing the daily stint 's what makes the man. 
 And making men is Nature's chief concern; 
 For right men bring things right, each in its turn. 
 Strive, then, to help yourselves, and, that much learned, 
 Help others; nowise else contentment 's earned. 
 
 Oh, money 's good to have, and fame is sweet, 
 
 And leisure has its use, and sport its joys. 
 Go win them, if you may, and speed your feet ! 
 
 But this regard: that even splendid toys 
 Are only toys: the important thing 's not play, 
 But work. Who shun the burden of the day 
 Shall miss as well the strength they gain who bear it 
 The fellowship they only feel who share it. 
 
 200 
 
THE PRUDENT FARMER 
 
 Read at the Dinner of the University Farmers' Club, 1906. 
 
 A LL farmers who have grown discreet 
 -** Have offices on William Street, 
 
 Or Broad will do 
 And farms accessible and green, 
 Where air is pure and water clean, 
 
 And with a view. 
 
 This city life 's not everything 
 Of which a poet likes to sing. 
 
 It cramps a man, 
 
 And drives him hard and wears his nerves; 
 He wants no more of it than serves 
 
 To push his plan. 
 
 A share of it won't hurt him much; 
 It profits him to keep in touch 
 
 With other guys. 
 
 To mark the upshot of their strife 
 And get some of it for his wife 
 
 Is not unwise. 
 201 
 
THE PRUDENT FARMER 
 
 But to be always hunting loot 
 What sort is he that that can suit? 
 
 Out on the cuss ! 
 
 Ding-dong down-town and rush about, 
 And ding-dong back. Perpetual rout 
 
 And ceaseless fuss ! 
 
 To such the ticker's baneful click 
 Sounds sweeter than the rippling creek, 
 
 Or eke the birds. 
 
 The office buildings' tottering height 
 Beats hills in his distorted sight. 
 
 He passes words ! 
 
 The disconnected farmer man 
 Has this defect about his plan, 
 
 That average fields 
 Exact attentions more profuse 
 Than profitable to produce 
 
 Reluctant yields. 
 
 If you would long the country praise 
 Don't live too much on what you raise. 
 
 That way 's not best. 
 But let the city do its share, 
 202 
 
THE PRUDENT FARMER 
 
 The country furnish sun and air, 
 The town the rest. 
 
 Or mix your crops. Like one I knew 
 Who planted roots that duly grew, 
 
 And went to town, 
 And laid him in a thousand shares 
 Of Anaconda, bought from bears 
 
 For salting down. 
 
 He phosphatized his roots. They did 
 Uncommon well. The stocks lay hid 
 
 Waiting advance, 
 
 Till roots and stocks becoming dear 
 He made a hundred thousand clear 
 
 On those two plants. 
 
 Farming 's a gamble. I don't say 
 That roots will always act that way, 
 
 But when they do, 
 It 's apt to be because combined 
 With city products of a kind 
 
 To pull them through. 
 
 So every farmer that 's discreet 
 Hangs out his sign on Nassau Street, 
 203 
 
THE PRUDENT FARMER 
 
 Or Pine or Wall 
 And what the farm denies his sweat 
 He works his wits in town to get, 
 
 Nor grieves at all. 
 
 204 
 
THE AUTOMOBILE SPEAKS 
 
 Read at the Automobile Club Dinner in New York, December 20, 
 
 1911. 
 
 JUST look at me ! Just look at me ! 
 I am the motor-car. Just see ! 
 I own the road. I 've got the whole 
 Rolled earth just where it minds my pull. 
 The boldest, biggest, big thing yet, 
 I 'm here to stay. You won't forget. 
 
 The horse, poor thing, I Ve done him up. 
 The farmers use him. Like a pup, 
 Some folks still keep him for a pet 
 He is a pretty creature yet 
 But when it comes to being hauled, 
 Four legs don't go. That hand is called. 
 
 They say war 's going by the board, 
 As arbitration brings accord. 
 But while it lasts look out for me, 
 For my long suit 's celerity. 
 In war be prompt ! My tires may burst 
 But still I 'm apt to get there first. 
 205 
 
THE AUTOMOBILE SPEAKS 
 
 In peace that 's nearly all the time 
 I 'm great beyond the scope of rhyme. 
 Commodious, docile, swift and clean, 
 I fare on frugal gasolene. 
 I 'm never scared, and fast or slow, 
 I never eat unless I go. 
 
 They say I have no style. They may ! 
 What 's style to me ! I don't eat hay, 
 Nor prance. Lugs have for me no lure. 
 No powdered wig on my chauffeur ! 
 Plain goods, I glide where pride is rife, 
 The herald of the simpler life. 
 
 Efficiency 's what I admire. 
 
 I haul the engines to the fire, 
 
 To hospital the injured wight, 
 
 To school the child. By day or night 
 
 I 'm there, and ready. Whirl my crank, 
 
 I 'm off as steady as a bank. 
 
 The roads I Ve built, go out and see ! 
 They do come high, but that must be. 
 They 're worth it. They and I contrive 
 Enlargement for the human hive, 
 206 
 
THE AUTOMOBILE SPEAKS 
 
 Connecting life with where there 's room. 
 My ! How we Ve made the country boom ! 
 
 I know some folks still get along 
 Without me. Well, that 's not all wrong. 
 Trolleys must live and shoe men, too; 
 There 's work for all of us to do. 
 They say I 'm dear, but that 's not so. 
 I 'm cheap, if you can raise the dough. 
 
 Go out and look ! Where do you spy 
 A better money's worth than I ? 
 I 'm a new want, and wants compete 
 For what men get. Without conceit, 
 I 'm not afraid to make a pass 
 At any want that 's in my class. 
 
 For see, I 'm not a thing at all, 
 
 But that which qualifies them all. 
 
 I 'm time, I 'm space, I 'm power, I 'm health, 
 
 And country air and urban wealth, 
 
 Vision, and sport, and rest from strife 
 
 A length spliced on the span of life. 
 
 207 
 
FORTITER OCCUPA PORTUM 
 
 Read at the opening of the new Brearley School, November 26, 1912. 
 
 PHE Brearley School has a grimy face, 
 * And the dust lies on its steps, 
 And signs "To Let" its walls disgrace 
 Like the smudge of the demi-reps. 
 No little maids trip in and out, 
 
 No waiting-maids there wait. 
 No mothers linger thereabout, 
 And say "My child is late !" 
 
 What dregs are these in Brearley's cup? 
 
 Oh grief ! Oh shame ! Oh sin ! 
 " Say, kind policeman, say, what 's up ? 
 
 Is Brearley's school all in?" 
 "Why no! the Brearley hasn't ceased; 
 
 Gone up she has, not down; 
 (I miss those kids) moved three blocks East, 
 
 And seventeen up-town!" 
 
 Hail comely walls, so late begun, 
 
 Tall reared in modest pride, 
 All windowed on the rising sun, 
 
 Or on the sailor's guide ! 
 208 
 
FORTITER OCCUPA PORTUM 
 
 Oh joy ! Oh Jay ! Oh white-marked day ! 
 
 Be all with smiles efate, 
 That Brearley's will and Croswell's skill 
 
 Have come to such estate ! 
 
 Make bold, oh admirable walls, 
 
 The young ideas you house 
 To stand up firm to Fate, her calls, 
 
 And face or man or mouse ! 
 The Future's mothers, shape them still, 
 
 Though other plans advance; 
 Girls will be girls, be sure they will, 
 
 If they have half a chance ! 
 
 Honor be yours, wise teachers, you 
 
 Who all the maids endow 
 With such capacities of view, 
 
 And powers of knowing how, 
 Through computation's awful snares 
 
 Their stumbling feet who guide, 
 And post them, almost unawares, 
 
 On hosts of things beside! 
 
 Shot through with all that Grecian thought, 
 Or Puritan essayed, 
 209 
 
FORTITER OCCUPA PORTUM 
 
 Wise with a wisdom trial-bought 
 
 To lead the aspiring maid, 
 A spirit human to the end, 
 
 Uncrampt by learning 's whim, 
 Adviser, scholar, teacher, friend, 
 
 The Master, here 's to him ! 
 
 Bright-faced and fair the Brearley School 
 
 Confronts the morning sun, 
 Strong in the wise and gentle rule, 
 
 So long ago begun; 
 The lively maids its class-rooms fill; 
 
 Anon the handmaids wait; 
 And strong she stands in friends' good will. 
 
 Be ever that her state ! 
 
 210 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1912 
 
 From Life, December 5, 1912. 
 
 MERRY Christmas, Merry Christmas, 
 To the whole gyrating ball ! 
 To Turk and Slav and Jew and Celt 
 
 And Teuton, great and small ! 
 To all who dance the turkey trot, 
 
 And all who dance the jig, 
 And all who pipe for dancing, both 
 
 The little and the big ! 
 Go whirl, go whirl, oh merry orb, 
 
 While some teetotal spin, 
 And others in their turns absorb 
 
 Champagne, or even gin ! 
 There *s a time for sober thinking, 
 
 There 's a time to throw a fit, 
 A time to climb the heights of rhyme 
 
 My brothers, this is it! 
 
 Bring on Thomas Fortune Ryan, 
 Bring on Thomas Nelson Page, 
 
 And Thomas Woodrow Wilson to 
 The forefront of the stage ! 
 211 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1912 
 
 Play, play the Monticello reel, 
 
 Ye bandsmen through your cheers, 
 For here 's to Old Virginny, ain't 
 
 She spry for all her years ! 
 Go whirl, go whirl, oh, merry sphere ! 
 
 Lo, portents in the sky ! 
 When everybody 's turning queer, 
 
 What use is it to cry ? 
 When everybody 's turning good, 
 
 What can we do but shout? 
 What counts is how we feel within; 
 
 Not what we do without. 
 
 Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, 
 
 To the sinner and the saint ! 
 Do your Christmas shopping early ! 
 
 Mix some red in with your paint! 
 Get greens and holly berries, 
 
 And mistletoe the door; 
 Send Christmas cards to all the rich, 
 
 And turkeys to the poor ! 
 For the aged earth is spinning 
 
 With a quite unusual spin, 
 And excuse us, please, for grinning 
 
 At the kind of times we 're in. 
 
CHRISTMAS, 1912 
 
 Lift the lid up just a trifle, 
 
 Let the inner spirit call 
 Merry Christmas ! Merry Christmas ! 
 
 Merry Christmas to us all ! 
 
 213 
 
TO AN AMBASSADOR 
 
 Read at the dinner of the Publishers of Periodicals to Walter H. Page, 
 Ambassador to England, May 8, 1913. 
 
 "It is nip and tuck in these days between the gentlemen who 
 make the progressive political periodicals and the gentlemen 
 who control the railroads and banks and trusts and their em- 
 ployees, to determine who is going to run the country." 
 
 From The Reflections of a Beginning Husband. 
 
 A CCLAIM the illustrious day, 
 V* The double-leaded hour, 
 When Page to London sails away 
 To represent the ruling power 
 Our country's destinies that guides 
 And advertises goods besides, 
 And thereby hangs a tale. 
 
 Ferocious was the fight; 
 
 The Interests ruled the land 
 And held its treasures tight 
 In hollows of their hand. 
 Despite, or otherwise, the law's intent, 
 What thing the Interests agreed on went, 
 Nor knew such word as "fail." 
 
TO AN AMBASSADOR 
 
 Transpired a little crowd 
 
 All loaded up with noise, 
 The Periodicals, that was, 
 
 That grew in power and poise. 
 A spreading crowd that swelled and yelled 
 And bellowed ever as it swelled 
 The Interests to assail. 
 
 It did the Interests up. 
 
 Behold their present fate ! 
 Contrition in their cup; 
 
 Indictment on their plate. 
 Such helpings as the Law allows 
 Cheat on their board the old carouse, 
 And leave them sad and pale. 
 
 St. George the dragon slew. 
 
 The English loved him therefore. 
 They '11 think a heap of you, 
 
 Our Walter Page, and wherefore? 
 Because ambassador you go 
 Of us who laid a monster low 
 
 The Periodicals; Us Periodicals ! 
 
 215 
 
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