Identity

FROM THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.


'Tis evening now; beneath the western star
Soft sighs the lover through his sweet cigar,
And fills the ears of some consenting she
With puffs and vows, with smoke and constancy.

The patriot, fresh from Freedom's councils come,
Now pleased retires to lash his slaves at home;
Or woo, perhaps, some black Aspasia's charms,
And dream of freedom in his bondsmaid's arms.

    In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom,
Come, let me lead thee o'er this "second Rome!"[1]
Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow,
And what was Goose-Creek once is Tiber now:[2]--
This embryo capital, where Fancy sees
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees;
Which second-sighted seers, even now, adorn
With shrines unbu...

Outside the garden
The wet skies harden;
The gates are barred on
The summer side:
"Shut out the flower-time,
Sunbeam and shower-time;
Make way for our time,"
Wild winds have cried.
Green once and cheery,
The woods, worn weary,
Sigh as the dreary
Weak sun goes home:
A great wind grapples
The wave, and dapples
The dead green floor of the sea with foam.

Through fell and moorland,
And salt-sea foreland,
Our noisy norland
Resounds and rings;
Waste waves thereunder
Are blown in sunder,
And winds make thunder
With cloudwide wings;
Sea-drift makes dimmer
The beacon's glimmer;
Nor sail nor swimmer
Can try the tides;
And snowdrifts thicken
Where, when leaves quicken,
Under the heather the sundew hide...

Darkness comes out of the earth
    And swallows dip into the pallor of the west;
From the hay comes the clamour of children's mirth;
Wanes the old palimpsest.

The night-stock oozes scent,
    And a moon-blue moth goes flittering by:
All that the worldly day has meant
    Wastes like a lie.

The children have forsaken their play;
    A single star in a veil of light
Glimmers: litter of day
    Is gone from sight.

Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a ne...

O'er unreclaimed suburban clays
Some years ago were hobblin'
An elderly ghost of easy ways,
And an influential goblin.
The ghost was a sombre spectral shape,
A fine old five-act fogy,
The goblin imp, a lithe young ape,
A fine low-comedy bogy.

And as they exercised their joints,
Promoting quick digestion,
They talked on several curious points,
And raised this delicate question:
"Which of us two is Number One
The ghostie, or the goblin?"
And o'er the point they raised in fun
They fairly fell a-squabblin'.

They'd barely speak, and each, in fine,
Grew more and more reflective:
Each thought his own particular line
By chalks the more effective.
At length they settled some one should
By each of them be haunted,
And so arrange...

Let me make the songs for the people,
    Songs for the old and young;
Songs to stir like a battle-cry
    Wherever they are sung.

Not for the clashing of sabres,
    For carnage nor for strife;
But songs to thrill the hearts of men
    With more abundant life.

Let me make the songs for the weary,
    Amid life's fever and fret,
Till hearts shall relax their tension,
    And careworn brows forget.

Let me sing for little children,
    Before their footsteps stray,
Sweet anthems of love and duty,
    To float o'er life's highway.

I would sing for the poor and aged,
    When shadows dim their sight;
Of the bright and restful mansions,
    Where there shall be no night.

Our world, so worn and weary,
    Needs ...

I heard the old, old men say,
"Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away."
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn-trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
"All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters."

        Down on the Lumbee river
            Where the eddies ripple cool
        Your boat, I know, glides stealthily
            About some shady pool.
        The summer's heats have lulled asleep
            The fish-hawk's chattering noise,
        And all the swamp lies hushed about
            You sunburnt boys.

        You see the minnow's waves that rock
            The cradled lily leaves.
        From a far field some farmer's song,
            Singing among his sheaves,
        Comes mellow to you where you sit,
            Each man with boatman's poise,
        There, in the shimmering water lights,
            You sunburnt boys.

        I know your haunts:    each gnarly bole
            That guards the waterside,
        Ea...

1.

We have poled our staunch canoe
Many a boiling torrent through;
Paddling where the eddies drew,
Athwart the roaring flood we flew.

Chorus
Dip your paddles! make them leap,
Where the clear cold waters sweep.
Dip your paddles! steady keep,
Where breaks the rapid down the steep.

2.

Where the wind, like censer, flings
Smoke-spray wider as it swings,
Hark! the aisle of rainbow rings
To falls that hymn the King of kings.

3.

Lifting there our vessel tight,
Climbed we bank and rocky height,
Bore her through thick woods, where light
Fell dappling those green haunts of Night.

4.

O'er the rush of billows hurled,
Where they tossed and leaped and curled,
Past each wave-worn boulder whirle...

Ah! sweet romantic spot, adieu!
Ere your green fields again I view,
These looks may change their youthful hue.

Dependence sternly bids me part
From all that ye, lov'd scenes! impart,
Far from my treasure and my heart.

Tho' winter shall your bloom invade,
Fancy may visit ev'ry shade,
Each bow'r shall kiss the wand'ring maid.

To busier scenes of life I fly,
Where many smile, where many sigh,
As Chance, not Worth, turns up the die.

Good-bye, Pierrette. The new moon waits
Like some shy maiden at the gates
Of rose and pearl, to watch us stand
This little moment, hand in hand--
Nor one red rose its watch abates.

The low wind through your garden prates
Of one this twilight desolates.
Ah, was it this your roses planned?
Good-bye, Pierrette.

Oh, merriest of little mates,
No sadder lover hesitates
Beneath this moon in any land;
Nor any roses, watchful, bland,
Look on a sadder jest of Fate's.
Good-bye, Pierrette.

Ite, rime dolenti, al duro sasso.

HE PRAYS THAT SHE WILL BE NEAR HIM AT HIS DEATH, WHICH HE FEELS APPROACHING.


    Go, plaintive verse, to the cold marble go,
Which hides in earth my treasure from these eyes;
There call on her who answers from yon skies,
Although the mortal part dwells dark and low.
Of life how I am wearied make her know,
Of stemming these dread waves that round me rise:
But, copying all her virtues I so prize,
Her track I follow, yet my steps are slow.
I sing of her, living, or dead, alone;
(Dead, did I say? She is immortal made!)
That by the world she should be loved, and known.
Oh! in my passage hence may she be near,
To greet my coming that's not long delay'd;
And may I hold in heaven the rank herself holds there!
...

Why comes not Francis? From the doleful City
He fled, and, in his flight, could hear
The death-sounds of the Minster-bell:
That sullen stroke pronounced farewell
To Marmaduke, cut off from pity!
To Ambrose that! and then a knell
For him, the sweet half-opened Flower!
For all all dying in one hour!
Why comes not Francis? Thoughts of love
Should bear him to his Sister dear
With the fleet motion of a dove;
Yea, like a heavenly messenger
Of speediest wing, should he appear.
Why comes he not? for westward fast
Along the plain of York he past;
Reckless of what impels or leads,
Unchecked he hurries on; nor heeds
The sorrow, through the Villages,
Spread by triumphant cruelties
Of vengeful military force,
And punishment without remorse.
He mark...

The stars are steady abune;
    I' the water they flichter and flee;
But, steady aye, luikin doon
    They ken theirsels i' the sea.

A' licht, and clear, and free,
    God, thou shinest abune;
Yet luik, and see thysel in me,
    Aye on me luikin doon.



Throu the heather an' how gaed the creepin thing,
But abune was the waff o' an angel's wing.



Hither an' thither, here an' awa,
Into the dub ye maunna fa';
Oot o' the dub wad ye come wi' speed,
Ye maun lift yer han's abune yer heid.



Whaur's nor sun nor mune,
Laigh things come abune.



My thouchts are like worms in a starless gloamin
    My hert's like a sponge that's fillit wi' gall;
My soul's like a bodiless ghaist sent a roamin...

The China Coast's a dumping ground
    And the South Sea gets its share
Of the kind of men that don't make good
The kind of man that never could
    The men that never care.

A worthless, careless drinking lot
    Combed out from between the Poles.
It's gin, and cards, a woman's breath,
Laughter and love and sudden death
    And the Devil gets their souls.

It's a throwback to a weaker strain
    That's washed by the Tropic tide.
And a mixture of Dago and Japanese
Latin and Jew and Portugese
    Crops out thru a sun-tanned hide.

But the Northland gets a sterner breed
    To fuse in its harder mould.
It's the breed of men that don't know fail;
That's the breed of men that hit the trail
    For the fabled land of gold.

T...

Of tribulation these are they
Denoted by the white;
The spangled gowns, a lesser rank
Of victors designate.

All these did conquer; but the ones
Who overcame most times
Wear nothing commoner than snow,
No ornament but palms.

Surrender is a sort unknown
On this superior soil;
Defeat, an outgrown anguish,
Remembered as the mile

Our panting ankle barely gained
When night devoured the road;
But we stood whispering in the house,
And all we said was "Saved"!

I see before me now, a traveling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising high;
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily seen;
The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized flickering;
And over all, the sky, the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal stars.

As the dead year is clasped by a dead December,
    So let your dead sins with your dead days lie.
A new life is yours and a new hope.    Remember
    We build our own ladders to climb to the sky.

Stand out in the sunlight of promise, forgetting
    Whatever the past held of sorrow and wrong.
We waste half our strength in a useless regretting;
    We sit by old tombs in the dark too long.

Have you missed in your aim?    Well, the mark is still shining.
    Did you faint in the race?    Well, take breath for the next.
Did the clouds drive you back?    But see yonder their lining.
    Were you tempted and fell?    Let it serve for a text.

As each year hurries by, let it join that procession
    Of skeleton shapes that march down to the past,
While you ta...