Identity

    There were a series
    of three animals
    - wise men I propose -
    interchangeably looking
    (throwing off their guises'
    as non-sentient brutes),
    scrounging the grass
    (eyes foddering me)
    chewing on looks,
    cud-like,
    -one a black
    goat shorn of
    his devil look
    and a burro,
    mood entranced, in
    armour of mangey velvet.

    II
    Swinging bells,
    making me believe
    the twilight caper
    that morning lay
    more in reindeer's
    breath than any
    solidarity with
    oat or hoove.

    III
    A strange lot,
    they'd ramrod their
    gaze with blare
    of lightning,
    peering into some
    primordial instinct
...

Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning,
With glowing spokes of red,
Low in the west its fiery axle burning;
And, lost amid the spaces overhead,
A vague white moth, the moon, is fluttering.

Above the town an azure sea is flowing,
'Mid long peninsulas of shining sand,
From opal unto pearl the moon is growing,
Dropped like a shell upon the changing strand.

Within the town the streets grow strange and haunted,
And, dark against the western lakes of green,
The buildings change to temples, and unwonted
Shadows and sounds creep in where day has been.

Within the town, the lamps of sin are flaring,
Poor foolish men that know not what ye are!
Tired traffic still upon his feet is faring -
Two lovers meet and kiss and watch a star.

I saw thy form in youthful prime,
    Nor thought that pale decay
Would steal before the steps of Time,
    And waste its bloom away, Mary!

Yet still thy features wore that light,
    Which fleets not with the breath;
And life ne'er looked more truly bright
    Than in thy smile of death, Mary!

As streams that run o'er golden mines,
    Yet humbly, calmly glide,
Nor seem to know the wealth that shines
    Within their gentle tide, Mary!
So veiled beneath the simplest guise,
    Thy radiant genius shone,
And that, which charmed all other eyes,
    Seemed worthless in thy own, Mary!

If souls could always dwell above,
    Thou ne'er hadst left that sphere;
Or could we keep the souls we love,
    We ne'er had lost thee here, Mary!<...

MONTANO, SILVIO, AND MIRTILLO, SHEPHERDS

MON. Bad are the times. SIL. And worse than they are we.
MON. Troth, bad are both; worse fruit, and ill the tree:
The feast of shepherds fail. SIL. None crowns the cup
Of wassail now, or sets the quintel up:
And he, who used to lead the country-round,
Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes, grief-drown'd.
AMBO. Let's cheer him up. SIL. Behold him weeping-ripe.
MIRT. Ah, Amarillis! farewell mirth and pipe;
Since thou art gone, no more I mean to play
To these smooth lawns, my mirthful roundelay.
Dear Amarillis! MON. Hark! SIL. Mark! MIRT. This
earth grew sweet
Where, Amarillis, thou didst set thy feet.
AMBO Poor pitied youth! MIRT. And here the breath
of kine
And sheep grew more sweet by that breath of thine.
This do...

Sometimes I long to write an ode
    And magnify his name,
The man of honor, on the road
    To opulence and fame,
On whom was never aid bestowed
    By any helpful dame.

To all the world I fain would show
    That talent widely known,
Rare eloquence, of burning glow
    To melt a heart of stone,
That all his gifts, a dazzling row,
    Are his, and his alone.

But him, of character and mind
    Superb, alert, and strong,
I never study but to find
    The subject of my song,
Some paragon of womankind,
    Has helped him all along.

He may not know, he may not guess,
    How much to her he owes,
How every scion of success
    That in his nature grows,
Developed by her watchfulness,
    Becomes a blooming rose.

Long in the lap of childhood didst thou sleep,
Think how thy youth like chaff did disappear;
Shall life's sweet Spring forever last? Look up,
Old age approaches ominously near.
Oh shake thou off the world, even as the bird
Shakes off the midnight dew that clogged his wings.
Soar upward, seek redemption from thy guilt
And from the earthly dross that round thee clings.
Draw near to God, His holy angels know,
For whom His bounteous streams of mercy flow.

Abul Hassan Judah Ben Ha-Levi. (Born Between 1080-90.)

Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago,
Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow.
Fashioned the form of a tribesman, gaily he whistled and sung,
Working the snow with his fingers. Read ye the Story of Ung!

Pleased was his tribe with that image, came in their hundreds to scan,
Handled it, smelt it, and grunted: "Verily, this is a man!
Thus do we carry our lances, thus is a war-belt slung.
Lo! it is even as we are. Glory and honour to Ung!"

Later he pictured an aurochs, later he pictured a bear,
Pictured the sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to his lair,
Pictured the mountainous mammoth, hairy, abhorrent, alone,
Out of the love that he bore them, scribing them clearly on bone.

Swift came the tribe to behold them, peering and pushing and stil...

When night is almost done,
And sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the spaces,
It 's time to smooth the hair

And get the dimples ready,
And wonder we could care
For that old faded midnight
That frightened but an hour.

Now was the sun so station'd, as when first
His early radiance quivers on the heights,
Where stream'd his Maker's blood, while Libra hangs
Above Hesperian Ebro, and new fires
Meridian flash on Ganges' yellow tide.

So day was sinking, when the' angel of God
Appear'd before us. Joy was in his mien.
Forth of the flame he stood upon the brink,
And with a voice, whose lively clearness far
Surpass'd our human, "Blessed are the pure
In heart," he Sang: then near him as we came,
"Go ye not further, holy spirits!" he cried,
"Ere the fire pierce you: enter in; and list
Attentive to the song ye hear from thence."

I, when I heard his saying, was as one
Laid in the grave. My hands together clasp'd,
And upward stretching, on the fire I look'd,
And busy fanc...

True is it that Ambrosio Salinero
With an untoward fate was long involved
In odious litigation; and full long,
Fate harder still! had he to endure assaults
Of racking malady. And true it is
That not the less a frank courageous heart
And buoyant spirit triumphed over pain;
And he was strong to follow in the steps
Of the fair Muses. Not a covert path
Leads to the dear Parnassian forest's shade,
That might from him be hidden; not a track
Mounts to pellucid Hippocrene, but he
Had traced its windings. This Savona knows,
Yet no sepulchral honours to her Son
She paid, for in our age the heart is ruled
Only by gold. And now a simple stone
Inscribed with this memorial here is raised
By his bereft, his lonely, Chiabrera.
Think not, O Passenger! who read'st the...

’Tis holy ground! The silent silver lights
And darks undreamed of, falling year by year
Upon his sleep, in soft Australian nights,
Are joys enough for him who lieth here
So sanctified with Rest. We need not rear
The storied monument o’er such a spot!
That soul, the first for whom the Christian tear
Was shed on Austral soil, hath heritage
Most ample! Let the ages wane with age,
The grass which clothes this grave shall wither not.
See yonder quiet lily! Have the blights
Of many winters left it on a faded tomb?
Oh, peace! Its fellows, glad with green delights,
Shall gather round it deep eternal bloom!

Men say you're fair; and fair ye are, 'tis true;
But, hark! we praise the painter now, not you.

Yes, let Art go, if it must be
    That with it men must starve -
If Music, Painting, Poetry
    Spring from the wasted hearth.

Pluck out the flower, however fair,
    Whose beauty cannot bloom,
(However sweet it be, or rare)
    Save from a noisome tomb.

These social manners, charm and ease,
    Are hideous to who knows
The degradation, the disease
    From which their beauty flows.

So, Poet, must thy singing be;
    O Painter, so thy scene;
Musician, so thy melody,
    While misery is queen.

Nay, brothers, sing us battle-songs
    With clear and ringing rhyme;
Nay, show the world its hateful wrongs,
    And bring the better time!

Meeting Of The Berkshire Horticultural Society, At Stockbridge, September 13,1854

Scarce could the parting ocean close,
Seamed by the Mayflower's cleaving bow,
When o'er the rugged desert rose
The waves that tracked the Pilgrim's plough.

Then sprang from many a rock-strewn field
The rippling grass, the nodding grain,
Such growths as English meadows yield
To scanty sun and frequent rain.

But when the fiery days were done,
And Autumn brought his purple haze,
Then, kindling in the slanted sun,
The hillsides gleamed with golden maize.

The food was scant, the fruits were few
A red-streak glistening here and there;
Perchance in statelier precincts grew
Some stern old Puritanic pear.

Austere in taste, and tough at core,
Its unr...

Methought I heard a butterfly
Say to a labouring bee,
Thou hast no colours of the sky
On painted wings, like me.

Poor child of vanity! those dyes,
And colours bright and rare,
With mild reproof, the bee replies,
Are all beneath my care.

Content I toil from morn till eve,
And, scorning idleness,
To tribes of gawdy sloth I leave
The vanities of dress.

Sweet comes the morning
In Nature's adorning,
And bright shines the dew on the buds of the thorn,
Where Mary Ann rambles
Through the sloe trees and brambles;
She's sweeter than wild flowers that open at morn;
She's a rose in the dew;
She's pure and she's true;
She's as gay as the poppy that grows in the corn.

Her eyes they are bright,
Her bosom's snow white,
And her voice is like songs of the birds in the grove.
She's handsome and bonny,
And fairer than any,
And her person and actions are Nature's and love.
She has the bloom of all roses,
She's the breath of sweet posies,
She's as pure as the brood in the nest of the dove.

Of Earth's fairest daughters,
Voiced like falling waters,
She walks down the meadows, than blossoms more fa...

The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse
Light after light goes out. One evil star,
Luridly glaring through the smoke of war,
As in the dream of the Apocalypse,
Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep
Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep
Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap
On one hand into fratricidal fight,
Or, on the other, yield eternal right,
Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound?
What fear we? Safe on freedom’s vantage-ground
Our feet are planted: let us there remain
In unrevengeful calm, no means untried
Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied,
The sad spectators of a suicide!
They break the links of Union: shall we light
The fires of hell to weld anew the chain
On that red anvil where each blow is pain?
Draw...

A Preface and a Piracy


Prologue

Of borrow’d plumes I take the sin,
My extracts will apply
To some few silly songs which in
These pages scatter’d lie.

The words are Edgar Allan Poe’s,
As any man may see,
But what a Poet wrote in prose,
Shall make blank verse for me.



These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view
to their redemption from the many improvements to which
they have been subjected while going at random the rounds of the Press.
I am naturally anxious that what I have written should circulate
as I wrote it, if it circulate at all. * * * * * * In defence
of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me to say that I think
nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or...