principibus placuisse viris!
        --HORAT.


Yes, grief will have way--but the fast falling tear
    Shall be mingled with deep execrations on those
Who could bask in that Spirit's meridian career.
    And yet leave it thus lonely and dark at its close:--

Whose vanity flew round him, only while fed
    By the odor his fame in its summer-time gave;--
Whose vanity now, with quick scent for the dead,
    Like the Ghoul of the East, comes to feed at his grave.

Oh! it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,
    And spirits so mean in the great and high-born;
To think what a long line of titles may follow
    The relics of him who died--friendless and lorn!

How proud they can press to the funeral array
    Of one whom they...

'Tis true, dear Ben, thy just chastising hand
Hath fix'd upon the sotted age a brand
To their swoll'n pride and empty scribbling due;
It can nor judge, nor write, and yet 'tis true
Thy comic muse, from the exalted line
Touch'd by thy Alchemist, doth since decline
From that her zenith, and foretells a red
And blushing evening, when she goes to bed;
Yet such as shall outshine the glimmering light
With which all stars shall gild the following night.
Nor think it much, since all thy eaglets may
Endure the sunny trial, if we say
This hath the stronger wing, or that doth shine
Trick'd up in fairer plumes, since all are thine.
Who hath his flock of cackling geese compar'd
With thy tun'd choir of swans? or else who dar'd
To call thy births deform'd? But if thou bind

Of course you've heard of the Nancy Lee, and how she sailed away
On her famous quest of the Arctic flea, to the wilds of Hudson's Bay?
For it was a foreign Prince's whim to collect this tiny cuss,
And a golden quid was no more to him than a copper to coves like us.
So we sailed away and our hearts were gay as we gazed on the gorgeous scene;
And we laughed with glee as we caught the flea of the wolf and the wolverine;
Yea, our hearts were light as the parasite of the ermine rat we slew,
And the great musk ox, and the silver fox, and the moose and the caribou.
And we laughed with zest as the insect pest of the marmot crowned our zeal,
And the wary mink and the wily "link", and the walrus and the seal.
And with eyes aglow on the scornful snow we danced a rigadoon,
Round the loneso...

Poet, my master, come, tell me true,
    And how are your verses made?
Ah! that is the easiest thing to do: -
You take a cloud of a silvern hue,
A tender smile or a sprig of rue,
    With plenty of light and shade,

And weave them round in syllables rare,
    With a grace and skill divine;
With the earnest words of a pleading prayer,
With a cadence caught from a dulcet air,
A tale of love and a lock of hair,
    Or a bit of a trailing vine.

Or, delving deep in a mine unwrought,
    You find in the teeming earth
The golden vein of a noble thought;
The soul of a statesman still unbought,
Or a patriot's cry with anguish fraught
    For the land that gave him birth.

A brilliant youth who has lost his way
    On the winding road of l...

Upon the mossed rock by the spring
She sits, forgetful of her pail,
Lost in remote remembering
Of that which may no more avail.

Her thin, pale hair is dimly dressed
Above a brow lined deep with care,
The color of a leaf long pressed,
A faded leaf that once was fair.

You may not know her from the stone
So still she sits who does not stir,
Thinking of this one thing alone -
The love that never came to her.

Half-hidden in a graveyard,
In the blackness of a yew,
Where never living creature stirs,
Nor sunbeam pierces through,

Is a tombstone green and crooked,
Its faded legend gone,
And but one rain-worn cherub's head
To sing of the unknown.

There, when the dusk is falling,
Silence broods so deep
It seems that every wind that breathes
Blows from the fields of sleep?

Day breaks in heedless beauty,
Kindling each drop of dew,
But unforsaking shadow dwells
Beneath this lonely yew.

And, all else lost and faded,
Only this listening head
Keeps with a strange unanswering smile
Its secret with the dead.

The crooked paths go every way
Upon the hill - they wind about
Through the heather in and out
Of the quiet sunniness.
And there the goats, day after day,
Stray in sunny quietness,
Cropping here and cropping there,
As they pause and turn and pass,
Now a bit of heather spray,
Now a mouthful of the grass.

In the deeper sunniness,
In the place where nothing stirs,
Quietly in quietness,
In the quiet of the furze,
For a time they come and lie
Staring on the roving sky.

If you approach they run away,
They leap and stare, away they bound,
With a sudden angry sound,
To the sunny quietude;
Crouching down where nothing stirs
In the silence of the furze,
Couching down again to brood
In the sunny solitude.

If I were...

The mother of the Muses, we are taught,
Is Memory: she has left me; they remain,
And shake my shoulder, urging me to sing
About the summer days, my loves of old.
Alas! alas! is all I can reply.
Memory has left with me that name alone,
Harmonious name, which other bards may sing,
But her bright image in my darkest hour
Comes back, in vain comes back, call’d or uncall’d.
Forgotten are the names of visitors
Ready to press my hand but yesterday;
Forgotten are the names of earlier friends
Whose genial converse and glad countenance
Are fresh as ever to mine ear and eye;
To these, when I have written and besought
Remembrance of me, the word Dear alone
Hangs on the upper verge, and waits in vain.
A blessing wert thou, O oblivion,
If thy stream carried only w...

One morn I looked across the way,
    And saw you fling your window wide
To welcome in the breath of May
    In breezes from the mountain-side,
And greet the sunlight's earliest ray
    With happy look and satisfied.

The pansies on your window-sill
    In terra cotta flowerpot,
Like royal gold and purple frill
    Upon the stony casement wrought,
Adorned your tasteful domicile
    And claimed your time and care and thought.

In cherry trees the robins sang
    Their sweetest carol to your ear,
And shouts of merry children rang
    Out on the dewy atmosphere,
But to my heart there came a pang
    That my salute you did not hear.

I envied then the favored breeze
    That dallied with your flowing hair,
Begrudged the songsters...

I have been reading Pomfret’s “Choice” this spring,
A pretty kind of—sort of—kind of thing,
Not much a verse, and poem none at all,
Yet, as they say, extremely natural.
And yet I know not. There’s an art in pies,
In raising crusts as well as galleries;
And he’s the poet, more or less, who knows
The charm that hallows the least truth from prose,
And dresses it in its mild singing clothes.
Not oaks alone are trees, nor roses flowers;
Much humble wealth makes rich this world of ours.
Nature from some sweet energy throws up
Alike the pine-mount and the buttercup;
And truth she makes so precious, that to paint
Either, shall shrine an artist like a saint,
And bring him in his turn the crowds that press
Round Guido’s saints or Titian’s goddesses.

Our trivi...

A pretty task, Miss S -    - , to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.

No lover's plaint my muse must paint
To fill this page's span,
But be correct and recollect
I'm not a single man.

Pray only think, for pen and ink
How hard to get along,
That may not turn on words that burn
Or Love, the life of song!

Nine Muses, if I chooses, I
May woo all in a clan,
But one Miss S -    -    I daren't address -
I'm not a single man.

Scribblers unwed, with little head
May eke it out with heart,
And in their lays it often plays
A rare first-fiddle part.

They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss,
But if I so began,
I have my fears about my ears -
I'm not a single ma...

Not 'mid the world's vain objects that enslave
The free-born Soul, that World whose vaunted skill
In selfish interest perverts the will,
Whose factions lead astray the wise and brave,
Not there; but in dark wood and rocky cave,
And hollow vale which foaming torrents fill
With omnipresent murmur as they rave
Down their steep beds, that never shall be still:
Here, mighty Nature! in this school sublime
I weigh the hopes and fears of suffering Spain;
For her consult the auguries of time,
And through the human heart explore my way;
And look and listen, gathering, whence I may,
Triumph, and thoughts no bondage can restrain.

ON A SUN-PORTRAIT OF HER HUSBAND, SENT BY HIS WIFE TO THEIR FRIEND.

Beautiful eyes, - and shall I see no more
The living thought when it would leap from them,
And play in all its sweetness 'neath their lids?

Here was a man familiar with fair heights
That poets climb. Upon his peace the tears
And troubles of our race deep inroads made,
Yet life was sweet to him; he kept his heart
At home. Who saw his wife might well have thought, -
"God loves this man. He chose a wife for him, -
The true one!" O sweet eyes, that seem to live,
I know so much of you, tell me the rest!
Eyes full of fatherhood and tender care
For small, young children. Is a message here
That you would fain have sent, but had not time?
If such there be, I promise, by long love
And perfec...

Robin Hood's mother, these twelve years now,
Has been gone from her earthly home;
And Robin has paid, he scarce knew how,
A sum for a noble tomb.

The church-yard lies on a woody hill,
But open to sun and air:
It seems as if the heaven still
Were looking and smiling there.

Often when Robin looked that way,
He looked through a sweet thin tear;
But he looked in a different manner, they say,
Towards the Abbey of Vere.

He cared not for its ill-got wealth,
He felt not for his pride;
He had youth, and strength, and health,
And enough for one beside.

But he thought of his gentle mother's cheek
How it sunk away,
And how she used to grow more weak
And weary every day;

And how, when trying a hymn, her voice
At evenin...

Down the picket-guarded lane
Rolled the comfort-laden wain,
Cheered by shouts that shook the plain,
Soldier-like and merry:
Phrases such as camps may teach,
Sabre-cuts of Saxon speech,
Such as “Bully!” “Them’s the peach!”
“Wade in, Sanitary!”

Right and left the caissons drew
As the car went lumbering through,
Quick succeeding in review
Squadrons military;
Sunburnt men with beards like frieze,
Smooth-faced boys, and cries like these,
“U. S. San. Com.” “That’s the cheese!”
“Pass in, Sanitary!”

In such cheer it struggled on
Till the battle front was won:
Then the car, its journey done,
Lo! was stationary;
And where bullets whistling fly
Came the sadder, fainter cry,
“Help us, brothers, ere we die,
Save us, Sanitary!”...

    All sights and sounds of day and year,
    All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,
    Are thine, O God, nor will I fear
    To talk to thee of them.

        Too great thy heart is to despise,
    Whose day girds centuries about;
    From things which we name small, thine eyes
    See great things looking out.

        Therefore the prayerful song I sing
    May come to thee in ordered words:
    Though lowly born, it needs not cling
    In terror to its chords.

        I think that nothing made is lost;
    That not a moon has ever shone,
    That not a cloud my eyes hath crossed
    But to my soul is gone.

        That all the lost years garnered lie
    In this thy casket, my dim soul;
    And thou wilt, once, th...

Whew! - Tha'rt in a famous hurry!
Awm nooan baan to try to catch thi!
Aw've noa dogs wi' me to worry
Thee poor thing, - aw like to watch thi.
Tha'rt a runner! aw dar back thi,
Why, tha ommost seems to fly!
Did ta think aw meant to tak thi?
Well, awm fond o' rabbit pie.

Aw dooan't want th' world to misen, mun,
Awm nooan like a dog i'th' manger;
Yet still 'twor happen best to run,
For tha'rt th' safest aght o' danger.
An sometimes fowks' inclination
Leads 'em to do what they shouldn't; -
But tha's saved me a temptation, -
Aw've net harmed thi, 'coss aw couldn't.

Aw wish all temptations fled me,
As tha's fled throo me to-day;
For they've oft to trouble led me,
For which aw've had dear to pay.
An a taicher wise aw've faand thi,

The birds laugh loud and long together
    When Fashion's followers speed away
At the first cool breath of autumn weather.
    Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay!
When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over
    Both look their passion through sun-kissed space,
As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover
    Might each gaze into the other's face.

Oh! this is the time when careful spying
    Discovers the secrets Nature knows.
You find when the butterflies plan for flying
    (Before the thrush or the blackbird goes),
You see some day by the water's edges
    A brilliant border of red and black;
And then off over the hills and hedges
    It flutters away on the summer's track.

The shy little sumacs, in lonely places,
    Bowed all su...