University of Virginia Library

Stray Stanzas.

LINES TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

With love not even he could wake,
Save in his fatherland,
We reach a Yankee grasp, and take
Hosea by the hand.
With smiles of praise, that need must throng
With sympathizing tears,
We greet our prince of prose and song,
In his maturer years;
For words that made a shining track,
Beyond the Atlantic foam,
We lift our hearts, and welcome back
Our statesman to his home.

TO MONSIEUR PASTEUR.

[Upon his Discovery of Inoculation for Hydrophobia.]

O good Monsieur Pasteur! your humanized art
Has thrilled every brain, and has touched every heart;
Man's friendliest beast—by disease tortured sore,
Henceforth is a poisonous reptile no more;
Now please find a cure to our maladies when
This poor world is bitten by mad-minded men!

TO A YOUNG LADY.

[For whom two Harvard Students engaged in a Game of Fisticuffs.]

'Tis something to be sought for, O maiden archly fair—
And to be bravely fought for; but, sweet one, have a care!
The “slugger” tribe (the fact is) when business with them thrives,
Are sometimes prone to practice their art upon their wives!

DEATH OF THE RICHEST MAN.

He owned, to-day, a large and gleaming share
Of this earth's narrow rim;
A sigh—a groan—a gesture of despair—
The earth owned him.
The richest one of any clime or land,
The old-time lesson taught;
A human mine of gold!—God raised His hand,
And he had nought.

TO THE SMOTHERED MINERS.

Oh men who died in tombs,
Away from the life of the sun,
Down in the griefs and glooms
Of a day forever done:
The life of that senseless coal
Will some day seek the air;
And Heaven will claim each soul
Of your bodies buried there.

THE DEATHLESS SONG.

Although to-day with reverent tread
I may not join your throng,
My heart is with the living dead
Who wrote the deathless song.

ON A “POET”-CRITIC.

Disgruntled—,by failure spoiled
Into a living frown,
With pens by his own “poems” spoiled,
Writes younger authors down:
Sick serpent of the growler tribes,
Your victims might do worse;
They'd rather bear your shallow gibes,
Than write your dawdling verse.