The poems and stories of Fitz-James O'Brien

The hunt was o'er. The last thin bugle-note
Had stole away among the friendly trees,
Declining gently on its weary way,
And dying in their arms. The exhausted hounds
Besmeared with wild-boar's blood lay down, and licked
Their sanguine coats; or, growling, strove to scare
With lazy paw the floating globes of flies
That buzzed around them lured with scent of gore.
The horses, bridle-tethered to the trees,
With flanks thin drawn, where lay the hardened sweat
In glistening furrows, champed the cruel bit,
Or nibbled at the leaves. Beneath the shade
Of a great chestnut that obscured the sun
The hunters, gathered in a little group,
Talked of the chase; and pleasant stories ran
Of perils, magnified with sportsman's boasts,
And huge leaps taken in the heat of chase.
Then hearty laughs at some green youth's mishap
Went round the circle like a jocund ring
Of sparkling merriment. The men were gay
In joyance of rude strength. Their eyes were bold;
Their white teeth glistened through their nut-brown beards
Like foam-beads in dark ale. Their skins were tanned

By honest wind and sun, and every limb
Was large and fit for use. These men were rough
As prickly-pear or pomegranate, but they
Were ripe, and honest-fruited at the core.
Then in each pause a silver bowl went round,
Filled with red wine, and every hunter drank,
‘Health to St. Hubert, our good patron saint!’
And passed the wine bowl on, until it came
To where Sir Brasil sat. And he outspoke,
‘You know, my friends, I live not to drink wine,
Since that sad day when in the Holy Land
The Emir made me quaff my brother's blood
Disguised as wine. I cannot join your revel.
Pardon me, comrades, I will seek some stream,
Hid in the twilight of this leafy glade,
And drink your healths in a more homely draught.’
Then rose he 'mid good-natured jeers and smiles
At such faint-heartedness in belted knight,
And, yielding in return mock courtesies,
He leashed his favorite falcon to his wrist,
And, girding on his sword, straight took his way,
Along the silent glades.
There was no water
In all the summer woods. The insatiate sun
Had drunk all up, and robbed each secret spring,
Save the round beads of dew that nestling dwelt
Deep in the bottom of the foxglove's bells.
There was no water. Beds of vanished streams
Mocked him with memories of lucid waves,
That rose and fell before his fancy's eye
In glassy splendor. As the soothing wind
Stole softly o'er the leaves, it gave low tones,
That sounded in Sir Brasil's sharpened ear

Like distant ripplings of a pleasant stream;
But there was none. The umbered soil was dry,
And the hare rustled through parched, crisping grass.
Sir Brasil sighed: his brow was hot,—his tongue
Beat dry against his teeth. His upmost thought
Was water,—water, clear, and bright, and cool!
A storm-cock flew across the glade; his beak
Was red with berries of the mountain ash,
That had lain hidden from the by-gone frost
Deep in some cranny of the gaping earth.
Then quoth Sir Brasil, ‘I will follow him,
For I have heard that birds do fly to springs,
As sands of steel of magnets.’ So he struck
A bee's line through the woods, and followed him.
Thick grew the brambles, for there was no path
For dainty feet; but gnarléd roots of oak
Pushed earth aside and twined in curving cords
Like snakes at play. Pale wild-flowers grew in crowds,
Like captive fays, o'er whom the giant trees
Kept watch and ward. Through the green canopy
That stretched o'erhead, stray, vagrant sunbeams stole,
Turning with fairy power the withered leaves
To evanescent gold. Lizards, with skins
Like lapis-lazuli, peeped with glittering eyes
Between the crevices of mouldering trees.
The hum of bees 'round many a trunk foretold
The heavy honeycomb that lay within,
Concealed with cunning passages and doors
Of deftly-woven moss. The bright jay chattered,
And the bold robin gazed with mute surprise
On the strange shape whose daring seemed to make
The woods his own, while on Sir Brasil went,
Stumbling o'er roots, embraced by brambly arms,

And leaving fragments of his rich attire
Fluttering on thorny boughs, that many a day
Held in great awe the timid woodland birds.
The sun grew low. It was three hours beyond
The middle day, when, lo! Sir Brasil stepped
With hooded falcon leashed upon his wrist,
Cloak torn in shreds, and plume that hung awry,
Beyond the limit of the lonely wood,
And found himself upon the rugged brink
Of a dried water-course. It was a dank
And dismal place. The broad, misshapen trees
Were bare anatomies, with scarce a leaf
To clothe their withered bones. Huge, fleshy weeds
Grew in black groups along the ragged edge
Of a tall, beetling cliff, whose steep face sloped
With slabs of rock, adown whose pallid sides
The thin, white moss spread like a leprosy.
Along the base of this pale cliff there ran
The channel of some fitful winter stream
Long fled. The smooth, round pebbles paved
The empty bed, and all the secret rocks
Lay bare and dry. Some there were quaintly holed,
And eaten through by the soft, toothless waves,
And some were strangely carved, and smoothly hewn,
With watery chisels, into phantasm forms.
There was no stream. No limpid water went
With trickling step along the stony course.
The ousel had forsook the place, and sought
Another stream to dipple with its wings.
The heron stood no longer by the brink.
The azure of the halcyon flashed no more
From bank to bank. The tall brown-tufted reeds,
That sung so softly to the evening wind,

Had withered all, and lay in matted heaps
Upon the arid earth. Sir Brasil sighed,
“There is no water here, I am athirst.
O, I would give a broad piece for one drop
To cool my parching throat!” As said he this,
The sunlight flashed upon some glittering point
That shone like diamond. Hastening forward, he
Beheld from out the crevice of a rock
A sluggish flow, that trickled drop by drop,
Of dark, green water. So reluctantly
It oozéd through the fissure, that it seemed
Like the last lifeblood of a river-god
Ebbing in lingering drops from out his heart!
“My faith!” Sir Brasil said, “though not as clear
As wave of Castaly or Hippocrene,
Thou art right welcome,—for my throat is dry,
And I am faint with thirst; and thou, poor bird,
Shalt share my luck, and quaff this scanty spring.”
So saying to the falcon on his wrist,
He loosed its leashes and unlaced its hood,
And let its bold eye gaze abroad again
Upon the sunny world. The joyous bird
Gave one far skyward glance; another swept
The wide horizon round, then preening all
His plumes, and ruffling them toward the sun,
He pecked the knight with a love-softened beak,
And nestled to his arm.
Then Brasil straight
Unloosed a silken belt from which there swung
A golden bugle. Taking it, he stopped
The jewelled mouthpiece with a plug of moss;
Then, stooping, held the inverted bell beneath
The slowly falling stream. With toil and pain

He gathered each slow drop, and watched them rise
By hair's-breadth after hair's-breadth, till he saw
The dear draught level with the golden rim;
Then joyously he raised it to his lips,
And cried, “Here 's to thee, goddess of the stream!
Locked in the heart of this cold rock. Alone,
Forsaken by the fickle waves that made
The current of thy life, thou art most desolate,
And weep'st all day those trickling drops, which are
Thy tears. In them I pledge me to thy grief!”
But as he raised the golden bugle up
Toward his lips, the falcon with swift stroke
Of his long pinion dashed it from his hand,
And all the precious draught ran waste on earth.
Sir Brasil frowned. “How now, bold bird?” he cried,
“Thou dost not know how toilsomely I filled
That scanty measure, or thou never wouldst
Have wasted it. Next time take better heed,
Or thou wilt rue it.” Once again Sir Brasil
With weary hand and long delay filled up
The golden measure, and as he did raise
It to his lips, the falcon with one stroke
Of his swift pinion dashed it to the earth.
Sir Brasil swore, “Now by the sacred cup
Which Christ did drink of, I will wring thy neck,
Thou foolish bird, an thou do that again!”
A third time did he stoop, and, horn in hand,
Bend his broad back to catch the sluggish stream;
A third time did he raise the bugle up
Toward his lips; a third time with swift wing
The falcon dashed the measure from his hand.
Then flashed Sir Brasil's eye with humid fire,
Quivered his thin-drawn lip, and paled his cheek,

And with an ungloved hand he smote the bird
Full in the throat. It fluttered on his wrist,
And drew its jesses taut; with panting strength
Spread out its arrowy wings convulsively,
As if 't would flee right sunward from black death,
Then drew them close. The silver Milan bells,
That quivered on its legs, rattled a chime
Of mortal melody that smote the sky,
Its old domain. Its curved beak opened wide,
Agape for air. Its large, round, golden eye
Turned one long look of sad, reproachful love
Full on Sir Brasil; then, with a faint gasp,
That stifling burst from its choked, swollen throat,
It fluttering fell. The silken jesses slipped;
Its proud head bent in death's last agony;
And, tumbling from his wrist, it gasped and died!
The stern knight bit his lip as he looked down;
He loved the bird, but had a hasty hand,
And hastier temper. “Well-a-day!” he said,
“The bird was mulish and deserved its fate.
Yet would I had not killed it!” Then he took
With mournful hand his bugle, and a sigh
Fluttered between his lips, like some sad bird
From prison flying blindly. “Well!” he said,
“'T is weary work filling these sluggish draughts;
Each takes an hour at least. I'll to the source
Of this thin stream, and ravish it with lips
As eager as e'er pressed the Sabine maid,
When Roman youth grew hot. I'll dip my horn,

And raise it diamond-dripping from the wave,
And as I drink, the abundant stream shall well
Over the brim, and trickle down my beard,
Like morning dew. I'll quaff with thirsty joy,
And when I 've drank I'll fling the lucid lees
On the dry leaves, and arid flowers, that they
May share the moist delight!” And with these words
He sought the secret windings of the stream,
And followed them.
Starkly the falcon lay;
The dry leaves rattled with a stealthy sound;
The beetle hummed, the insects in the grass
Made silver whisperings; the mouse crept out
From underneath the sod, and, timid, gazed
On the proud foe that lay so stiff and strange.
Half fearing stratagem, it dared not move,
But pricked its ears, and oped its glittering eyes
Enchained with wonder, till a lizard slim
Darted from out the grass, and boldly brushed
The falcon's lifeless wing. Then did the mouse
Believe its foe was dead. Then did it play
Around the corpse, and gaze into its eyes,
Those large, round golden eyes, that from the clouds
Could pierce the crouching vermin of the earth
With overhanging death!
The dry leaves fell;
The water dropped; the insects in the grass
Hummed their sharp songs that sounded in the ear
Like tiny silver tinklings. In the midst
Of all this fair monotony of life
Lay the dead falcon!
With much weary toil
Sir Brasil traced the windings of the stream,

Through rock defiles, as wild as sculptured dreams
Where naked horrors frowned. Through oozy swamps
Coated with marish oil in which the sun
Made slimy rainbows; through forsaken beds
Of ancient streams; o'er massive boulder stones,
Humped with old age, and coated with gray moss;
O'er trunks of rotting trees that in the night
Lit with pale splendor the dark paths around,
And slept in light; o'er sharp volcanic soil
That crackled 'neath the tread; o'er naked plains,
Where the sad wind could find not even a stone
To whet its breath on, but went babbling round
With dull, blunt edge,—Sir Brasil took his way
With weary foot, and tongue that often wagged
In sanctimonious oath. A full, slow hour
Had passed, and e'en the knight, though faint with thirst,
Was nigh to turn upon his steps and wend
Back through the woods, when, lo! like sapphires seen
Through the smoke-curling clouds of maiden's hair,
Gleamed something blue. It twisted as it shone,
And glanced in distance like an azure spray.
As speeds the Arab after five days' thirst
To the green oasis,—that desert's teat
At which its children suck,—so Brasil sped,
And nerved his flagging limbs to reach the spot
So distant and so dear.
“At last!” he cried,
“At last, at last, the water glads my sight!
O, I will lave, and drink, and lave again,
Until my very bones the moisture feel,
And half my blood is water!” And he ran
Like a young deer; but as he nearer came,
A poisonous vapor seemed to load the air,

And foul mephitic clouds that clogged each sense
Hovered oppressively with leaden wings.
Sir Brasil staggered on. The poisoned air
Smote on his brain like an invisible sword,
And clove his consciousness. He raved, and reeled,
And threw his arms aloft, and tried to pray,
And spoke pet words to his dead falcon, as
It were alive; then suddenly he seemed
With one great effort to regain himself,
And onward strode.
But as he neared the place
Whence shot the sapphire gleam, a horrid sight
Burst on his view. Lo! coiling on a mound
A huge, green serpent lay. Tier upon tier
Of emerald scales that glistered into blue
Swept upwards in grand spirals. His great head
Lay open-jawed, and hanging o'er the brink
Of a steep rock, while slavering from his mouth
A stream of distilled poison, green and rank,
Trickled in sluggish drops, that at the base
Gathered themselves into an oily stream,
And flowed away.
Sir Brasil's heart grew sick;
For now he saw what he would fain have drunk,
And what the falcon wasted, was the venom
That slavered from the serpent on the rock,
And, filtering through some secret stony way,
Welled out below in green and sluggish drops
Of withering poison. Now like a fierce wind
Remorse howled through his soul, and hunted thought
Fled from its scorching breath. His nature swung
Naked and desolate as a gibbet corpse
From which the flesh drops piecemeal. He did feel

That death should fly him, as a ghost of guilt
More horrid than himself. He felt that God
Held not within his arsenal of curses
One great enough for him; that earth's green skin
Crept, as he trode, as shudders human flesh
When loathsome beings touch it. He grew white
As the swamp-lily, and upon his cheek
Stood beads of dew, round and distinct as those
That morning winds brush from the shivering trees.
His strong frame shook; short sobbings dry and fierce
Rang in his throat, and on his swelling chest
The silken doublet rose and fell amain,
Like bellying sail that labors with the wind.
He tore his long, fair curls, and cast them down
And stamped upon them, whilst he cursed himself
For his deep cruelty to so fair a bird.
Then he took counsel with himself, and thought
If it were good to turn his dagger in
And sheathe it in his heart; but, lo! within
His soul a spirit rose—like those that flit
From out deep fountains in the even-time
To warn us of dark ills—and spread a mist
Betwixt him and the thought of foul self-murder.
Straightway he turned, and said unto himself,
“The guilty, by the avenging will of God,
Are dragged by secret force toward the spot
Where lie their victims. I will hasten back
To where my dead bird lies by the steep bank,
And mark each footstep with a moan, as monks
Mark rosaries with prayers.”—So saying went,
With ashen cheek, slow step, and muttering lips,
Straight to the spot where the dead falcon lay.
A little while he stood regarding it

With a drear wistful look; then, stooping down,
He smoothed its ruffled plumage with his hand,
Closed its round, staring eyes, and gently folded
Its stiffened wings along its breast; then broke
Into a lamentation wild.
“O bird,
My soul is darkened in thy death! strong grief
Winds like a snake about my heart, and crushes it
In its chill clasp. I never yet did feel
Such bitter wrath against mine own right hand
As I do now. To think that this fond hand,
On which so oft thou lovingly hast sat,
Should turn against thee, and with one foul blow
Dash all thy life away! O, 't was a deed
Becoming some vile lackey, whose coarse wrath
Is blinded by thick blood; but not a knight,
Whose blood was filtered through three thousand years,
And to cross swords with whom might surely make
The foe a gentleman! I mind me well
The day we came together. Thou wert young,
Scarce fledged, and with thy talons yet ungrown;
But there was courage in thee, and one day,
When thou didst see a heron in the sky,
Thou beat'st thy breast against the window-pane,
And all the falcon sparkled in thine eyes!
Then 't was my pride to deck thee splendidly.
Thy silver bells, wrought in old Milan's town,
Were shrill as whistle, and the ascending tones
Were modulated cunningly. Thy hood
Of purple cramoise, worked with threads of gold,
Came from that maiden's hand whom I do prize
Beyond all other women. Then thy food
Was dainty in its kind, as thou hadst been

The merlin of an emperor. I did love thee;
All proves that I did love thee; and I would
Have chopped this right hand from its arm before
It should have hurt thee wittingly; but I
Am hot, and when thy persevering wing
Stretched between me and death, it angered me,
And I—I—O, I cannot think of it,
Except I curse myself, and wish myself
Accursed by God and man!
O, never more
Will thy silk jesses twine around my wrist!
No more will we two wander in the dawn,
When the wild-flowers are necklaced all with dew,
And the wet grass pulses with morning life,
To watch a sedge of herons by the stream,
Or listen for the bittern's lonely boom
Rising from out the reeds! No more, no more,
When the game springs from out the sedgy pool
And soars aloft, shall I tear off thy hood,
Unloose thy jesses, and then launch thee forth
Upon the deadly race. I ne'er shall see
Thee rise in airy spirals to the clouds,
While the wide heron labors far below,
Till when almost a speck, with sudden swoop,
Like a live thunderbolt, thou dashest down
Full on the foe, and, striking at his heart,
Fall'st fastened to thy victim!
How tell
The maiden fair who worked thy purple hood
And loved to stroke thy feathers i' the sun,—
How shall I tell my crime? Why, she would loathe me,
And wave me from her sight with crushing look,
And shut me from her heart. I should be held

By all good knights, and ladies fair, a dastard
Who raised his hand against a loving bird,
And killed it for its love. I cannot home!
The first quest I should hear would be, ‘Where is
Thy falcon, Brasil?’ and could I reply,
‘Three times it saved my life, fair dame,
Therefore I slew it.’ O, no home for me!
Here in this lonely glade I'll lay me down
Close to my murdered bird—and then—and then—
Let what will come.”
The shades of evening fell,
The invisible dews dropped spirit-like on earth;
The woods were silent, and, when the white moon
Came riding o'er their tops, she sadly saw
The knight beside the falcon.

Milan bells. The tinkling bells that were fastened to the falcon's legs came from this city. It was necessary that their tone should be sonorous and shrill, and they were graduated in a rising scale of semitones.

KANE.

Died 16th February, 1857.

I.

Aloft, upon an old basaltic crag,
Which, scalped by keen winds that defend the pole,
Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll
Around the secret of the mystic zone,
A mighty nation's star-bespangled flag
Flutters alone:
And underneath, upon the lifeless front
Of that drear cliff, a simple name is traced!
Fit type of him, who, famishing and gaunt,
But with a rocky purpose in his soul,
Breasted the gathering snows,
Clung to the drifting floes,

By want beleaguered, and by winter chased,
Seeking the brother lost amid that frozen waste.

II.

Not many months ago we greeted him,
Crowned with the icy honors of the North.
Across the land his hard-won fame went forth,
And Maine's deep woods were shaken limb by limb.
His own mild Keystone State, sedate and prim,
Burst from its decorous quiet as he came.
Hot southern lips, with eloquence aflame,
Sounded his triumph. Texas, wild and grim,
Proffered its horny hand. The large-lunged West
From out its giant breast
Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main,
Jubilant to the sky,
Thundered the mighty cry,
Honor to Kane!

III.

In vain, in vain, beneath his feet we flung
The reddening roses! All in vain we poured
The golden wine, and round the shining board
Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung
With the thrice-tripled honors of the feast!
Scarce the buds wilted and the voices ceased
Ere the pure light that sparkled in his eyes,
Bright as auroral fires in southern skies,
Faded and faded; and the brave young heart
That the relentless arctic winds had robbed
Of all its vital heat, in that long quest
For the lost Captain, now within his breast
More and more faintly throbbed.
His was the victory; but as his grasp

Closed on the laurel crown with eager clasp,
Death launched a whistling dart;
And ere the thunders of applause were done
His bright eyes closed forever on the sun!
Too late, too late, the splendid prize he won
In the Olympic race of science and of art!

IV.

Like to some shattered berg that, pale and lone,
Drifts from the white north to a tropic zone,
And in the burning day
Wastes peak by peak away,
Till on some rosy even
It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he
Tranquilly floated to a southern sea,
And melted into heaven!

V.

He needs no tears, who lived a noble life!
We will not weep for him who died so well;
But we will gather round the hearth, and tell
The story of his strife.
Such homage suits him well;
Better than funeral pomp, or passing-bell!

VI.

What tale of peril and self-sacrifice!
Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice,
With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow!
Night lengthening into months; the ravenous floe
Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear
Crunches his prey; the insufficient share
Of loathsome food;
The lethargy of famine; the despair
Urging to labor, nervelessly pursued;

Toil done with skinny arms, and faces hued
Like pallid masks, while dolefully behind
Glimmered the fading embers of a mind!
That awful hour, when through the prostrate band
Delirium stalked, laying his burning hand
Upon the ghastly foreheads of the crew,—
The whispers of rebellion, faint and few
At first, but deepening ever till they grew
Into black thoughts of murder,—such the throng
Of horrors round the Hero. High the song
Should be that hymns the noble part he played!
Sinking himself, yet ministering aid
To all around him; by a mighty will
Living defiant of the wants that kill,
Because his death would seal his comrades' fate;
Cheering with ceaseless and inventive skill
Those polar winters, dark and desolate.
Equal to every trial, every fate,
He stands, until spring, tardy with relief,
Unlocks the icy gate,
And the pale prisoners thread the world once more,
To the steep cliffs of Greenland's pastoral shore,
Bearing their dying chief!

VII.

Time was when he should gain his spurs of gold
From royal hands, who wooed the knightly state:
The knell of old formalities is tolled,
And the world's knights are now self-consecrate.
No grander episode doth chivalry hold
In all its annals, back to Charlemagne,
Than that long vigil of unceasing pain,
Faithfully kept, through hunger and through cold,
By the good Christian knight, Elisha Kane!

THE LOST STEAMSHIP.

‘Ho, there! Fisherman, hold your hand!
Tell me what is that far away,—
There, where over the isle of sand
Hangs the mist-cloud sullen and gray?
See! it rocks with a ghastly life,
Rising and rolling through clouds of spray,
Right in the midst of the breakers' strife,—
Tell me what is it, Fisherman, pray?’

‘That, good sir, was a steamer stout
As ever paddled around Cape Race;
And many 's the wild and stormy bout
She had with the winds, in that selfsame place;
But her time was come; and at ten o'clock
Last night she struck on that lonesome shore;
And her sides were gnawed by the hidden rock,
And at dawn this morning she was no more.’

‘Come, as you seem to know, good man,
The terrible fate of this gallant ship,
Tell me about her all that you can;
And here 's my flask to moisten your lip.
Tell me how many she had aboard,—
Wives, and husbands, and lovers true,—
How did it fare with her human hoard?
Lost she many, or lost she few?’

‘Master, I may not drink of your flask,
Already too moist I feel my lip;

But I'm ready to do what else you ask,
And spin you my yarn about the ship:
'T was ten o'clock, as I said, last night,
When she struck the breakers and went ashore;
And scarce had broken the morning's light
Than she sank in twelve feet of water or more.

‘But long ere this they knew her doom,
And the captain called all hands to prayer;
And solemnly over the ocean's boom
Their orisons wailed on the troublous air.
And round about the vessel there rose
Tall plumes of spray as white as snow,
Like angels in their ascension clothes,
Waiting for those who prayed below.

‘So these three hundred people clung
As well as they could to spar and rope;
With a word of prayer upon every tongue,
Nor on any face a glimmer of hope.
But there was no blubbering weak and wild,—
Of tearful faces I saw but one,
A rough old salt, who cried like a child,
And not for himself, but the captain's son.

‘The captain stood on the quarter-deck,
Firm, but pale, with trumpet in hand;
Sometimes he looked at the breaking wreck,
Sometimes he sadly looked to land.
And often he smiled to cheer the crew—
But, Lord! the smile was terrible grim—
Till over the quarter a huge sea flew;
And that was the last they saw of him.

‘I saw one young fellow with his bride,
Standing amidships upon the wreck;
His face was white as the boiling tide,
And she was clinging about his neck.
And I saw them try to say good-by,
But neither could hear the other speak;
So they floated away through the sea to die—
Shoulder to shoulder, and cheek to cheek.

‘And there was a child, but eight at best,
Who went his way in a sea she shipped;
All the while holding upon his breast
A little pet parrot whose wings were clipped.
And as the boy and the bird went by,
Swinging away on a tall wave's crest,
They were gripped by a man, with a drowning cry,
And together the three went down to rest.

‘And so the crew went one by one,
Some with gladness, and few with fear;
Cold and hardship such work had done
That few seemed frightened when death was near.
Thus every soul on board went down,—
Sailor and passenger, little and great;
The last that sank was a man of my town,
A capital swimmer,—the second mate.’

‘Now, lonely fisherman, who are you
That say you saw this terrible wreck?
How do I know what you say is true,
When every mortal was swept from the deck?
Where were you in that hour of death?
How did you learn what you relate?’
His answer came in an under-breath,—
‘Master, I was the second mate!’

A FALLEN STAR.

I.

I sauntered home across the park,
And slowly smoked my last cigar;
The summer night was still and dark,
With not a single star:

And, conjured by I know not what,
A memory floated through my brain,
The vision of a friend forgot,
Or thought of now with pain.

A brilliant boy that once I knew,
In far-off, happy days of old,
With sweet, frank face, and eyes of blue,
And hair that shone like gold:

Fresh crowned with college victory,
The boast and idol of his class,—
With heart as pure, and warm, and free
As sunshine on the grass!

A figure sinewy, lithe, and strong,
A laugh infectious in its glee,
A voice as beautiful as song,
When heard along the sea.

On me, the man of sombre thought,
The radiance of his friendship won,
As round an autumn tree is wrought
The enchantment of the sun.

He loved me with a tender truth,
He clung to me as clings the vine,
And, like a brimming fount of youth,
His nature freshened mine.

Together hand in hand we walked;
We threaded pleasant country ways,
Or, couched beneath the limes, we talked,
On sultry summer days.

For me he drew aside the veil
Before his bashful heart that hung,
And told a sweet, ingenuous tale
That trembled on his tongue.

He read me songs and amorous lays,
Where through each slender line a fire
Of love flashed lambently, as plays
The lightning through the wire.

A nobler maid he never knew
Than she he longed to call his wife;
A fresher nature never grew
Along the shores of life.

Thus rearing diamond arches up
Whereon his future life to build,
He quaffed all day the golden cup
That youthful fancy filled.

Like fruit upon a southern slope,
He ripened on all natural food,—
The winds that thrill the skyey cope,
The sunlight's golden blood:

And in his talk I oft discerned
A timid music vaguely heard;
The fragments of a song scarce learned,
The essays of a bird,—

The first faint notes the poet's breast,
Ere yet his pinions warrant flight,
Will, on the margin of the nest,
Utter with strange delight.

Thus rich with promise was the boy,
When, swept abroad by circumstance,
We parted,—he to live, enjoy,
And I to war with chance.

II.

The air was rich with fumes of wine
When next we met. 'T was at a feast,
And he, the boy I thought divine,
Was the unhallowed priest.

There was the once familiar grace,
The old, enchanting smile was there;
Still shone around his handsome face
The glory of his hair.

But the pure beauty that I knew
Had lowered through some ignoble task;
Apollo's head was peering through
A drunken bacchant's mask.

The smile, once honest as the day,
Now waked to words of grossest wit;

The eyes, so simply frank and gay,
With lawless fires were lit.

He was the idol of the board;
He led the careless, wanton throng;
The soul that once to heaven had soared
Now grovelled in a song.

He wildly flung his wit away
In small retort, in verbal brawls,
And played with words as jugglers play
With hollow brazen balls.

But often when the laugh was loud,
And highest gleamed the circling bowl,
I saw what unseen passed the crowd,—
The shadow on his soul.

And soon the enigma was unlocked;
The harrowing history I heard,—
The sacred duties that he mocked,
The forfeiture of word.

And how he did his love a wrong—
His wild remorse—his mad career—
And now—ah! hearken to that song,
And hark the answering cheer!

III.

Thus musing sadly on the law
That lets such brilliant meteors quench,
Down the dark path a form I saw
Uprising from a bench.

Ragged and pale, in strident tones
It asked for alms,—I knew for what;
The tremor shivering through its bones
Was eloquent of the sot.

It begged, it prayed, it whined, it cried,
It followed with a shuffling tramp,—
It would not, could not be denied,—
I turned beneath a lamp.

It clutched the coins I gave, and fled
With muttered words of horrid glee,
When, like the white, returning dead,
A vision rose to me.

A nameless something in its air,
A sudden gesture as it moved,—
'T was he, the gay, the debonnaire!
'T was he, the boy I loved!

And while along the lonesome park
The eager drunkard sped afar,
I looked to heaven, and through the dark
I saw a falling star!

THE BALLAD OF THE SHAMROCK.

My boy left me just twelve years ago:
'T was the black year of famine, of sickness and woe,
When the crops died out, and the people died too,
And the land into one great grave-yard grew;
And our neighbors' faces were as white and thin
As the face of the moon when she first comes in;
And honest men's hearts were rotten with blight,
And they thieved and prowled like the wolves at night;
When the whole land was dark as dark could be,—
'T was then that Donal, my boy, left me.

We were turned from our farm where we 'd lived so long,
For we could n't pay the rent, and the law was strong;
From our low meadow lands, and flax fields blue,
And the handsome green hill where the yellow furze grew,
And the honest old cow that, each evening, would stand
At the little gate, lowing to be milked by my hand;
And the small patch of garden at the end of the lawn,
Where Donal grew sweet flowers for his Colleen Bawn;
But Donal and I had to leave all these,—
I to live with father, and he to cross the seas.

For Donal was as proud as any king's son,
And swore he 'd not stand by and see such wrongs done,
But would seek a fortune out in the wide, wide West,
Where the honest can find labor and the weary rest;
And as soon as he was able why then he 'd send for me
To rest my poor old head in his home across the sea:
And then his young face flushed like a June sky at dawn,

As he said that he was thinking how his Colleen Bawn
Could come along to help me to keep the house straight,
For he knew how much she loved him, and she 'd promised him to wait.

I think I see him now, as he stood one blessed day,
With his pale smiling face upon the Limerick quay,
And I lying on his breast, with his long, curly hair
Blowing all about my shoulders as if to keep me there;
And the quivering of his lip, that he tried to keep so proud,—
Not because of his old mother, but the idle, curious crowd,—
Then the hoisting of the anchor, and the flapping of the sail,
And the stopping of my heart when the wild, Irish wail
From the mothers, and the children, and the kinsfolk on the quay
Told me plainer than all words that my darling was away.

Ten years went dragging by, and I heard but now and then,—
For my Donal, though a brave boy, was no scholar with the pen;
But he sent me kindly words, and bade me not despair,
And sometimes sent me money, perhaps more than he could spare;
So I waited and I prayed until it came to pass
That Father Pat he wanted me one Sunday after mass,
When I went, a little fearsome, to the back vestry-room,
Where his reverence sat a-smiling like a sunflower in the gloom:
And then he up and told me—God bless him!—that my boy
Had sent to bring me over, and I nearly died for joy.

All day I was half-crazed as I wandered through the house;
The dropping of the sycamore seeds, or the scramble of a mouse,
Thrilled through me like a gun-shot; I durst not look behind,
For the pale face of my darling was always in my mind.
The pale face so sorrowful, the eyes so large and dark,
And soft shining as the deer's are in young Lord Massy's park;
And the long chestnut hair blown loosely by the wind,—
All this seemed at my shoulder, and I dared not look behind,
But I said in my own heart, it is but the second sight
Of the day when I shall kiss him, all beautiful and bright.

Then I made my box ready to go across the sea,
My boy had sent a ticket, so my passage it was free;
But all the time I longed that some little gift I had
To take across the ocean to my own dear lad;
A pin, or a chain, or something of the kind,
Just to 'mind the poor boy of the land he 'd left behind.
But I was too poor to buy it, so I 'd nothing left to do
But to go to the old farm, the homestead that he knew;
To the handsome green hill where my Donal used to play,
And cut a sod of shamrock for the exile far away.

All through the voyage I nursed it, and watered it each day,
And kept its green leaves sheltered from the salt-sea spray,
And I 'd bring it upon deck when the sun was shining fair,
To watch its triple leaflets opening slowly in the air.

At first the sailors laughed at my little sod of grass,
But when they knew my object they gently let me pass;
And the ladies in the cabin were very kind to me;
They made me tell the story of my boy across the sea:
So I told them of my Donal, and his fair, manly face,
Till bare speaking of my darling made a sunshine in the place.

We landed at the Battery in New York's big bay,
The sun was shining grandly, and the wharves looked gay.
But I could see no sunshine nor beauty in the place,
What I only cared to look on was Donal's sweet face;
But in all the great crowd, and I turned everywhere,
I could not see a sign of him,—my darling was not there;
I asked the men around me to go and find my son,
But they only stared or laughed, and left me, one by one,
Till at last an old countryman came up to me and said—
How could I live to hear it?—that Donal was dead!

The shamrock sod is growing on Greenwood's hill-side.
It grows above the heart of my darling and my pride;
And on summer days I sit by the headstone all day,
With my heart growing old and my head growing gray;
And I watch the dead leaves whirl from the sycamore-trees,
And wonder why it is that I can't die like these;
But I think that this same winter, and from my heart I hope,
I'll be lying nice and quiet upon Greenwood's slope,
With my darling close beside me underneath the trickling dew,
And the shamrocks creeping pleasantly above us two.

AMAZON.

I burn to tell my love; to call her mine;
To pour upon her heart the fiery tide
That fills my own; to open my soul's shrine
And show her her own image deified!

But vain the web my brain untiring weaves;
For hours I school in vain my spellbound tongue.
My passion hangs, unuttered, on the eaves
Of my soul's portal. Of a love unsung
I am the minstrel, for I sing alone.
My own heart is my hermitage, and there
I chant impassioned hymns, and weep, and groan,
And to love's phantom dedicate my prayer.
When on a lonely couch my head I lay,
What mystic eloquence comes to me unsought!
In fervent litanies to her I pray,
And tell my love in rosaries of thought.
A bold and reckless suitor in the night,—
A weak and silent coward in the day;
When all is dark I long to greet the light,
But dazzled when light comes, I turn away!

O, you should see her! She is, of all queens
That drive their chariots over bleeding hearts,
The loveliest one! Not by her sex's means
She won her throne. She has no need of arts.
Born to enslave, she conquers with a glance;
All blandishments and subtile wiles disdains;
A heretic to the antique romance,
To know she is, is knowing that she reigns.

Like the phosphoric trees in forests dark
She lights all hearts, and yet herself is cold;
And woe to him who, dazzled by the spark,
Hopes for a heat her heart can never hold!

But she is beautiful! No vocal dream
Warbled in slumber by the nightingale,
Can match her voice's music. Sculptors seem,
When most inspired, to copy her—and fail!
To gaze on her is song unto the sight;
A harmony of vision, heaven-sent,
Where all the tones of human charms unite,
And are in one majestic woman blent!

But once I thought she loved me. Bitter hour,
Whose mingled joy and torment haunt me still!
Her eyes look out from every starry flower;
I hear her mocking laugh in every rill.
Yet on this grief I love to muse alone—
It is a key that hath my nature tuned;
Upon my riven heart I gaze as one
Grows to companionship with even his wound.

'T was in the autumn woods we rode one morn
To hunt the deer, with wild and willing steeds.
The young wind gayly blew his mellow horn,
And beat the tangled coverts of the reeds.
The golden elms tossed high their lucent leaves,
While on their giant boles, so rough in form,
The rugged bark stood out in corded sheaves,
Like muscles swoln in wrestling with the storm!

A sudden, wayward fancy seized us here
To pause and act a leafy masquerade.

No idle tongues nor curious eyes were near,
And silent splendor filled the sunlit glade.
So, gathering armfuls of the autumn vines,
I wove their red ropes round the passive girl,
Looping the tendrils of the blushing vines
Round arms, and head, and each escaping curl.
Then through her horse's mane that blackly shone,
I plaited mosses long and leaden-hued,
Until she seemed like some young Amazon
Chained by the mighty monach of the wood.

O mockery of conquest! Hidden sting!
O triumph treacherous as the sleeping seas!
She played the captive,—I, the victor-king,
Threading triumphal arches through the trees!

Sudden, with one wild burst of regal might
She flung her fluttering fetters to the wind;
She and her steed with bound of fierce delight
Dashed through the crashing boughs that closed behind.—
And so she vanished. From the distance dim
Her scornful laughter floated to my ear;
A jest for her,—for me a funeral hymn,
Sung o'er a love that froze upon its bier!

How shall I conquer her? Since that cursed day
Her image stands between me and the world!
Around my cup of life where flowers should lay,
Forbidding me, a poisoned snake is curled.
As heron chased by hawk I soar through space,
The fatal shafts of her disdain to shun,
And seek the clouds; but vain the dizzy race,—
I find her still between me and the sun!

O queen, enthroned upon an icy height,
What holocaust does thy proud heart desire?
When will it flame like beacon through the night
With fiery answer to another's fire?
Ah! why so cold—so ever cold to me?
I chafe—I chafe all day from dawn to dark,
As chafes the wave of Adria's glowing sea
Against the pulseless marble of Saint Mark!

THE MAN AT THE DOOR.

I.

How joyous to-day is the little old town,
With banners and streamers as cheery as spring!
They flutter on turrets and battlements brown,
And the ancient cathedral is fine as a king.
The sexton a nosegay has put in his breast,
And his face is as bright as a Jericho rose,
That, after a century's withering rest,
Unwrinkles its petals and suddenly blows.

II.

The brown-breasted swallows aloft and alow
Swoop faster and further than ever before,
And I'm sure that the cock on the steeple will crow
When he hears from the city the jubilant roar.
The girls are as gay as a holiday fleet,
Their ribbons are streaming from bosom and hair,
And they laugh in the face of each young man they meet,
And the young men reply with an insolent stare.

III.

'T is not without reason the old town is gay,
And banners and ribbons are reddening the air,
For beautiful Bertha will marry to-day
With gallant young Albert, the son of the Mayor.
He is brown as a nut from the hazels of Spain;
Her face, like the twilight, is pensive and sweet;
As they march hand in hand through the murmuring lane,
Low blessings, like flowers, fall unseen at their feet.

IV.

While they sweep like twin barks through the waves of the crowd,
A story is falling from many a tongue,
Of the young gypsy prince who, a year ago, bowed
At the shrine where a hundred their passion had sung;
And how Bertha heaped scorn on his love and his race,
How she flung in the street the rich presents he sent,
Until he, with the hatred of hell in his face,
Went sullenly back to his tribe and his tent.

V.

Soon all stories are hushed in a gathering roar,
And the people sway back like the ebb of a tide,
And the rosy old sexton stands by the church-door,
To merrily welcome the bridegroom and bride:
But his glee is so great that he does not behold
The tall man that stands near the pillar, hard by,
Nor the flash of the dagger that 's hafted with gold,
Nor the still keener flash of the lowering eye.

VI.

On they come, and the sexton bows low to the ground,
The bride smiles a welcome, the bells ring a chime,
While a grand acclamation, in surges of sound,
Thrills up through the sky like a sonorous rhyme.
They are under the porch—when, one dash through the crowd,
One flash of a dagger, one shriek of despair,
And Bertha falls dead; while, stern-visaged and proud,
The swarthy-skinned prince of the gypsies is there!

VII.

How sombre to-day is the little old town,
With mourning, and sables, and funeral display;
Long weepers are hanging from battlements brown,
And the ancient cathedral is haggard and gray.
The sexton a white rose has put in his breast,
While his face is as blank as a snow-laden sky;
For Bertha and Albert have gone to their rest,
And the prince of the gypsies is swinging on high.

THE ENCHANTED TITAN.

I.

Curse you! O, a hundred thousand curses
Weigh upon your soul, you black enchanter!
Could I pour them like the coins from purses,
I would utter such a pile instanter
As would crush you to a bloody pulp.
But my rage I fain am forced to gulp;

Anathemas are vain against cold iron,
Nor can I swear this magic box asunder,
Where I 've been stifling since the days of Chiron,
Fretting on tempered bolts, and hurling muffled thunder.

II.

Through the chinks I see the dim green waters
Filled with sunshine, or with moonlight hazy;
Through them swim the oceanic daughters,
Beautiful enough to drive me crazy.
The fishes gaze at me with sphery eyes,
And seem to say, with cold-blooded surprise,
What Titan is it, that 's so barred and bolted,
Caged like a rat in some infernal cellar?
Why even Enceladus, when the dog revolted,
Was not so hardly treated by the Cloud-Compeller!

III.

And all, forsooth, because I loved his daughter!
Loved that child of spells and incantation;
Love her now, beneath this dreary water,
Love her through eternal tribulation!
I wonder if her lips lament me still,
In her enchanted castle on the hill?
Or has she yielded to that damned magician,
And with my pygmy rival weakly wedded?
O Jove! the torment of this bare suspicion
Preying forever on my heart, and like the Hydra headed!

IV.

O bitter day, when spells, like snakes uprearing,
Enwrapped my limbs, and, muscular as pliant,
Pinioned my struggling arms, until despairing
I lay upon the earth, a captured giant!

Then came the horror of this iron box,—
The closing of its huge enchanted locks;
Then the cursed wizard to the windy summit
Of the tall cape a coffered prisoner bore me,
And flung me off, until, like seaman's plummet,
I sank, and the drear ocean closed forever o'er me!

LOSS.

Stretched silver-spun the spider's nets;
The quivering sky was white with fire;
The blackbird's scarlet epaulettes
Reddened the hemlock's topmost spire.

The mountain, in his purple cloak,
His feet with misty vapors wet,
Lay dreamily, and seemed to smoke
All day his giant calumet.

From farm-house bells the noonday rung;
The teams that ploughed the furrows stopped;
The ox refreshed his lolling tongue,
And brows were wiped and spades were dropped;

And down the field the mowers stepped,
With burning brows and figures lithe,
As in their brawny hands they swept
From side to side the hissing scythe;

Till sudden ceased the noonday task,
The scythes 'mid swaths of grass lay still,
As girls with can and cider-flask
Came romping gayly down the hill.

And over all there swept a stream
Of subtile music, felt, not heard,
As when one conjures in a dream
The distant singing of a bird.

I drank the glory of the scene,
Its autumn splendor fired my veins;
The woods were like an Indian queen
Who gazed upon her old domains.

And ah! methought I heard a sigh
Come softly through her leafy lips;
A mourning over days gone by,
That were before the white man's ships.

And so I came to think on Loss,—
I never much could think on Gain;
A poet oft will woo a cross
On whom a crown is pressed in vain.

I came to think—I know not how,
Perchance through sense of Indian wrong—
Of losses of my own, that now
Broke for the first time into song;—

A fluttering strain of feeble words
That scarcely dared to leave my breast;
But like a brood of fledgling birds
Kept hovering round their natal nest.

‘O loss!’ I sang,—‘O early loss!
O blight that nipped the buds of spring!
O spell that turned the gold to dross!
O steel that clipped the untried wing!

‘I mourn all days, as sorrows he
Whom once they called a merchant prince
Over the ships he sent to sea,
And never, never heard of since.

‘To ye, O woods, the annual May
Restores the leaves ye lost before;
The tide that now forsakes the bay
This night will wash the widowed shore.

‘But I shall never see again
The shape that smiled upon my youth;
A mist of sorrow veils my brain,
And dimly looms the light of truth.

‘She faded, fading woods, like you!
And fleeting shone with sweeter grace;
And as she died, the colors grew
To softer splendor in her face.

‘Until one day the hectic flush
Was veiled with death's eternal snow;
She swept from earth amid a hush,
And I was left alone below!’

While thus I moaned I heard a peal
Of laughter through the meadows flow;
I saw the farm-boys at their meal,—
I saw the cider circling go.

And still the mountain calmly slept,
His feet with valley vapors wet;
And slowly circling upward crept
The smoke from out his calumet.

Mine was the sole discordant breath
That marred this dream of peace below.
‘O God!’ I cried, ‘give, give me death,
Or give me grace to bear thy blow!’

OUR CHRISTMAS-TREE.

O Madam Millionnaire,
So wealthy and so fair,
I know how rich and rare
Is your Christmas-tree.
There the ruddy apples swing,
And the gilded bonbons cling,
And 't is gaudy as a king
In some Indian sea.

A hundred tapers shine
In the foliage of the pine,
And gifts of rare design
Make the branches gay.
And in the outer room,
Decked with satin and with plume,
Like roses in their bloom,
Sweet children play.

But this very Christmas night,
When your home 's so warm and bright,
And your children's hearts are light
As the thistle's down,

I am sitting by my hearth,
With not a ray of mirth,
But a feeling as of dearth,
And, I fear, a frown.

For I'm very, very poor,
And the wolf is at my door,
And a shadow 's on my floor
That will not pass by;
But I do not envy you,
For my heart at least is true,
And, thank God, there are so few
As poor as I!

The weary mother sits
On a little stool, and knits,
While across her face there flits
Look sad to see.
Our eldest gravely sighs
With a face of sad surmise,
And our youngest darling cries
For her Christmas-tree.

So I hush the little one,
And talk cheerly to my son,
And try to make some fun
Out of Christmas-trees;
And I tell them how I 've planned
A tree more fine and grand
Than ever grew on land
Or by distant seas.

My tree is very high,—
For it reaches to the sky,
And sweet birds passing by
There fold their wings.
Its leaves are ever green,
With a wondrous glossy sheen,
And the summer wind serene
Around it sings.

And I 've hung upon my tree
A myriad gifts you see,
And all the world is free
To come and take.
There is love and gentle mirth,
There 's a happy home and hearth,
And “Peace to all on earth,”
For the Christ-child's sake.

There are sweet and soothing words
Melodious as the birds,
There is charity that herds
With the poor forlorn.
There are pardons for all wrongs,
And cheerful peasant songs,
And the virtue that belongs
To the country born.

There are merry marriage bells,
There 's the noble heart that swells
When first young nature tells
Of great manly hopes.

And underneath, alas!
A tiny wreath we pass,
That once withered on the grass
Of Greenwood's slopes.

So, Madam Millionnaire,
Your tree, I know, is fair,
But it can not quite compare
With this I see:
For heaven has blessed the shoots,
And fancy riped the fruits,
And my heart is round the roots
Of our Christmas-tree.

THE POT OF GOLD.

The sun flung wide its golden arms
Above the dripping woods of Maine,
And wove across the misty sky
The seven-dyed ribbon of the rain.

An old wife at the cottage door
Sat with her grandson by her knee,
And watched the rainbow belt the clouds
And span the world from sea to sea.

Then, in that quiet evening hour,
The wondering boy a tale she told,—
How he who sought the rainbow's foot
Would find beneath a pot of gold.

The eager boy drank in the tale,—
His eyes were filled with feverish fire;
And in his fluttering heart there leaped
A wild, impulsive, vague desire.

And as the gorgeous sun went down,
And from the skies the mists were rolled,
He stole with hurrying step away
To seek the wondrous pot of gold.

Through lonesome woods with whispering leaves,
That sung an endless forest hymn,
Where shadowy cat-birds wailed unseen,
And squirrels leaped from limb to limb,—

By rivers thundering to the sea,
By ragged hill and gloomy glen,
Through swamps where slept the sluggish air,
And by the pleasant homes of men,—

The strange boy wandered night and day,
His eyes still filled with quenchless fire;
While still within his heart there grew
That wild, impulsive, vague desire.

Men marvelled as he passed them by
With weary step and lagging pace;
And women, as they saw him, sighed
In pity for his childlike face.

And many asked why thus he went
O'er hill and flood, through heat and cold;
While he the steadfast answer made,
“I go to seek the pot of gold.”

And then they smiled, and told the boy
That many a youth that quest had tried,
And some had fainted by the way,
And all had failed, and most had died.

For never had the mystic goal
By any human foot been trod;
The secret of the rainbow's base
Was known but to its builder—God.

He heard, but heeded not: his eyes
Were fixed upon the horizon's brim.
What mattered to him others' fate,—
'T was not the fate in store for him.

And still the rainbow came and went,
And scarf-like hung about the sun;
And still the seeker's restless soul
Sang of the treasure to be won.

So went the time—till one dark day,
When flesh and blood could bear no more,
Haggard and pale he fainting fell
Close by the well-known cottage door.

With quivering lips he told his tale;
The pitying tears above him fell;
Once more around his couch he heard
The voices that he loved so well.

And soon a modest, mild-eyed man,
With quiet tones, stood at his side,
Telling a sweet, entrancing tale
Of One who suffered and who died;—

And talked about a treasure, too,
Through pain and suffering to be won,
That lay beyond the rainbow arch,—
Ay, and beyond the parent sun.

As the boy heard the simple words,
From out his eyes the fierce fire fled,
And straight an unseen presence wove
A calmer splendor round his head.

And so his young life ebbed away;
His heart was still, his limbs were cold;
But by the smile upon his face
They knew he 'd found the pot of gold!

MINOT'S LEDGE.

Like spectral hounds across the sky
The white clouds scud before the storm,
And naked in the howling night
The red-eyed lighthouse lifts its form.
The waves with slippery fingers clutch
The massive tower, and climb and fall,
And, muttering, growl with baffled rage
Their curses on the sturdy wall.

Up in the lonely tower he sits,
The keeper of the crimson light,—
Silent and awe-struck does he hear
The imprecations of the night.

The white spray beats against the panes,
Like some wet ghost that down the air
Is hunted by a troop of fiends,
And seeks a shelter anywhere.

He prays aloud—the lonely man—
For every soul that night at sea,
But more than all for that brave boy
Who used to gayly climb his knee,—
Young Charley, with the chestnut hair
And hazel eyes and laughing lip:
“May Heaven look down,” the old man cries,
“Upon my son, and on his ship!”

While thus with pious heart he prays,
Far in the distance sounds a boom:
He pauses, and again there rings
That sullen thunder through the room.
A ship upon the shoal to-night!
She cannot hold for one half-hour!
But clear the ropes and grappling-hooks,
And trust in the Almighty Power!

On the drenched gallery he stands,
Striving to pierce the solid night;
Across the sea the red eye throws
A steady wake of crimson light,
And where it falls upon the waves
He sees a human head float by,
With long, drenched curls of chestnut hair,
And wild but fearless hazel eye.

Out with the hooks! One mighty fling!
Adown the wind the long rope curls.
O, will it catch? Ah, dread suspense!
While the wild ocean wilder whirls.
A steady pull—it tautens now!
O, his old heart will burst with joy
As on the slippery rocks he drags
The breathing body of his boy.

Still sweep the spectres through the sky,
Still scud the clouds before the storm,
Still naked in the howling night
The red-eyed lighthouse lifts its form.
Without, the world is wild with rage,
Unkennelled demons are abroad,
But with the father and the son,
Within, there is the peace of God.

THE LEGEND OF EASTER EGGS.

Trinity bells with their hollow lungs,
And their vibrant lips and their brazen tongues,
Over the roofs of the city pour
Their Easter music with joyous roar,
Till the soaring notes to the sun are rolled
As he swings along in his path of gold.

“Dearest papa,” says my boy to me,
As he merrily climbs on his mother's knee,

“Why are these eggs that you see me hold
Colored so finely with blue and gold?
And what is the wonderful bird that lays
Such beautiful eggs upon Easter days?”

Tenderly shine the April skies,
Like laughter and tears in my child's blue eyes,
And every face in the street is gay,—
Why cloud this youngster's by saying nay?
So I cudgel my brains for the tale he begs,
And tell him this story of Easter eggs:—

You have heard, my boy, of the Man who died,
Crowned with keen thorns and crucified;
And how Joseph the wealthy—whom God reward!—
Cared for the corse of his martyred Lord,
And piously tombed it within the rock,
And closed the gate with a mighty block.

Now close by the tomb a fair tree grew,
With pendulous leaves, and blossoms of blue;
And deep in the green tree's shadowy breast
A beautiful singing bird sat on her nest,
Which was bordered with mosses like malachite,
And held four eggs of an ivory white.

Now when the bird from her dim recess
Beheld the Lord in his burial dress,
And looked on the heavenly face so pale,
And the dear hands pierced with the cruel nail,
Her heart nigh broke with a sudden pang,
And out of the depths of her sorrow she sang.

All night long till the moon was up
She sat and sang in her moss-wreathed cup,

A song of sorrow as wild and shrill
As the homeless wind when it roams the hill,
So full of tears, so loud and long,
That the grief of the world seemed turned to song.

But soon there came through the weeping night
A glittering angel clothed in white;
And he rolled the stone from the tomb away,
Where the Lord of the earth and the heavens lay;
And Christ arose in the cavern's gloom,
And in living lustre came from the tomb.

Now the bird that sat in the heart of the tree
Beheld this celestial mystery,
And its heart was filled with a sweet delight,
And it poured a song on the throbbing night;
Notes climbing notes, till higher, higher,
They shot to heaven like spears of fire.

When the glittering, white-robed angel heard
The sorrowing song of the grieving bird,
And, after, the jubilant pæan of mirth
That hailed Christ risen again on earth,
He said, “Sweet bird, be forever blest,
Thyself, thy eggs, and thy moss-wreathed nest!”

And ever, my child, since that blessed night,
When death bowed down to the Lord of light,
The eggs of that sweet bird change their hue,
And burn with red and gold and blue,
Reminding mankind in their simple way
Of the holy marvel of Easter day.

DOWN IN THE GLEN AT IDLEWILD.

The red moon, like a golden grape,
Hangs slowly ripening in the sky,
And o'er the helmets of the hills
Like plumes the summer lightnings fly.
The solemn pine-trees stoop above
The brook, that, like a sleeping child,
Lies babbling of its simple dreams
Down in the glen at Idlewild.

The red mill in the distance sleeps,—
The old mill that, when winter comes,
Wakes to a wild, spasmodic life,
And through the rocky channel hums.
And starry-flowered water-plants,
With myriad eyes of moistened light,
Peep coyly from their sheltered nooks,—
The shy companions of the night.

But brighter than the starry flowers
There shine a maiden's lustrous eyes,
And yellower shines her yellow hair
Than the full moon that floods the skies,
As where the waters kiss the cliff
She waits for him, the pearl of men,
And idly plucks the ivy leaves,
And listens, and then waits again.

She waits to hear the well-known call,
The echoes of the agile foot,
The bursting of the lacing boughs,
The crackling of the fragile root;

But ah! the path is steep and dark,
The jagged rocks lie far below;
And heaven must help the wight who slips,
Up where those treacherous mosses grow.

At last he comes! she hears his step!
But ah! what means that fearful crash?
Down the steep cliff a dark shape falls,—
From rock to rock she sees it dash.
Was it for this you waited long,
O loving heart! O hapless child!
Dead at her feet her lover lies,
Down in the glen at Idlewild!

WANTED—SAINT PATRICK.

I.

When Irish hills were fair and green,
And Irish fields were white with daisies,
And harvests, golden and serene,
Slept in the lazy summer hazes;
When bards went singing through the land
Their grand old songs of knightly story,
And hearts were found in every hand,
And all was peace, and love, and glory;—
'T was in those happy, happy days
When every peasant lived in clover,
And in the pleasant woodland ways
One never met the begging rover;

When all was honest, large, and true,
And naught was hollow or theatric;—
'T was in those days of golden hue
That Erin knew the great Saint Patrick.

II.

He came among the rustics rude
With shining robes and splendid crosier,
And swayed the listening multitude
As breezes sway the beds of osier.
He preached the love of man for man,
And moved the unlettered Celt with wonder,
Till through the simple crowd there ran
A murmur like repeated thunder.
He preached the grand Incarnate Word
By rock and ruin, hill and hollow,
Till warring princes dropped the sword
And left the fields of blood to follow.
For never yet did bardic song,
Though graced with harp and poet's diction,
With such strange charm enchain the throng
As that sad tale of crucifixion.

III.

Though fair the isle and brave the men,
Yet still a blight the land infested;
Green vipers darted through each glen,
And snakes within the woodlands nested;
And 'mid the banks where violets blew,
And on the slopes where bloomed the primrose,
Lurked spotted toads of loathsome hue,
And coiling, poisonous serpents grim rose.

Saint Patrick said: “The reptile race
Are types of human degradation;
From other ills I 've cleansed the place,
And now of these I'll rid the nation.”
He waved his crosier o'er his head,
And lo! each venomed thing took motion,
And toads and snakes and vipers fled
In terror to the circling ocean.

IV.

Why is Saint Patrick dead? or why
Does he not seek this soil to aid us?
To wave his mystic crook on high,
And rout the vermin that degrade us?
Our land is fertile, broad, and fair,
And should be fairer yet and broader;
But noxious reptiles taint the air,
And poison peace, and law, and order.
For murder stalks along each street,
And theft goes lurking through our alleys,—
What reptiles worse does traveller meet
On India's hills, in Java's valleys?
And when we see this gambling host,
That 'mongst us practise this and that trick,
One knows not which would serve us most,
The Goddess Justice or Saint Patrick!

THE PRIZE-FIGHT.

I.

Hammer and tongs! What have we here?
Let us approach, but not too near.
Two men standing breast to breast,
Head erect and arching chest;
Shoulders square and hands hard clenched,
And both their faces a trifle blenched.
Their lips are set in a smile so grim,
And sturdily set each muscular limb.
Round them circles a ring of rope,
Over them hangs the heavens' blue cope.
Why do they glare at each other so?
What! you really then don't know?
This is a prize-fight, gentle sir!
This is what makes the papers stir.
Talk of your ocean telegraph!
'T is n't so great an event by half,
As when two young men lusty and tall,
With nothing between them of hate or wrongs,
Come together to batter and maul,
Come to fight till one shall fall,—
Hammer and tongs!

II.

Round about is a bestial crowd,
Heavily-jawed and beetle-browed;
Concave faces, trampled in
As if with the iron hoof of sin;
Blasphemies dripping from off their lips,
Pistols bulging behind their hips;

Hands accustomed to deal the cards,
Or strike with the cowardly knuckle-guards.
Who are these ruffianly fellows, you say,
That taint the breath of this autumn day?
These are “the Fancy,” gentle sir.
The Fancy? What are they to her?
O, 't is their fancy to look at a fight,
To see men struggle, and gouge, and bite.
Bloody noses and bunged-up eyes,—
These are the things the Fancy prize.
And so they get men, lusty and tall,
With nothing between them of hate or wrongs,
To come together to batter and maul,
To come and fight till one shall fall,—
Hammer and tongs!

III.

Grandly the autumn forests shine,
Red as the gold in an Indian mine!
A dreamy mist, a vapory smoke,
Hangs round the patches of evergreen oak.
Over the broad lake shines the sun,—
The lake that Perry battled upon,—
Striking the upland fields of maize
That glow through the soft October haze.
Nature is tracing with languid hand
Lessons of peace over lake and land.
Ay! yet this is the tranquil spot
Chosen by bully, assassin, and sot
To pit two young men, lusty and tall,
With nothing between them of hate or wrongs,
One with the other, to batter and maul,
To tussle and fight till one shall fall,—
Hammer and tongs!

IV.

Their faces are rich with a healthy hue,
Their eyes are clear, and bright, and blue;
Every muscle is clean and fine,
And their blood is pure as the purest wine.
It is a pleasure their limbs to scan,—
Splendid types of the animal man,
Splendid types of that human grace,
The noblest that God has willed to trace,
Brought to this by science and art;
Trained, and nourished, and kept apart;
Cunningly fed on the wholesomest food,
Carefully watched in every mood;
Brought to this state, so noble and proud,
To savagely tussle before a crowd,—
To dim the light of the eyes so clear,
To mash the face to a bloody smear,
To maim, deface, and kill, if they can,
The glory of all creation,—Man!
This the task of those, lusty and tall,
With nothing between them of hate or wrongs,—
To bruise and wrestle, and batter and maul,
And fight till one or the other shall fall,—
Hammer and tongs!

V.

With feet firm planted upon the sand,
Face to face at “the scratch” they stand.
Feinting first—a blow—a guard!
Then some hitting, heavy and hard.
The round fist falls with a horrible thud;
Wherever it falls comes a spout of blood!

Blow after blow, fall after fall,
For twenty minutes they tussle and maul.
The lips of the one are a gory gash,
The others are knocked to eternal smash!
The bold, bright eyes are bloody and dim,
And, staggering, shivers each stalwart limb.
Faces glowing with stupid wrath,
Hard breaths breathed through a bloody froth;
Blind and faint, they rain their blows
On cheeks like jelly and shapeless nose;
While the concave faces around the rope
Darken with panic or light with hope,
Till one fierce brute, with a terrible blow,
Lays the other poor animal low.
Are these the forms so noble and proud,
That, kinglike, towered above the crowd?
Where are the faces so healthy and fresh?
There! those illegible masses of flesh!
Thus we see men lusty and tall,
Who, with nothing between them of hate or wrongs,
Will bruise and batter, and tussle and maul,
And fight till one or the other shall fall,—
Hammer and tongs!

VI.

Trainers, backers, and betters all,—
Who teach young men to tussle and maul,
And spend their muscle, and blood, and life,
Given for good, in a loathsome strife,—
I know what the Devil will do for you,
You pistolling, bullying, cowardly crew!
He'll light up his furnaces red and blue,
And treat you all to a roast and stew;

O, he'll do you up, and he'll do you brown,
On pitchforks cleft into mighty prongs,
While chuckling fiends your agonies crown
By stirring you up and keeping you down
With hammer and tongs!

THE SONG OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.

I.

Fast through the sombre pine-forests I flash,
Pounding the track with monotonous crash,
Lighting the gloom with a comet-like glare,
Thrilling with noises unearthly the air,
Startling the turkey and coon from their sleep,—
Mighty with motion, resistless I sweep.
Bong! Bong!
Smashing along!
I lighten my road with a bit of a song!

II.

O, I can sing, though of iron my throat,
And discordant my wild, supernatural note!
And the song that I sing is of danger and dread,
The midnight collision, the quivering dead;
The power imperial that nothing can stay;
The myriad of perils that lurk by the way.
Bong! Bong!
Crashing along!
I shorten the road with a bit of a song!

III.

Ho there, old stoker! who think you control
This iron-ribbed animal, body and soul;
Why, one pant of my lungs and one heave of my flank
Would flash you down yonder precipitous bank;
So don't be too proud of your muscle and bones,
For sixty feet down there are horrible stones!
Ding! Dong!
Bumping along!
Don't think that I'm singing your funeral song!

IV.

For I know that behind me I carry a treasure,
And it thrills through my nerves with a singular pleasure.
There the bride by her newly-wed husband reposes,
And the bronze of his cheek is faint flushed by her roses;
And the pale mother sits with her babe at her bosom,
Like a lily that just has unfolded a blossom.
Bong! Bong!
Gently along!
Soft as the winds of the summer my song!

V.

But away with all sentiment! I am a steed
That lives on the wild inspiration of speed!
I feed upon distance, I grapple with space;
My soul is a furnace,—my life is a race;
The long prairie shakes with my thunderous tread,
And my dissonance curdles the air overhead!
Bong! Bong!
Madly along!
The mountains I split with reverberant song!

VI.

Yet sometimes I think, when I'm housed for the night,
I may live to behold the decay of my might;
For not far from my stable I often behold
A decrepit old Loco, once gallant and bold;
Now his piston is gouty, his boiler is “bust,”
And the gold of his harness is eaten with rust.
Ding! Dong!
Rotting so long,
With never a mouthful of coals, or a song!

VII.

O, better to die in the hour of my pride!
Far better to perish in tunnel or tide!
Ha! what red light is this that 's advancing amain?
'T is my rival returning,—the haughty down train!
Clear the track! I'm upon you! Hurrah! what a smash!
There, old fellow, I think I have settled your hash!
Bong! Bong!
Slowly along!
I'm rather too crippled to finish my song!

IRISH CASTLES.

‘Sweet Norah, come here and look into the fire;
Maybe in its embers good luck we might see;
But don't come too near, or your glances so shining
Will put it clean out, like the sunbeams, machree!

‘Just look 'twixt the sods, where so brightly they're burning:
There 's a sweet little valley, with river and trees,
And a house on the bank quite as big as the squire's,—
Who knows but some day we'll have something like these?

‘And now there 's a coach and four galloping horses,
A coachman to drive, and a footman behind;
That betokens some day we will keep a fine carriage,
And dash through the streets with the speed of the wind.’

As Dermot was speaking, the rain down the chimney
Soon quenched the turf-fire on the hollowed hearth-stone,
While mansion and carriage in smoke-circles vanished,
And left the poor dreamers dejected and lone.

Then Norah to Dermot these words softly whispered:
‘'T is better to strive than to vainly desire;
And our little hut by the roadside is better
Than palace, and servants, and coach—in the fire!’

'T is years since poor Dermot his fortune was dreaming,
Since Norah's sweet counsel effected his cure:
For ever since then hath he toiled night and morning,
And now his snug mansion looks down on the Suir.

LOCH INE.

I know a lake where the cool waves break,
And softly fall on the silver sand;
And no steps intrude on that solitude,
And no voice save mine disturbs the strand:

And a mountain bold, like a giant of old,
Turned to stone by some magic spell,
Uprears in might his misty height,
And his craggy sides are wooded well.

In the midst doth smile a little isle,
And its verdure shames the emerald's green:
On its grassy side, in ruined pride,
A castle of old is darkling seen.

On its lofty crest the wild crane's nest;
In its halls the sheep good shelter find;
And the ivy shades where a hundred blades
Were hung, when the owners in sleep reclined.

That chief of old, could he now behold
His lordly tower a shepherd's pen,
His corpse, long dead, from its narrow bed
Would rise, with anger and shame, again.

'T is sweet to gaze when the sun's bright rays
Are cooling themselves in the trembling wave;
But 't is sweeter far when the evening star
Shines like a smile at friendship's grave.

There the hollow shells through their wreathed cells
Make music on the silent shore,
As the summer breeze, through the distant trees,
Murmurs in fragrant breathings o'er.

And the sea-weed shines like the hidden mines,
Or the fairy cities beneath the sea;
And the wave-washed stones are bright as the thrones
Of the ancient kings of Araby.

If it were my lot in that fairy spot
To live forever and dream 't were mine,
Courts might woo and kings pursue
Ere I would leave thee, loved Loch Ine.

AN APRIL DAY.

This was the day—a year ago—
When first I saw her, sauntering slow
Over the meadow and down the lane,
Where the privet was shining with recent rain.

The world had flung its torpor away,
And breathed the pure air of the April day;
The sap was pulsing through maple-trees,
And the rivers were rushing to meet the seas.

All the secret thrills that through nature run,
Silent and swift as the threads of the sun,
Shook with their tremors each growing thing,
And worked with the mystic charms of spring.

Like ghosts at the resurrection day,
The snowdrops arose from the torpid clay,
And the violets opened their purple eyes,
And smiled in the face of the tender skies.

The larch-trees were covered with crimson buds
Till their branches seemed streaming with sanguine floods;
And the ivy looked faded, and old, and sere,
'Mid the greenness that sprouted everywhere.

But though the landscape was passing bright
Her coming lent it a rarer light;
A tenderer verdure was on the grass,
And flowers grew brighter to see her pass.

Her form and face, as she moved along,
Seemed like a sweet, incarnate song,—
A living hymn that the earth, in glee,
Sung to heaven, the sun, and me.

So seemed she to me a year ago,
When first I saw her, sauntering slow
Over the meadow and down the lane,
Where the privet shone with the April rain.

The year is past—entombed—forgot:
I stand to-day on the selfsame spot:
Still do the pallid snowdrops rise,
And the violets open their purple eyes:

And a coming greenness is in the lane,
And the privet glistens with recent rain;
The larches sprout, and the blue-birds sing,
And the earth resounds with the joy of spring!

But the joy of the world is gone from me;
I see no beauty in field or tree;
The flower that bloomed in my path is crushed;
The music that solaced my life is hushed.

I see her tombstone from where I stand,—
Stark and stiff, like a ghastly hand
Pointing to heaven, as if to say,
There we shall meet, some April day!

JOHNNY.

I care not how you have been blest—
No maiden ever yet possessed
A lover like my lover.
His eyes were of a dancing blue;
His chestnut hair was just the hue
That flecks the golden plover.

'T was on a dreamy night in June,
When earth and heaven throbbed in tune,
That first he told his passion.
Together we were sauntering down
The lonely road that led to town,
In most romantic fashion.

He took my hand in his, and placed
His other arm about my waist;
His heart went clicky clacket.
And 'midst an incoherent flow
Of protestations deep and low,
He pressed me to—his jacket.

I eight and twenty years had seen,
And Johnny was not quite thirteen;
Yet justice I must render:
'Mid all the swains I 've had since then—
And some of them were charming men—
I ne'er had one more tender.

He swore he loved me more than life;
He 'd die if I were not his wife;
I was his only jewel;
He dreamed of me by day and night;
I was his sun, his star, his light,—
In fact, all kinds of fuel.

I dared not let him see the smile
That glimmered on my lips the while
He madly was entreating;
For worlds I would not cause to smart
The honest, manly little heart
That in his breast was beating.

Then he—ah! cunning little Jack—
Rehearsed a speech from Telemaque—
A fact he did not mention;
While I, with half-averted face,
Kept listening, with the utmost grace
And most profound attention.

He wished to fly to some far isle
Where summer skies forever smile,
And fruits are in profusion;
And there, away from haunts of men,
We 'd live the golden age again,
In exquisite seclusion.

The sun of love our days should gild,
And stalwart he would straightway build
A beautiful pavilion;
And we would live on deer and fish,
With grapes as much as we could wish,
And kisses by the million.

I listened gravely to his plan—
The loving, noble little man—
So earnest and so funny;
Then hinted that to reach this haunt
Of wedded bliss, why, we might want
A little ready money.

The blow was fatal: Johnny's face
Grew solemn at a fearful pace,
And silently we parted.
I went my way: he went to bed
Revolving finance in his head,
And nearly broken-hearted.

I need not say we did not fly
To that eternal summer sky,
So far across the water.
I hear no more of Telemaque,—
For I, in short, may say that Jack
Is married to my daughter.

THE SKATERS.

Like clouds they scud across the ice,
His hand holds hers as in a vice;
The moonlight strikes the back-blown hair
Of handsome Madge and Rupert Clare.

The ice resounds beneath the steel;
It groans to feel his spurning steel;
While ever with the following wind
A shadowy skater flits behind.

‘Why skate we thus so far from land?
O Rupert Clare, let go my hand!
I cannot see—I cannot hear—
The wind about us moans with fear!’

His hand is stiffer than a vice,
His touch is colder than the ice,
His face is paler than the moon
That paves with light the lone lagoon!

‘O Rupert Clare, I feel—I trace
A something awful in your face!
You crush my hand—you sweep me on—
Until my breath and sense are gone!’

His grasp is stiffer than a vice,
His touch is colder than the ice;
She only hears the ringing tune
Of skates upon the lone lagoon.

‘O Rupert Clare! sweet Rupert Clare!
For heaven's mercy hear my prayer!
I could not help my heart you know!
Poor Willy Gray,—he loves me so!’

His grip is stiffer than a vice,
His lip is bluer than the ice;
While ever thrills the ringing tune
Of skates along the lone lagoon.

‘O Rupert Clare! where are your eyes?
The rotten ice before us lies!
You dastard! Loose your hold, I say!—
O God! Where are you, Willy Gray?’

A shriek that seems to split the sky,—
A wilder light in Rupert's eye,—
She cannot—cannot loose that grip;
His sinewy arm is round her hip!

But like an arrow on the wind
The shadowy skater scuds behind;
The lithe ice rises to the stroke
Of steel-shod heels that seem to smoke.

He hurls himself upon the pair;
He tears his bride from Rupert Clare;
His fainting Madge, whose moist eyes say,
Ah! here, at last, is Willy Gray!

The lovers stand with heart to heart,—
‘No more,’ they cry, ‘no more to part!’
But still along the lone lagoon
The steel skates ring a ghostly tune!

And in the moonlight, pale and cold,
The panting lovers still behold
The self-appointed sacrifice
Skating toward the rotten ice!

THE DEMON OF THE GIBBET.

There was no west, there was no east,
No star abroad for eye to see;
And Norman spurred his jaded beast
Hard by the terrible gallows-tree.

‘O Norman, haste across this waste,—
For something seems to follow me!’
‘Cheer up, dear Maud, for, thanked be God,
We nigh have passed the gallows-tree!’

He kissed her lip: then—spur and whip!
And fast they fled across the lea!
But vain the heel and rowel steel,—
For something leaped from the gallows-tree!

‘Give me your cloak, your knightly cloak,
That wrapped you oft beyond the sea;
The wind is bold, my bones are old,
And I am cold on the gallows-tree.’

‘O holy God! O dearest Maud,
Quick, quick, some prayers,—the best that be!
A bony hand my neck has spanned,
And tears my knightly cloak from me!’

‘Give me your wine,—the red, red wine,
That in the flask hangs by your knee!
Ten summers burst on me accurst,
And I'm athirst on the gallows-tree.’

‘O Maud, my life! my loving wife!
Have you no prayer to set us free?
My belt unclasps,—a demon grasps
And drags my wine-flask from my knee!’

‘Give me your bride, your bonnie bride,
That left her nest with you to flee!
O, she hath flown to be my own,
For I'm alone on the gallows-tree!’

‘Cling closer, Maud, and trust in God!
Cling close!—Ah, heaven, she slips from me!’—
A prayer, a groan, and he alone
Rode on that night from the gallows-tree.

THE WHARF RAT.

I.

The wharf is silent and black, and motionless lie the ships;
The ebb-tide sucks at the piles with its cold and slimy lips;
And down through the tortuous lane a sailor comes singing along,
And a girl in the Gallipagos isles is the burden of his song.

II.

Behind the white cotton bales a figure is crouching low;
It listens with eager ears, as the straggling footsteps go.
It follows the singing sailor, stealing upon his track,
And when he reaches the river-side, the wharf rat 's at his back.

III.

A man is missing next day, and a paragraph tells the fact;
But the way he went, or the road he took, will never, never be tracked!
For the lips of the tide are dumb, and it keeps such secrets well,
And the fate of the singing sailor boy the wharf rat alone can tell.

THE HAVELOCK.

On southern uplands I was born,
Kissed by the lips of the golden morn;
Strong, and tall, and straight was I,
And my white plumes danced as the wind went by,
Till the hills above and the vales below
Seemed drowned in a mist of drifting snow.

But by and by my plumes were stripped
By negroes lusty and dusky-lipped,
And they bore me off to a darksome mill,
With jaws and teeth that never were still;
And there I was mangled and whirled about,
Till it chewed me up and it spat me out.

Bagged and bound with canvas and rope,
I hung on the edge of a dizzy slope,
Till I saw the panting steamer glide
Close to the edge of the terrible slide,
When they pushed me over and let me go,
And swift as a bullet I plunged below.

So down the river they bore me then,
And passed me over to trading men,
And bartered me off, and shipped me to sea,
From the crowded wharf of the long levee;
And so we sailed for many a day,
Till the mud of the Mersey around us lay.

Through dingy factories then I passed,
Where flickered the shuttle flashing fast;
And British fingers all wan and thin
With labor, and hunger, and drink, and sin,
Twisted my threads, in the fetid gloom,
And wove them close on the whirring loom.

So back to my country I came again,
Fit for the uses of busy men;
And the time went by, till one summer day
In a beautiful maiden's lap I lay,
While with scissors, and thimble, and needle, and thread,
She fashioned me thus for a soldier's head.

For the light of battle was in the sky,
And the armed thousands were hurrying by,
And the brawny farmer and slender clerk
Were side by side in the holy work;
For a wondrous fire through the people ran,—
Through maid, and woman, and child, and man.

Ah! 't was a tender and sorrowful day
When the soldier lover went marching away;
For that selfsame morn he had called her bride,
As they stood at the altar side by side;
Then with one long kiss and a hushed good-by
He went with his comrades to do or die!

To-day I am on the selfsame earth
That nourished my parents and gave me birth;
But the waving snow is no longer there,
And muskets flash in the sunlit air,
And the hillside shakes with the heavy tramp
Of the hostile armies from camp to camp.

And the head that I cover is thinking now
Of the fair hands that placed me upon his brow,
And wonders whether, in the coming fight
That will redden these southern slopes to-night,
I shall safely ride through the stormy fray,
Or ownerless lie in the crimson clay.

And northward far, at the selfsame time
That he dreaming stands in this sunny clime,
The hands that made me are raised in prayer,
And her voice ascends through the silent air;
And if pureness and goodness have power to charm,
The head that I cover is safe from harm.

THE COUNTERSIGN.

Alas! the weary hours pass slow,
The night is very dark and still,
And in the marshes far below
I hear the bearded whippoorwill.
I scarce can see a yard ahead,
My ears are strained to catch each sound;
I hear the leaves about me shed,
And the springs bubbling through the ground.

Along the beaten path I pace,
Where white rags mark my sentry's track;
In formless shrubs I seem to trace
The foeman's form with bending back.
I think I see him crouching low,
I stop and list—I stoop and peer—
Until the neighboring hillocks grow
To groups of soldiers far and near.

With ready piece I wait and watch,
Until my eyes, familiar grown,
Detect each harmless earthen notch,
And turn guerillas into stone.
And then amid the lonely gloom,
Beneath the weird old tulip-trees,
My silent marches I resume,
And think on other times than these.

Sweet visions through the silent night!
The deep bay-windows fringed with vine,

The room within, in softened light,
The tender, milk-white hand in mine;
The timid pressure, and the pause
That ofttimes overcame our speech,—
That time when by mysterious laws
We each felt all in all to each.

And then that bitter, bitter day,
When came the final hour to part,
When, clad in soldier's honest gray,
I pressed her weeping to my heart.
Too proud of me to bid me stay,
Too fond of me to let me go,—
I had to tear myself away,
And left her stolid in her woe.

So comes the dream—so fleets the night—
When distant in the darksome glen,
Approaching up the sombre height,
I hear the solid march of men;
Till over stubble, over sward,
And fields where gleams the golden sheaf,
I see the lantern of the guard
Advancing with the night relief.

“Halt! who goes there?” my challenge cry:
It rings along the watchful line.
“Relief!” I hear a voice reply.
“Advance, and give the countersign!”
With bayonet at the charge, I wait,
The corporal gives the mystic spell;
With arms at port I charge my mate,
And onward pass, and all is well.

But in the tent that night awake,
I think, if in the fray I fall,
Can I the mystic answer make
When the angelic sentries call?
And pray that heaven may so ordain,
That when I near the camp divine,
Whate'er my travail or my pain,
I yet may have the countersign.

Camp Cameron, July, 1861.

THE ZOUAVES.

To bugle-note and beat of drum
They come,—the gallant Zouaves come!
With gleams of blue and glints of red;
With airy, light, elastic tread;
With dashing, wild, insouciant air;
With figures sinewy, lithe, and spare;
With gait replete with fiery grace;
With cloudless eye and boyish face,
And agile play of feet and hands,
Swift as a Bedouin of the sands,
They come,—the gay Zouaves!

Lo! as they file along the green,
I seem to see the Algerine!
The marble piles of building fade,
And the vast desert, without shade—
Save where the oasis uplifts
Its green plumes 'mid the sandy drifts—

Stretches before my dazzled sight
While, rising o'er a distant height,
On lean, swift steeds, with slender spears,
The sallow Arab troop appears,
To chase the French Zouaves!

They slope along the gold-red sand;
Their keen eyes sweep the sky and land;
The lean steeds snuff the desert wind;
The watchful vulture soars behind,
But nothing moves upon the plain;
The keen eyes search the sands in vain.
Before, behind, and left and right,
A sandy ripple meets the sight:
Not even these black-eyed devils know
That, nigh yon sand-hill, lying low,
Are crouched the brave Zouaves!

Four puffs of smoke that seem to float
From out the earth,—a crackling note,—
Four saddles emptied in the troop!
Then, wild and shrill the Arab whoop,
And, spurring with the stirruped feet,
And dashing of the coursers fleet,
And then—four puffs of smoke once more,
Four saddles emptied as before.
In vain their Allah they invoke,—
With pertinacious puffs of smoke
Reply the brave Zouaves!

Out of the earth, like Genii, rise
The red Zouaves with flashing eyes,
And on the sallow Arab troop
Like hawks upon a bird they swoop,

With bayonet keen, with murderous gun,
With curious, planned, erratic run,
With sudden fall upon the sand,
With quick deploy, with gun in hand:
Thus like a meteor of the skies,
Vivid with red and blue, arise
The dauntless French Zouaves!

Over the tawny sands they fly,
Now seem they far, now seem they nigh.
They fire and fall, they fall and fire,
They scud on limbs of sinewy wire;
In each manœuvre seeming wild,
Each soldier 's docile as a child;
And even the fleetest Arab finds
A foe that 's fleeter than the winds.
Thus, outmanœuvred and outsped,
He turns and hides his haughty head
Before the French Zouaves!

Your Zouave corps, O haughty France!
We looked on as a wild romance,
And many a voice was heard to scoff
At Algiers and at Malakoff;
Nor did we Yankees credit quite
Their evolutions in the fight.
But now we 're very sure what they
Have done can here be done to-day,
When thus before our sight deploys
The gallant corps from Illinois,—
American Zouaves!

A SOLDIER'S LETTER.

January 20, 1862.

With the head of a drum for my desk, I sit on a southern slope,
While the sunlight streaks the apples that hang in the orchard hard by,
And puzzle my brains over verses and many a marvellous trope,
And vainly seek inspiration from out the sky.
What can I tell you now that you have not known before?
How dearly I love you, Mary, and how hard the parting was,
And how bravely you kissed my lips when we stood at the open door,
And blessed me for going with heart and hand in the cause!
O, sweet as a lily flushed with the red of the roses near
When beat by the hot, implacable sun above,
Was the hue of your angel face, as tear after tear
Rose to your ivory eyelids and welled with love!

War is not quite so hard as you poor townspeople think;
We have plenty of food to eat, and a good, warm blanket at night,
And now and then, you know, a quiet, moderate drink;
Which does n't hurt us, dearest, and makes things right.
But the greatest blessing of all is the total want of care;

The happy, complete reliance of the carefully-guardianed child
Who has no thought for his dinner, and is given good clothes to wear,
And whose leisure moments are with innocent sports beguiled.
The drill of the soldier is pleasant, if one works with a willing heart,
It is only the worthless fellow that grumbles at double-quick;
I like the ingenious manœuvres that constitute war an art,
And not even the cleaning of arms can make me sick.

One of the comrades five that sleep in the tent with me
Is a handsome, fair-faced boy, with curling, sun-burned hair;
Like me, he has left a sweetheart on the shore of the northern sea,
And, like her I love, he says she also is good and fair.
So we talk of our girls at night when the other chaps are asleep,—
Talk in the sacred whispers that are low with the choke of love,—
And often when we are silent I think I can hear him weep,
And murmur her name in accents that croon like the nesting dove.
Then, when we are out on picket, and the nights are calm and still,
When our beats lie close together, we pause and chatter the same;
And the weary hours pass swiftly, till over the distant hill
The sun comes up unclouded and fierce with flame.

The scene that I look on is lovely! The cotton-fields smooth and white,
With the bending negroes shelling the flocculent, bursting pods,
And the quiet sentinels slowly pacing the neighboring height,
And now and then hidden by groups of the golden-rods.
Beautiful are the isles that mottle the slumberous bay;
Beautiful are the azure veins of the creeks;
Beautiful is the crimson that, far away,
Burns on the woods like the paint on an Indian's cheeks!
Beautiful are the thoughts of the time when—Hist!
What sound is that I hear? 'T is the rifle's continuous crack!
The long-roll beats to arms! I must not—cannot be missed.
Dear love, I'll finish this letter when I come back.

January 30.

Don't be startled, my darling, at this handwriting not being mine:
I have been a little ill, and the comrade I spoke of before
Has kindly offered to take from my loving lips this line;
So he holds, as you see, the pen I can hold no more.
That was a skirmish that came, as I wrote to you, out on the hill;
We had sharp fighting a while, and I lost my arm.
There! don't cry, my darling!—it will not kill,
And other poor fellows there met greater harm.
I have my left arm still to fold you close to my heart,
All the strength of my lost one will pass into that, I know;
We soon shall be together, never, never to part,
And to suffer thus for your country is bliss, not woe!

THE PRISONER OF WAR.

As I lie in my cot at night, and look through the open door,
And watch the silken sky that is woven with threads of stars,
While the white tents sleep on the field like sheep on a tawny moor,
And the hushed streets traverse the camp like dusky bars,
I think of my comrade afar, lying down in a southern cell,
With his life on a paper lot and a loving heart on his life,
And my blood boils up in my veins, and I feel like a fiend of hell,
And I long to vent my hate and my rage in strife.

I loved him with all my love; loved him even as well as she
Whose hair he carried away in a locket close to his heart;
I remember how jealous I felt when under the sycamore-tree,
The night ere the regiment started, I saw them part.
We had been chums together,—had studied and drank in tune;
The joy or the grief that struck him rebounded also on me,—

As his joy arose mine followed, as waters follow the moon,
And his tears found their way to my heart as a stream to the sea.

I sing the irregular song of a soul that is bursting with pain!
There is no metre for sorrow, no rhythm for real despair:
Go count the feet of the wind as it tramples the naked plain,
Or mimic the silent sadness of snow in the air!
I cannot control my heart, nor my innate desire of song,
I only know that a wild and impetuous grief,
A fierce, athletic, vengeful feeling of wrong,
Beats at my brain to-night and must have relief!

Spite of all I do to crush it, his sorrowful face will come,
Come with its awful framework of interlaced bars and stone,
And out of his patient visage, and lips that are terribly dumb,
I hear the imprisoned whisper, “I am alone!”
Solitude thus for him, the life and soul of his throng;
Whose wit electric wakened the sluggish board;
Whose voice, though sweet in converse, was sweeter still in song;
Whose heart like a cornucopia always poured!

I mind me when by the Charles River we twain have walked,
Close to the elms so hallowed in unwritten song,
And over the college topics gravely pondered and talked,
With devious student ideas of right and wrong.

Ah! the river flows there in its usual placid way;
The wherries are moored at the boat-house, the elm-trees leaf and fall,
But there is not a voice that now could make the old college gay,
His dusty cap and his gown are worth them all.

How can he be a prisoner there when I have him here in my heart?
Closer I hold his image than they in the south hold him;
It is wrapped and corded with fibres that never, never will part,
And shrined in love and friendship instead of a dungeon grim.
Up on the fatal bluff where the gallant Baker fell,
And the foe, insidious, fired from thicket, and copse, and tree,—
There, after fighting long, and bravely, and well,
The friend of my heart was cut off as a stream by the sea!

Lying here in my tent at night, and looking out at the door,
It is I who am the prisoner, not you, O beloved friend!
It is I who feel the shackles, and the prick of the healing sore,
And all the prison sufferings without end.
I see the mocking faces all day through the windows stare,—
I know they are staring at you, but they sneeringly lower on me,—
And I swear an oath as sacred as a soldier ever can swear
That I will be with you there, or you will be free!

In Camp, December, 1861.

WINTER.

Cold wind, white snow,
Sweeps fast, falls slow,
And chills the landscape's autumn glow;
The ice-bolts freeze
The naked trees,
And seal the old year's obsequies.

A leaden sky
Droops heavily,
As dull and glazed as dead man's eye;
The sweeping clouds,
In cold, cold crowds,
Enfold the day with ghostly shrouds.

The woods lie bare,
And here and there
The gray moss hangs its mournful hair;
The leaves sun-burned,
By fierce winds spurned,
Lie mouldering 'mid the soil inurned.

The leafless lines
Of trailing vines
Stretch, harp-like, through the sounding pines;
From their festoons
Float wailing croons,
As weird and grim as northern runes.

The day is cold,
The earth is old,
And mourns her summer's squandered gold;
The birds are dumb,
The springs are numb,
For winter in his might has come.

THE SEWING BIRD.

I.

A chimney's shadow, flung by the sun
As it sank in the west when the day was done,
Silent and dark as the noiseless bat
Crept through the room where the work-girl sat,—
Where she sat all day at her poor pine table,
Working, as long as her hands were able,
On shirt and collar and chemisette,
On gowns of silk and on veils of net,
Till her busy fingers seemed to be
A skeleton kind of machinery.
The table was strewn with threads of silk,
With pearly buttons that shone like milk,
With gaudy stuffs of a thousand dyes,
And beads that gleamed in the gloom like eyes;
While in the midst of these beautiful things
Glimmered a Sewing Bird's silver wings.
But the blankets that lay on her bed were poor,
And cracks were plain in the crazy door,
The roof was low and the floor was old,
And the work-girl shivered as if a-cold;

And to judge by the veins in her wan white hand,
She did not live on the fat of the land.

II.

Now when the shadow crept through the room,
Filling the place with a cheerless gloom,
So that the weary work was stopped,
Her thin, mechanical hands she dropped,
And gazed at the wall so bare and bald,
Where the shadowy feet of the twilight crawled.
If at that moment she dreamed at all,
Or peopled with visions the cold, white wall,
She thought perhaps of that one bright day,
In the month of June or the month of May,
When, rich with the savings of many a week,
She felt fresh winds blow over her cheek,
As, with friends as poor and lowly as she,
She caught her first glimpse of the calm, blue sea,
Or roamed by copses or sunny lea,
And learned how bright the world could be.
But I doubt if the poor are rich in dreams,
Or build fine castles by golden streams;
For want, like frost-bite, kills the grain
That Fancy sows in the teeming brain,
And it is not every dreamy stare
That is filling with fairies the twilight air.

III.

Yet still she sat, and, it may be, dreamed—
I hope so—until there suddenly seemed
To sweep through the room a rustle of wings,
With a tinkling as if of silver rings,

And then a low and a soaring song,
That every instant grew more strong.
She looked at wall and window and floor,
She peered through the gloom at the crazy door;
Nothing was visible anywhere,
Yet still the song was thrilling the air;
Then she turned her eyes to the table of pine,
And saw something shiver and dimly shine;
And lo! from the midst of the shreds of silk,
And the pearly buttons that shone like milk,
There came the song of the silver rings,
And the gleam and flutter of shining wings;
As up from the table the Sewing Bird sprang,
While singing it soared, and soaring it sang:—

“Follow me up and follow me down,
Hither and thither, through all the town;
For there are lessons that must be taught,
And there are changes that must be wrought,
And there are wrongs that the world shall know,—
So follow, follow, where'er I go!”

IV.

Then the work-girl rose from her rickety chair,
And opened the door that led on the stair,
While swift overhead the Sewing Bird flew,
And carolled and fluttered as if it knew
That it led her spirit in threads as strong
As the chains of love or the poet's song;
While ever there rang through the corridor hollow
The silvery strain of “Follow! Follow!”

V.

So down the avenue of Broadway,
Where the lamp-light shone like an amber day,
The Sewing Bird led the maiden along,
To the airy tune of its fairy song.
They came to a palace ornate and tall,
With marble pillars and marble wall,
And windows of glass so large and clear
That the panes seemed lucid as atmosphere.
The work-girl stopped as the crowd went by,
And gazed through the windows with wistful eye;
For the walls were splendid with paint and gold,
The couches were fit for the Sybarites old,
And the floor was soft with the Brussels woof,
And flowery frescos ran over the roof,
While a delicate radiance from globes of glass
Fell soft as sunlight upon the grass.

VI.

Who are the princes—the work-girl thought—
That dwell in this palace by Genii wrought?
She looked, and beheld some dozen or ten
Young and excessively nice young men;
Their faces were beardless, rosy, and fair,
An astonishing curl was in their hair,
Their feet were squeezed into shiny boots,
Their nails were pink, and white at the roots,
Their hands were as taper, their limbs as fine,
As an Arab maiden's in Palestine;
Their waistcoats were miracles to behold,
Ribbed with velvet and flecked with gold;

And perfect rivers of watch-chain ran
Over the breast of each nice young man.
But you could not see in a single face
Of courage or manhood the faintest trace;
Through every feature the sentiment ran,
“If you please, I would rather not be a man!”
One of them sat in an easy chair,
With smirking, impudent, indolent air,
Blandly explaining, with smile serene,
The merits of Cantator's sewing-machine;
While others lounged through the gorgeous room,
Diffusing the odors of Lubin's perfume,
Or gossiping over the last new play,
Or their “spree” last week—and “Was n't it gay?”
But the crowd at the windows thought them sublime
And wished that they had such an easy time.
As the work-girl gazed at this splendid array
Of Cantator's youths on show in Broadway,
She gathered her shawl round her wasted form,
While her breath congealed on the window-panes warm,
And sighed, “Ah me! ah me! ah me!
This is the place where I should be!”

VII.

Then the Sewing Bird swelled his silvery throat,
And trilled through the air his crystalline note:—
“Follow me up and follow me down,
Hither and thither, through all the town;
For there are still more splendid marts,
That never will warm the work-girls' hearts,
And the lesson is still to be fully learned
How woman's pittance by man is earned!”

VIII.

'T was a vast, majestic dry-goods store,
Into whose portals from every shore
Came cashmeres, satins, and silks, and shawls,
To flood the counters and fill the halls:
There Paris sent its delicate gloves,
With mantles, “Such beauties!” and bonnets, “Such loves!”
And China yielded from primitive looms
Its silks shot over with changeable blooms,
While India's golden tissues blent
With camel's-hair from the Syrian's tent.
At each counter was something,—not man, not boy,—
A sort of effeminate hobbledehoy,
And over the laces it simpered and smiled,
And blandly each feminine idiot beguiled
With “Charmingest fashion!” and “Is n't it sweet?”
“Just allow me to show you—remarkably neat!”
“No pattern is like it—on honor—in town,
Just becomes your complexion,—shall I put it down?”
And its frippery fingers went dabbling through tapes,
And its glozing discourse was of trimmings and capes,
And to see its expressionless eyes you 'd have thought
That its soul, like its tapes, had been long ago bought.
As the work-girl gazed on this muscleless crew,
Who were doing the things she was suited to do,
She sighed, “Ah me! ah me! ah me!
This is the place where I should be!”

IX.

Then the Sewing Bird swelled his silvery throat,
And uttered a piercing, reverberant note:—

“Follow me here, and follow me there,
Out through the free-blowing mountain air,
Up to the heart of the healthy hill,
Deep in the heart of the backwoods still;
For the lesson still remains for you—
To show you the labor that men should do.”

X.

Up in a wild Californian Hill,
Where the torrents swept with a mighty will,
And the grandeur of nature filled the air,
And the cliffs were lofty, rugged, and bare,
Some thousands of lusty fellows she saw
Obeying the first great natural law.
From the mountain's side they had scooped the earth
Down to the veins where the gold had birth,
And the mighty pits they had girdled about
With ramparts massive, and wide, and stout;
And they curbed the torrents, and swept them round
Wheresoever they willed, through virgin ground.
They rocked huge cradles the livelong day,
And shovelled the heavy, tenacious clay,
And grasped the nugget of gleaming ore,
The sinew of commerce on every shore.
Their beards were rough and their eyes were bright,
For their labor was healthy, their hearts were light;
And the kings and princes of distant lands
Blessed the work of their stalwart hands.

Then high o'er the shovel's and pickaxe's clang
Loudly the song of the Sewing Bird rang:—

“See, see, see, see!
This is the place where MEN should be!”
And he soared once more through the boundless air,
While the work-girl followed him, wondering where.

XI.

She saw a region of mighty woods
Stretching away for millions of roods;
The odorous cedar and pine-tree tall,
And the live oak, the grandest among them all,
And the solemn hemlock, massive and grim,
Claiming broad space for each mighty limb.
Then she heard the clang of the woodman's axe
Booming along through the lumber-tracks,
And she heard the crack of the yielding trunk,
As deeper and deeper the keen axe sunk,
And the swishing fall—the sonorous thrill—
And the following stillness, more than still.
Then, moving among the avenues dim,
She saw the lumbermen, giant of limb;
The frankness of heaven was in each face,
And their forms were grand with untutored grace;
Their laugh was hearty, their blow was strong,
And sweet as the wood-notes their working song,
As they hewed the limbs from the giant tree,
And stripped off his leafy mystery;
They breathed the air with elastic lungs,
They trolled their ditties with mirthful tongues,
And to see it would do a citizen good,
With what unction they relished their homely food;
For their hunger was keen as their trenchant axe,
And their jokes as broad as their brawny backs.

Then the Sewing Bird sang, again and again,
As he soared o'er the sonorous woods of Maine,
“See, see, see, see!
This is the place where MEN should be!”
And he floated once more through the azure air,
And the work-girl followed him, wondering where.

XII.

Vast plateaus of loamy land she saw,
Quickening with life in the early thaw.
The pulse of the waking spring she heard,
And the broken trills of the gladdened bird,
And the teams afield with their heavy plod
As they dragged the share through the juicy sod.
Through the crisp, clear air she heard the voice
Of sturdy ploughmen and farmer-boys,
And a busy din from the farm-yards rang,
And she heard the spades in the furrows clang.
Then a sudden change swept over the scene,
As the summer sun with a light serene
Smiled upon cottage and field and fold,
And reddened the harvests of waving gold.
Then down through the golden sea there came
The mowers swarthy and stout of frame;
And the cradle-scythe in their hands they swung
Till the hiss of the blade through the grain-fields rung,
As they cut their way with a mighty motion,
Like sharp-prowed ships in a yellow ocean.

Then the Sewing Bird sang like a mellow horn,
As it soared o'er Ohio's land of corn,
“See, see, see, see!
This is the place where MEN should be!”

XIII.

The work-girl sat in her attic room,
Cold and silent, and wrapped in gloom;
There was no longer a glimmer of day,
And the Sewing Bird still on the table lay.
The voice was silent that once had sung,
And silent forever the silver tongue;
But she pondered long on the strange decree
That she, wherever she turned, must see
Men in the places where women should be!

A SUMMER IDYL.

It was a moonlit summer night;
The heavens were drenched with silver rain,
And frowning rose Katahdin's height
Above the murmuring woods of Maine.

Close by our resting-place a stream
That seemed to long to kiss our feet
Sang, as it went, some fairy theme,—
Musical, low, and incomplete.

The world was hushed, but nothing slept.
The cricket shrilled amid the sheaves,
And through the mighty woods there crept
The mystic utterances of leaves.

100

Never had moonbeams shone so bright,
Never had earth seemed half so fair;
I loved the stream, the trees, the night,
The wondrous azure of the air.

And through my very finger-tips
I felt the full enjoyment thrill;
I wished I could with loving lips
Kiss the sweet moon that crowned the hill!

Ah, why? Another moon I knew,
Less luminous, but all as fair,
Above my shoulder shining, through
A wondrous haze of golden hair;—

Shining as once Diana shone
Upon the boy, in Ida's grove;
Her stooping face, no longer wan,
Flushed in the harvest-time of love.

So not for me that orb serene,
That grandly crowned the mountain-crest;
And, turning to my proper queen,
I drew her down upon my breast.

‘O Amy,’ said I, ‘shine on me
Through all my life as that moon shines,
Shedding o'er each asperity
The light that softens and refines;—

‘So mildly, that my eyes can rest
Untiring on your gentle face,
Yet not so distant but my breast
May be your happy resting-place.

101

‘Bestow that sweet, attractive spell
That draws the sea toward the skies,
And let my tide of being swell
Beneath the lustre of your eyes.

‘And if some sullen cloud should sail
'Twixt you and me in social space,
Why, when 't is past I will inhale
A sweeter influence from your face.

‘Be changeful, too, like that sweet moon!
Change is the law of earthly life,
And nature hums the varying tune
Of weal and woe, of peace and strife.’

She ruffled all her yellow hair,
But, answering not a single word,
Veiled in the dusky twilight air,
She nestled to me like a bird.

And in the vague electric spark,
Felt only when cheek touches cheek,
I knew through all the shadows dark
The promise that she did not speak.

O blessed moonlit summer night!
When earth seemed drenched with silver rain,
And frowning rose Katahdin's height
Above the murmuring woods of Maine.

102

BY THE PASSAIC.

Where the river seeks the cover
Of the trees whose boughs hang over,
And the slopes are green with clover,
In the quiet month of May;
Where the eddies meet and mingle,
Babbling o'er the stony shingle,
There I angle,
There I dangle,
All the day.

O, 't is sweet to feel the plastic
Rod, with top and butt elastic,
Shot the line in coils fantastic,
Till, like thistle-down, the fly
Lightly drops upon the water,
Thirsting for the finny slaughter,
As I angle,
And I dangle,
Mute and sly.

Then I gently shake the tackle,
Till the barbed and fatal hackle
In its tempered jaws shall shackle
That old trout, so wary grown.
Now I strike him! joy ecstatic!
Scouring runs! leaps acrobatic!
So I angle,
So I dangle,
All alone.

103

Then when grows the sun too fervent,
And the lurking trouts, observant,
Say to me, ‘Your humble servant!
Now we see your treacherous hook!’
Maud, as if by hazard wholly,
Saunters down the pathway slowly,
While I angle,
There to dangle
With her hook.

Then somehow the rod reposes,
And the book no page uncloses;
But I read the leaves of roses
That unfold upon her cheek;
And her small hand, white and tender,
Rests in mine. Ah! what can send her
Thus to dangle
While I angle?
Cupid, speak!

104

THE THREE GANNETS.

I.

On a wrinkled rock, in a distant sea,
Three white gannets sat in the sun;
They shook the brine from their feathers so fine,
And lazily, one by one,
They sunnily slept—while the tempest crept.

II.

In a painted boat, on a distant sea,
Three fowlers sailed merrily on,
And each took aim, as he came near the game,
And the gannets fell, one by one,
And fluttered and died—while the tempest sighed.

III.

Then a cloud came over the distant sea,
A darkness came over the sun,
And a storm-wind smote on the painted boat,
And the fowlers sank, one by one,
Down, down with their craft—while the tempest laughed.

105

THE SEA.

Ebb and flow! ebb and flow!
By basalt crags, through caverns low,
Through rifted rocks, o'er pebbly strand,
On windy beaches of naked sand!

To and fro! to and fro!
Chanting ever and chanting slow,
Thy harp is swept with liquid hands,
And thy voice is breathing of distant lands!

Sweet and low! sweet and low!
Those golden echoes I surely know.
Thy lips are rich with the lazy south,
And the tuneful icebergs have touched thy mouth.

Come and go! come and go!
The sun may shine and the winds may blow,
But thou wilt forever sing, O sea!
And I never, ah! never, shall sing like thee!

December, 1854.

106

WILLY AND I.

We grew together in wind and rain,
We shared the pleasure, we shared the pain;
I would have died for him, and he,
I thought, would have done the same for me,—
Willy and I.

Summer and winter found us together,
Through snow and storm and shiny weather;
Together we hid in the scented hay,
Or plucked the blooms of our English May,—
Willy and I.

I called him husband, he called me wife,
We builded the dream of a perfect life:
He was to conquer some noble state,
And I was to love him through every fate,—
Willy and I.

O, he was so fair, with his golden hair,
And his breath was sweet as our homestead air!
My cheeks were red,—and the neighbors said,
A thousand pities we were not wed,—
Willy and I.

Now I stand alone in the wind and rain,
With none of the pleasure and all the pain;
I am a beggar, and Willy is dead,
And the blood of another is on his head,—
Willy and I.

107

THE CHALLENGE.

A warrior hung his plumed helm
On the rugged trunk of an aged elm;
‘Where is the knight so bold,’ he cried,
‘That dares my haughty crest deride?’

The wind came by with a sullen howl,
And dashed the helm on the pathway foul,
And shook in scorn each sturdy limb,—
For where was the knight that could fight with him?

WHEN I CAME BACK FROM SEA.

When we set sail to chase the whale
From old Nantucket Bay,
O, a lighter, merrier heart than mine
Never yet sailed away!
While some were sad, and none was glad,
I was singing with glee;
For I was to marry sweet Maggie Gray
When I came back from sea.

Her hair was brown as the kelp that drifts
Where sea-currents come and go;
Like gentians peeping through snowy rifts,
Her blue eyes shone in snow.

108

And further down the sea-pink grew,
Healthy, hardy, and free;
And all these treasures would be mine
When I came back from sea.

Wherever I went in the far, far south,
In strait or in calm lagoon,
My heart, like the cheerful heart it was,
Kept singing a merry tune.
It shortened the watch of the weary nights,
It lightened my work for me;
For it sang, ‘You'll marry sweet Maggie Gray
When you come back from sea.’

My comrades too, though rude and rough,
Ever ready to give and take,
Were gentle,—for all of them knew my bird,
And were kind to me for her sake;
And none ever dared, in our fo'castle games,
To make ribald jests to me;
For I was to marry sweet Maggie Gray
When I came back from sea.

For three long years we sailed and whaled,
Until we had filled our hold;
Then homeward sped, while every head
Was running on wages and gold.
But I did not care what would be my share,
However large it might be;
My only thought was of Maggie Gray,
As I came back from sea.

109

At last one day we saw the bay
And the old Nantucket shore;
I landed and ran like an Indian man
To Maggie's cottage door.
But the door was barred, and there was not a soul
To give word or welcome to me;
For Maggie Gray had gone away,
And I—had come back from sea!

I ran like mad through the little town,
And questioned all I met;
But I only got a shake of the head,
Or a look of sad regret;
Until old Ben—a rough man too—
Came kindly up to me,
Saying, ‘Lad, 't were better a thousand times
You 'd never come back from sea.’

Then I heard it all,—how a gay gallant
Had come from Boston down,
And robbed the nest of my little pet bird,
And carried her off to town;
While I was left with a broken heart,
And nothing to welcome me,
But a tale of shame and a ruined name,
When I came back from sea.

110

AN OLD STORY.

The snow falls fast in the silent street,
And the wind is laden with cutting sleet,
And there is a pitiless glare in the sky,
As a haggard woman goes wandering by.

The rags that wrap her wasted form
Are frozen stiff in the perishing storm,
And she is so cold that the snow-flakes rest
Unmelted upon her marble breast.

Ah! who could believe that those rayless eyes
Were once as sunny as April skies,
And the flowers she plucked in the early spring
Loved to be touched by so pure a thing?

'T is past,—and the fierce wind, shrieking by,
Drowns the faint gasp of her parting sigh;
And lifeless she falls at the outer gate
Of him who has left her desolate!

Silently falls the snow on her face,
Clothing her form in its stainless grace;
As though God, in his mercy, had willed that she
Should die in a garment of purity.

111

HELEN LEE.

Rosy-cheeked, dark-haired October
Through the land was passing gayly,
Crowned with maize-leaves, and behind him
Followed Plenty with her horn,
Calling in the later harvests,
Flattering the chuckling farmer,
Pelting him with ruddy apples,
And with shocks of yellow corn.

He it was whose royal pleasure
Clothed the woods in gold and purple;
He it was whose fickle pleasure
Clothed them, stripped, and left them bare;
Then, as if in late contrition,
Summoned back the truant summer,
Wove of smoke an azure mantle
For the shivering earth to wear.

Poor amends the Indian summer
Made, with all its pitying sunshine,
For the loss of leafy glory,
Painted flower, and singing bird;
So from rocks, and trees, and hedges,
From the fallen leaves and grasses,
Came a sound of mourning, as the
Melancholy breezes stirred.

112

Yet the train of hale October
Rang with laughter, song, and dancing,
As the young men and the maidens
Sang and danced the harvest-home;
As from many a low-roofed farmhouse
Flashed the lights of merry-making,
Rose the note of ready-making
For the merriment to come.

Pleasant was the starry evening,
Pleasant, though the air was chilly,
When the youths and maidens gathered
At the call of David Lee,—
David Lee, the hearty farmer,
Who had wrestled with his acres,
And in barn, and stack, and cellar
Stored the spoils of victory.

As the beaks of captured vessels,
Gilded ensigns, suits of armor,
Shone as trophies on the temples
Of the gods, in classic days,
So around the farmer's kitchen
Hung long rows of golden melons;
So along the farmer's rafters
Hung festoons of perfect maize.

Not a child had Farmer David,—
He had known the loss of children,
Known a parent's voiceless anguish,
When the rose forsakes the cheek,—

113

When the hand grows thin and thinner,
And the pulses fainter, feebler,—
When the eyes are sunk and leaden,
And the tongue forgets to speak.

One bright spring a pair of rosebuds,
Growing in the father's garden,
Filled his hope with crimson promise,
They were gone in early June.
Then there came a tiny daughter,
Learned to kiss and call him ‘Father,’
Vanished like an April snow-flake,—
And the mother followed soon.

Then his face grew dark and stony,
Then his soul shrunk up in sorrow,
As a flower shuts at nightfall
From the dampness and the cold;
Till a sister, dying, left him
Her one child, a blue-eyed darling,
Whose dear love and tender graces
Kept his heart from growing old.

Maidenhood stole softly on her,
Like the changing of the seasons,
Till the neighbors came to think her
Beautiful as one could be;
And the young men, when they met her,
Blushed, they knew not why, and stammered,
And would prize a kingdom cheaper
Than a smile of Helen Lee.

114

In the barn the youths and maidens
Stripped the corn of husk and tassel,
Warmed the chillness of October
With the life of spring and May;
While through every chink the lanterns,
And sonorous gusts of laughter,
Made assault on night and silence
With the counterfeit of day.

Songs were sung,—sweet English ballads,—
Which their fathers and their mothers
Sang together by the rivers
Of the dear old fatherland;
Tales were told,—quaint English stories,
Tales of humor and of pathos;
Tales of love, and home, and fireside,
That a child could understand.

Most they called on Richard Miller,
Prince among the story-tellers;
Young and graceful, strong and handsome,
Rich in all that blesses life;
For his stories ended happy,—
Ended always with a marriage;
Every youth became a husband,
Every maid became a wife.

So he told how Harry Marline
Roved about the world a long time,
Then returned to find the maiden
Whom he loved had proven true,—

115

How he brought home gold and silver,
How they made a famous wedding;
And he closed by saying slyly,
‘An example, girls, for you!’

Then said Helen, smiling archly,
‘I will never have a husband!’
And the ear which she was husking
Fell into the basket, red;
Whereupon they clapped and shouted,
For a red ear means a lover,
And the maiden, vexed and blushing,
In the shadow hid her head.

Soon the jest was quite forgotten,
And her face again she lifted
To behold his eyes upon her
With a look so strange and new,
That, when games and dancing followed,
And she chanced to touch his fingers,
In her hand she felt a tremor,
On her cheek a warmer hue.

When the candles burning dimly,
Flaring, smoking in the socket,
Sent the party homeward, shouting,
Through the starlight crisp and clear,
Richard lingered in the doorway,
Took the bashful hand of Helen,
Whispered softly in the darkness
Pleasant words for maid to hear.

116

When she sought her little chamber,
Long she could not sleep for thinking
Of his looks, his voice, and language,
For the youth had turned her head;
In her dreams she murmured, ‘Richard,’
When she woke her thought was, ‘Richard,’
When she bade ‘Good morning, father!’
‘Richard,’ she had almost said.

O the pleasant, pleasant autumn!
How it seemed like spring-time to them!
How the flowers budded, blossomed,
In their hearts afresh each day!
O the walks they had together,
From the singing-schools and parties,
In the white and frosty moonlight,
In the starlight cold and gray!

O the happy winter evenings!
Long, indeed, to want and sickness,
Short enough to youth and maiden
By the hearth of David Lee;
Looking in each other's faces,
Listening to each other's voices,
Blending with the golden present
Golden days that were to be.

When the voice of spring was calling
To the flowers in field and forest,
‘It is time to waken, children!’
And the flowers obeyed the call;

117

When the cattle on the hillside,
And the fishes in the river,
Felt anew the joy of living,
Was a wedding festival.

Violets and honeysuckles
Bloomed on window-sill and mantel,
On the old clock's oaken turret,
In the young bride's flaxen hair;
And the sweet-brier filled the morning
With its eloquence of odor;—
‘Life is cold, but love can warm it;
O, be faithful, happy pair!’

Solemnly the village pastor
Said the simple marriage-service;
Then came one, with roguish twinkle,
Asking, ‘had another heard
Of a certain little maiden
Who would never have a husband?’
And the young bride turned to Richard,
Smiled, but answered not a word.

And as Farmer Lee looked on them,
Down his cheek the tears were falling,
But a light shone from his features
On the circle gathered round,
And he leaned on Richard's shoulder,
Saying, ‘Friends, be happy with me,
For I have not lost a daughter,
But a worthy son have found!’

118

STRAWBERRIES.

I.

The garden was filled with odors
From jasmine and heliotrope,
And the tender moss-rose, muffled
In its beautiful velvet cope;
White currants, like beads of amber,
Strung upon sea-green silk,
Mingled their spicy clusters
With snowberries white as milk.

II.

I watched her plucking the strawberries,
And bending over the bank,
Where the luscious rubies lay hiding,
As if from her search they shrank;
And when she bit them, she opened
Lips ripe and red as they,—
Ah! if I had been the strawberries,
I would not have hidden away.

III.

‘Are you not fond of strawberries?
Why don't you pluck and eat?
See, here is a noble fellow,
Juicy, and red, and sweet.
Don't stand there looking so solemn,
As if you thought 't was a sin
To eat of such delicate morsels,
But open your mouth and begin.’

119

IV.

‘Ah! Imogen, dear,’ I answered,
‘I care for no fruit but one:
'T is as ripe and red as this berry,
And as full of the blood of the sun.
But you selfishly hold it from me,
Nor offer me even a part.’
‘What is this fruit?’ she questioned.
‘This fruit,’ I said, ‘is your heart!’

V.

The strawberry dropped from her fingers,
And she stretched out her little hand,
And I knew that, instead of the fruit, it held
The sweetest heart in the land.
So we left the strawberries lying
In their shadowy leaves that day,
And silently walked in the garden,
While the long hours stole away.

BATTLEDORES.

I.

May is blond and Madge is brown,
And 'twixt the two I fly;
One lives in country, one in town,
But yet for both I sigh.

120

Madge says that I'm in love with May,
And pouts a sweet disdain,
Yet all the while her brown eyes say,
‘I fear no rival's reign.’

II.

May is calm, and like the moon
That sails the summer sky,
Her voice is sweeter than the tune
That scented night-winds sigh;
And underneath her quiet glance
All happily I lie,
And live a dreamy, sweet romance
When her fair form is nigh.

III.

Thus 'twixt the two my heart is thrown,
And shuttle-like I fly;
For blue-eyed May is all my own,
When brown Madge is not by.
But loving each, and loving both,
I know not how to lie,
So here 's to both, however loth,
Good-by, good-by, good-by!

121

THE FINISHING SCHOOL.

THE SCHOOL.

Miss Mary Degai, at the age of sixteen,
Was as pretty a maiden as ever was seen.
Her eyes were deep blue,—
Not that meaningless hue
That one sees on old china, and sometimes on new;
Which really implies
Hers were not saucer eyes,
Though the people declared—and I'm not sure which worser is—
That, though not saucer eyes, they had worked many sorceries.
Her hair was that shade of which poets are fond,
A compromise lustrous 'twixt chestnut and blond.
Her figure was fragile,
Yet springy and agile;
While her clear, pallid skin, so essentially Frenchy,
Neither brunette nor fair,
Just gave her the air
Of a sort of Fifth Avenue Beatrix Cenci.

With a spick and span new, superfine education,
Befitting a maid of such fortunate station,
Miss Mary Degai had just made her début,
From the very select,
Genteel, circumspect
Establishment kept by—it cannot be wrong
Just to mention the name—by one Madame Cancan.

122

This Madame Cancan was a perfect Parisian,
Her morals infernal, her manners elysian.
She was slender and graceful, and rouged with much art,
A mistress of dumb show, from ogle to start.

123

Her voice was delightful, her teeth not her own,—
And a cane-bottomed chair when she sat seemed a throne.
In short, this dear, elegant Madame Cancan
Was like a French dinner at some restaurant,—
That is, she completely was made à la carte,
And I think she 'd a truffle instead of a heart.
But then what good rearing she gave to her pupils!
They dressed like those elegant ladies at Goupil's
One sees in the prints just imported from France;
With what marvellous grace did they join in the dance!
No Puritan modesty marred their tournure,—
Being modest is nearly as bad as being poor,—
No shudder attacked them when man laid his hand on
Their waists in the redowa's graceful abandon,
As they swung in that waltz to voluptuous music.
Ah! did we but see
Our sisters so free,
I warrant the sight would make both me and you sick!
Thus no trouble was spared through those young misses' lives
To make them good partners, and—very bad wives.
Receptions were given each week on a Wednesday,—
Which day by the school was entitled “the men's day,”
Because on such date young New York was allowed
To visit en masse that ingenuous crowd,
When they talked threadbare nothings and flat shilly-shally,
Of Gottschalk's mustache, or Signora Vestvali,
Followed up by the thrillingest questions and answers,
Such as—which they liked best, the schottische or the lancers?
No flirting, of course, was permitted. O dear!
If Madame Cancan such a word were to hear,

124

She would look a whole beltful of dagger-blades at you,
And faint in the style of some favorite statue.
The men were invited alone to impart
To her young protégées that most difficult art

125

Of conversing with ease; and if ease was the aim
That Madame had in view she was not much to blame,
For I vow she succeeded so well with her shes,
That her school might take rank as a chapel of ease!
Au reste, Madame's pension was quite in the fashion:
None better knew how to put shawl or pin sash on
Than did her young ladies; 't was good as a play
To watch the well-bred and impertinent way
They could enter a room in. Their gait in the street
Was five-barred,—one might say,—'t was so high and complete.
Then their boots were so small, and their stockings so neat,—
Alas! that such dainty and elegant feet
Should be trained à la mode
In that vicious gymnasium, the modern girls' school,
To trip down the road
That, while easy and broad,
Conducts to a place that 's more spacious than cool!

Miss Mary Degai
Was the pet protégée
Of dear Madame Cancan. She was excellent pay,
In her own right an heiress,—a plum at the least,—
A plantation down south and a coal-mine down east,—
I can't state the sum of her fortune in figures,
But I know she had plenty of dollars and niggers.
She was petted and fêted,
And splendidly treated,
Lay abed when she chose, and her school-teachers cheated;
Smuggled candy in school; smoked cigars, and—O, fie!—
Read a great many very queer books on the sly.
She 'd a love affair, too,—quite a sweet episode,—
With a wonderful foreign young Count, who abode

126

In the opposite dwelling,—a Count Cherami,—
A charming young beau,
Who was très comme il faut,
And who was with our boarding-school Miss bien pris.

127

So he shot letters on to the roof with an arrow,
And thence they were picked by a provident sparrow,
An amiable housemaid, who thought that the course
Of true love should run smooth,
And had pity on youth,—
So, sooner than leave the fond pair no resource,
Disinterestedly brought all the letters to Mary,
At a dollar apiece,—the beneficent fairy!

THE BALL.

'T was the height of the season, the spring-time of Brown,
Who sowed invitations all over the town.
Soireés musicale, tableaux, matinées,
Turned days into nights, and the nights into days;
And women went mad upon feathers and flounces,
And scruples gave way to auriferous ounces.
Amanda came over her father with new arts
To grant her a credit at amiable Stewart's,
And sulked till he 'd promised that, if she 'd not miff any,
He 'd give her the bracelet she wanted from Tiffany.
As a matter of course,
Young New York was in force.
Tight boots and loose coats,
Stiff, dog-collared throats;
Champagne under chair,
Drunk with dare-devil air.
Mr. Brown's light brigade
Was in splendor arrayed.
O, that season, I wot,
Will be never forgot!
For 't was then that young Beelzebub proved all his vigor
Of mind by inventing a wonderful figure,

128

To be danced every night by “his set” in that million
Of marvellous mazes,—the German cotillon.
'T was the height of the winter. The poor summer flowers
Were forced to come out at unreasonable hours.

129

Camellias, amazed at the frost and the snow,
Without asking their leaves, were requested to blow;
And gardeners, relentless, awaked the moss-roses
From slumbers hybernant to tickle the noses
Of maidens just budding, like them, out of season;
And pale, purple violets, sick and etiolate,
Tried in vain to preserve their wan blossoms inviolate.
In short, 't was the time of the ball-giving season,
The reign of low dresses, ice-creams, and unreason,
And the greatest event of the night—not the day,—
Though the latter 's the phrase the most proper to say,—
Was the bal de début of Miss Mary Degai.

What a ball that one was! All the city was there.
Brown reigned like a king on the white marble stair,
And whistled—perhaps 't was to drive away care—
Loud, shrilly, and long, to each carriage and pair

130

As it landed its burden of feminine fair.
And Kammerer, hid in a nice little lair
Of thick-tufted laurels, played many an air,
Soft waltz, wild mazourka, quick polka, slow Schottische,
With all those quadrilles called by Jullien “the Scottish.”

131

Globed lamps shed soft light over shoulders of satin,
While men, hat in hand,—fashion à la Manhattan,—
Talked in tones that were muffled in sweet modulation
To all those fair flowers of a fairer creation,
About—whether the play or the ballet were properer?
Or—they did not observe them last night at the opera.

O the nooks and the corners—the secret expansions—
That are found in the depths of Fifth Avenue mansions!
The deeply-bayed windows, screened off by camellias,
Just made for the loves of the Toms and Amelias;
The dim little boudoir
Where nestles—proh pudor!—
That pair of young doves, in the deep shadow cooing,—
Which means, in plain English, legitimate wooing.
The ancients, I know, or I 've got the idea,
Placed love in some spot that they called Cytherea,—
A commonplace garden, with nothing but sparrows
To shoot at,—and that would be wasting love's arrows,—
And where, if he sat on the grass with his Psyche,
He 'd probably start before long with, “O, Criky!
There 's a bug on my—tunic!” But that was all gammon.
The true home of love is the palace of mammon,
Where gardens grow up, under glass, nice and neat,
And lovers may wander,
And ever grow fonder,
Without even once getting wet on their feet!

In one of those bowers, remote and secluded,
With pale-blossomed roses ingeniously wooded,
Through whose light-scented leaves a faint music stole in,—
Like perfume made audible,—here might be seen

132

Tête-à-tête, that is, close as 't was proper to be,
Miss Mary Degai and the Count Cherami.
The Count was exactly the man for sixteen,
He was tall, he was dark, he was haughty of mien,

133

He had beautiful feet, and his smile was serene;
Though his hair might have needed a little wahpene,
Still what he had left was of glossiest sheen;
His age—let me see—well, his age might have been
Between thirty and forty,—a dangerous age,—
All the passions of youth, and the wit of the sage.
The Count was an exile,—a matter of course,—
A foreigner here has no other resource;
The Count was an exile for reasons political,
Though some said—but people are really so critical—
That he was but a croupier who 'd made a good swoop,
And had tried change of air for his fit of the croupe.
And 't was true that his eyes had a villanous flash,—
But then he had got such a lovely mustache,
And his English was broken to exquisite smash!

There he sat Tête-à-tête with Miss Mary Degai,
Talking low in her ear, in his Frenchified way,
Of his château at home, and the balls at the Tuileries,
Longchamps, and Chantilly, and other tom-fooleries,
While poor Madison Mowbray—a rising young lawyer
Who promised, his friends said, to be a top-sawyer—
Disconsolate wandered in search of Miss Mary,—
Seeking here, seeking there, that invisible fairy,
Who had promised her hand for the very next waltz,
And who now was accused as the falsest of false.
O Madison Mowbray, go home to your briefs,—
To your Chitty and Blackstone, and such like reliefs!
For though Mary Degai pledged her hand for the dance,
And though Mr. Degai promised it in advance
To your keeping forever, you'll never possess it,
Or swear at the altar to hold and caress it;

134

For while you are moping in blankest amazement,
Two black-shrouded figures slip out of the basement,
And so to the corner, then into a carriage,—
Which looks rather like an elopement and marriage.

135

But, to cut matters short, of the whole the amount
Is that Mary Degai has run off with the Count.

DÉNOUEMENT.

There 's a tenement-house in Mulberry Street,
Where thieves, and beggars, and loafers meet,—
A house whose face wears a leprous taint
Of mouldy plaster and peeling paint.
The windows are dull as the bleary eyes
Of a drunken sot, and a black pool lies
Full of festering garbage outside the door.
The old stairs shudder from floor to floor,
As if they shrank with an occult dread
From the frequent criminal's guilty tread.
And blasphemous women and drunken men
Inhabit this foul, accurséd den,

136

And oaths and quarrels disturb the night,
And ruffianly faces offend the light,
And wretches that dare not look on the sun
Burrow within till the day is done.

Here, in a room on the highest flat,—
The playground of beetle and of rat,—
Almost roofless, and bare, and cold,
With the damp walls reeking with slimy mould,
A woman hung o'er one smouldering ember
That lay in the grate—it was in December.
O, how thin she was, and wan!
What sunken eyes! what lips thin drawn!
Her mouth how it quivered!
Her form how it shivered!
Her teeth how they chattered, as if they 'd cheat
Each skeleton limb
With the pantomime grim
Of having something at last to eat!

There is no sight more awful, say I,
To look upon, whether in earth or sky,
Than the terrible glare of a hungry eye!

The woman sat over the smouldering ember,
Pinched with the cold of that bitter December,
Passing her hand in a weariful way
O'er the faint firelight's flickering spray,
Till might be seen the faint red ray
Gleam through the thin, transparent palm,
As one beholds the sunshine calm
Through a painted window play.
Who that beheld her in sunnier day,

137

Lapped in roses and bathed in balm,
Would credit that this was Mary Degai?
But where was the money in stocks and in rents?
All squandered! The niggers? All sold! The per cents?

138

All gone! The magnificent Count Cherami
Had made with her money a seven-years spree
In Paris and London: had known figurantes,
Played at poker and bluff with one-thousand-franc antes,
Bred racers, built yachts, and in seven years' time
Neither husband nor wife had as much as a dime.

There was no help from father. The old man was dead,
With the curse unrevoked that he 'd laid on her head.
No help from her husband. A Count could not work
And slave to enrich some tyrannical Turk.
No help from herself,—thanks to Madame Cancan,
She had not a notion of getting along.
Her fingers revolted from needle and thread,
And to earn a loaf were by far too well bred.
Too proud for a beggar, too thin for the stage,
She lay like a log in this hard-working age,—
The dreary result of a fashion fanatic,
And helplessly starved in a comfortless attic.

Hark! a step on the stairs! How her thin cheek grows white
As she cowers away with a shiver of fright.
And the door is burst open,—the Count staggers in,
With a hiccup and oath, and a blasphemous din.
Mad with drink, crazed with hunger, and weary of life,
He revenges his sins on the head of his wife.
Let us hasten the door of that garret to close
On the nakedness, poverty, hunger, and woes,—
On the oaths, on the shrieks, on the cowardly blows!

O young ladies who sigh over novels in yellow,
And think Eugène Sue an exceeding smart fellow,

139

There are more aims in life than a crinoline skirt,
And a maid may be charming and yet not a flirt;
And merit is better than title, my dears:
In this country we 've no occupation for peers
Save those ones that our beautiful harbor affords,
And those piers are worth more than the whole House of Lords.
And though money, I know,
Is voted quite slow
In circles pretending to elegant rank,
There 's no very great sin in a sum at the bank.
Nor is marriage the portal to idle enjoyment:
The true salt of life is an active employment.
And if you have money there 's plenty of work
In the back-slums and alleys, where starvingly lurk
Humanity's outcasts, 'mid want and disease,—
Broken hearts to be healed, craving wants to appease.
Above all, ye young heroines, take this amount
Of wholesome advice,
Which like curry with rice
Gives a flavor, and saves one from saying things twice.
Be this axiom forever with you paramount:
Don't you ever advance all your cash on a Count.

Madame Cancan still lives, and still ogles and teaches,
And still her lay sermons on fashion she preaches;
Still keeps of smooth phrases the choicest assortment;
Still lectures on dress, easy carriage, deportment;
And spends all her skill in thus moulding her pets
Into very-genteelly-got-up marionettes.
Yes! puppet 's the word; for there 's nothing inside
But a clock work of vanity, fashion, and pride;

140

Puppets warranted sound, that without any falter
When wound up will go—just as far as the altar;
But when once the cap 's donned with the matronly border,
Lo! the quiet machine goes at once out of order.

141

Ah! Madame Cancan, you may paint, you may plaster
Each crevice of time that comes faster and faster;
But you cannot avert that black day of disaster,
When in turn you 'll be summoned yourself by a Master!
You may speak perfect French, and Italian, and Spanish,
And know how to enter a room and to vanish,
To flirt with your fan quite as well as did Soto,
To play well-bred games from écarté to loto;
But in spite of all this, won't you look rather small
When you 're called up before the great Teacher of all?
False teacher, false friend,—more, false speaker, false wife,
Dare you stand to be parsed in the grammar of life?
What account will you give of the many pure souls
To be guided by you through the quicksands and shoals
That beset their youth's shore? Were they harbored or wrecked?
You did n't take trouble to think, I expect;
For each cockle-shell boat,
When you set it afloat,
Had guitar-strings for ropes, crinoline for a sail,—
Nice rigging that was to encounter a gale!

Ah! Madame Cancan, our great Master above,
Who instructs us in charity, virtue, and love,
When he finds you deficient in all of your lessons,
A deliberate dunce both in substance and essence,
Will send you, I fear, to a Finishing School,
Which differs from yours though, in being less cool,
And kept on the corporal-punishment rule.
There 's excellent company there to be found:
The uppermost ranks you'll see floating around;
Some for grinding the poor are placed there underground,—
So the hind has his justice as well as the hound.

142

Nor is dress much less thought of there than in Manhattan,
You may not find silks, but you'll surely find Satan;
And I doubt if you'll like their severe education,—
There 's lots to be learned, and no recreation,
And what 's worse is—you'll never have any vacation.

University of Virginia Library

POEMS.

SIR BRASIL'S FALCON.

KANE.

Died 16th February, 1857.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

THE LOST STEAMSHIP.

A FALLEN STAR.

I.

II.

III.

THE BALLAD OF THE SHAMROCK.

AMAZON.

THE MAN AT THE DOOR.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

THE ENCHANTED TITAN.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

LOSS.

OUR CHRISTMAS-TREE.

THE POT OF GOLD.

MINOT'S LEDGE.

THE LEGEND OF EASTER EGGS.

DOWN IN THE GLEN AT IDLEWILD.

WANTED—SAINT PATRICK.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

THE PRIZE-FIGHT.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

THE SONG OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

IRISH CASTLES.

LOCH INE.

AN APRIL DAY.

JOHNNY.

THE SKATERS.

THE DEMON OF THE GIBBET.

THE WHARF RAT.

I.

II.

III.

THE HAVELOCK.

THE COUNTERSIGN.

THE ZOUAVES.

A SOLDIER'S LETTER.

THE PRISONER OF WAR.

WINTER.

THE SEWING BIRD.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.