University of Virginia Library

APPENDIX.

II. ADDITIONAL VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO 1822–1833

“PERDIDI DIEM.” TIBERIUS

“I've lost a day,” old Tibby said,
Then sighed and groaned, and went to bed.
This monarch, as they said of old,
Knew time was worth much more than gold.
I'm of this sage opinion too,
And think this man judged pretty true.
—But now, my friends, I'll bid good bye,
For you are tired—and so am I.

CHARITABLE ANN

Charitable Ann—
Give this poor man—
As much as you can—
A little meat
And bread to eat
And a shady seat—

HASTY PUDDING

For soon appeared the smiling pot
Brimful of pudding, smoking hot
With ready step and joyful faces
The glad providers took their places
Soon as their bowls and spoons they found
To make all square they helped us round
Two different ways their footsteps tend
For one began at either end
And therefore these providers seem
To carry things to the extreme

SERENADE

TO M. C. D.

BURIAL OF A MAIDEN AT SEA

THE LOVER'S RETURN

FORGOTTEN AGES

From yon high chamber, on whose naked walls
The slanting ray of rosy morning falls—
Where kind Aurora showers her earliest beams
To wake the sleeper from delusive dreams—
Where playful zephyrs riot through the floor
Laugh at the cracks and revel round the door—
From that bright home the poet gladly flies
To meet the radiance of these brighter eyes.
What various beauties crowd upon my sight
Flash from the left and sparkle from the right.
The matron's sweetness and the maiden's bloom—
The flaunting ribband and the waving plume—
Blushes that saucers never owned before
And looks unpurchased from the fancy-store—
In queenly pride the lofty head-dress towers
And bonnets blossom with unfading flowers—
Their different charms the smiling sisters blend,
All nature gives, and all that art can lend.
—O envious time, could not thy chariot stay
A moment longer on its silent way?
Must all they glories burst upon the eye,
Like angel's pinions, only as they fly!
How short our empire on this little stage!
How swift these moments in the train of age!
In vain the light that beauty sheds around
To stay our footsteps on the enchanted ground.
Time waves his wand—the short-lived pageant flies
And other hours, and other forms arise.
—As fades the memory of an idle day
The name of ages hastens to decay:
Wrapped in the past, in darkness disappears
The gleam of moments and the light of years.
—O where, forgotten in the silent shade
Are all the forms, that once had being, laid?
Where sunk the palace and where fell the throne
On which the sun of ancient splendor shone?
Nations have been where we may look in vain
For one frail remnant on the voiceless plain.
Unchecked the mind around the desert flows
Where proud Ambition's lofty turrets rose.
Some wasted slowly into dull decay
Till stone by stone, their grandeur dropped away.
The conqueror came, and in a single hour
Fell the bright trophies of imperial power.
Some sank beneath the red volcanic wave
And after ages trod their burning grave—
The surge has rolled o'er many an ancient shore
And Ocean sweeps where man has reigned before.
—Quenched is the lustre of the glancing eye—
Cold is the heart that once beat warm and high—
The lips that nature only formed for smiles
Lie in the ashes of their buried piles.
In thousand paths the subtle shafts have fled
And none is left—the herald of the dead.
The torch of famine seared the dying land,
The warrior fell beneath another's hand.
And slow disease hath wasted many a form,
That rode in triumph on the battle-storm.
—They sleep, unconscious that the hour has come
When all that echoed to their voice is dumb;
Alike to them if o'er their dark repose
The forest blossoms or the ocean flows.
The hand of spring their funeral chaplet weaves,
And autumn strews them with his withered leaves;
Or wildly murmuring round their stormy home
The towering billow stoops its crest of foam.
In vain they bade their mausoleums rise,
And reared their pillars till they reached the skies.
No stone is rescued from the dust to tell
Where once they stood and where at last they fell
—O'er other lands that wore the crown of old
The shroud of age is gathering fold by fold.
But still half-lost amid the deepening gloom
The dying sun-beam plays around their tomb.
Though art has risen from her native clime
All is not darkened in the clouds of time;
We trace her brightness in the lingering glow
Her foot has kindled while it walked below.
The stately relics of departed pride—
The temple mouldering by its builder's side.
The prostrate column and the fallen shrine
Point to the days that saw their glory shine,
And tell the stranger on their hallowed ground
That man is crumbling in the soil around.
And some have lived, if that be life which Fame,
When all is dust, can lavish on a name;
Still rings the harp that Athens loved to hear
And bright-eyed Thalia woos the modern's ear.
But they who called her from the mountain-steep—
Can music wake them from their silent sleep?—
—And we, the children of a later birth,
The transient monarchs of this changing earth,
We too shall pass and leave no single trace
To fix our memory on some future race.
Our heroes glory in the crimson wreath
Their hands have wrested from the brow of death
They little see it, in their fevered dream,
Torn by the ripple of the noiseless stream:
Our rulers frame their statutes for the free
Of after ages that shall never be.
The luckless votaries of Apollo's lyre
Catch far more real than poetic fire;
And vainly scatter from their pictured urns,
Not “thoughts that breathe,” but “many a word that burns.”
—So flies a moment, and so rolls an age,
Monarchs and poets quit alike the stage;
They leave at last their sceptre and their crown,
We gently bow and lay our laurels down.
If our young Muse has managed to beguile
Her fairer sisters of one favoring smile—
If hard-heeled students and if booted boys
Will aid her exit with their flattering noise—
If sterner age will spare the humble lays
And kindly pardon what it cannot praise,
Though e'er tomorrow it shall be forgot,
That she has hovered round this little spot,
Without a murmur that her feeble wings
Must share the fate of empires and of kings,
No longer fluttering in your wearied sight,
She folds her mantle and she takes her flight.

A POEM

TO S---L---

RHYMED CHRONICLE

SELECTIONS FROM THE NEWSPAPERS

AN ENIGMA
I

In light, in shade, its changing form appears,
Now clothed in blushes, and now bathed in tears;
It spreads its wings upon the summer air,
And sits in silence on the mountain bare;
Wrapped in the shadows of its gloomy breast,
The springs of life, the fires of vengeance, rest;
It floats in kindness, and it flies in wrath,
And skies grow darker in its awful path;
It paints the petal of the dying flower,
It shakes the temple, and it rocks the tower!
Its shaft strikes down the lovely and the brave;
Yet will it turn and weep upon their grave.

ENIGMA
II

It came unheard, and darkness veiled its birth,
The child of heaven, yet only seen on earth;
It lay half hidden in the folded leaves,
The sleeping floweret round her bosom weaves,
And when the moonbeam touched it from afar,
It shone and sparkled like a fallen star;
But ah, it trembled in the breath of day,
And softly faded like a dream away.
Such was its fate—and thus, without a stain,
It came to earth, and sought the skies again;
A rosy cradle, and a golden shroud,
Born in a flower, and dying in A CLOUD.

RUNAWAY BALLADS

ROMANCE

SCENES FROM AN UNPUBLISHED PLAY

I

(BACK-ROOM AT PORTER'S—DICK, SOLUS.)
I am not well to-night—methinks the fumes
Of overheated punch have something dimmed
The cerebellum or pineal gland,
Or where the soul sits regent. Strange that things
Born of the grosser elements of earth
Should cloud the mind's own heaven with fantasies!
I am no baby—look upon that leg
All laced with steely sinews—see that arm,
Embossed with swelling muscle—and this shape
Of nature's best expansion—were they made
But to be sneered at by the grinning imps
That leave the dotard's slumbers visionless,
To play their antics in the teeth of manhood?
(Fellow, another measure of your compound,
And be less liberal of your aqueous tincture.)
A man who hath been elbowed out of office,
A poet who hath sown some score of verses,
And reaped one sorry sentence of damnation,
Look down i' the mouth, and feel unutterably—
But one who is not plagued with corporal evils,
Who feels not hungry, save at dinner time,
And is not snarled at by the world about him,
Can do but little, save to fume and fret
At air-born hydras of imagination.
And yet, in these same most degenerate days,
There be some things that do much gall a man
(Looking at his boots.)
Methinks the polish of these nether casings
Is not so radiant as it was of old—
Perhaps the varlet who doth give them lustre
Hath ta'en to reading of philosophy,
For learning has of late put off her wings,
And creeps along with beggars in the dust.—
Why, I have seen a kitchen-nurtured wench,
With feet that seemed like mountain pedestals,
And fingers redder than the peony,
Who tripped so daintily upon the earth,
As she were stepping on Elysian flowers;
And did so dally with the household stuff,
As if a saucepan were an instrument
Fit for the music of angelic choirs.
She'd quote you loving ditties by the hour,
And scribble verses in your Sunday bible,
And talk to you of starlight, and of flowers,
And mind, and metaphysics. Out upon them—
I'd rather have a Patagonian savage,
One that can grapple with the mountain bear,
And eat him as a Christian eats a chicken,
Than such a mincing thing to wait upon me.
Fellow, here's money for thine aliments,
I must away.
(Exit.)

II

(DICK, SOLUS WITH A NEWSPAPER.—SMOKING PITCHER ON THE TABLE)
No murders and no robberies,—speeches—speeches,
Column on column one eternal speech;
Now I had rather read your pirate-stories,
Of men minced up and shovelled overboard,
Your slitting throats, and knocking out of brains,
And such well-spiced misdoings—
(Enter TOM.)
Save you, Tom,
How goes your nothingship,—and gentle Julia,
How does she fare,—the lady of thy love.

Tom.
Her good old grandam's dead—

Dick.
Why then the devil
May sharpen up his claws to deal with her;
She was a potent vixen in her day.

Tom.
Be pleased to tread less rudely on the ashes
Of one that was a woman. You are wont
To speak unfitly of the fairest thing
That stepped on Eden's roses. Why should man
Scoff at the creatures he was made to love?
It is as if the iron-fibred oak
Should tear the clasping tendrils.—

Dick.
Save your nonsense
To feed your starving poetry withal;
I hate to see resuscitated thoughts
Come sneaking back to life in ladies's albums.
Pray talk to me as if I were a man,—
Look,—do I wear a petticoat or breeches?
Have I long locks? Is this a woman's foot?
Is aught of silver in these brazen tones?
Fill up your glass,—here's to thy sanity.

Tom.
O beast! You drink as if you were a Titan,
Just hot from Etna. What would Julia say,
If she could dream of such abominations!

Dick.
Would she might taste this punch! I much opine
She'd soon forswear her ghostly milk and water.
O thou art good! 't would vivify a statue,
Could statue but its marble lips unclose:
I would I were upon an ocean of thee—
A bowl my boat—a ladle for mine oar:
Green islands in the ever-blooming south
Should scatter flowers upon thee—and the fires
That roll and flash in earth's unfathomed bosom,
Should keep thee steaming hot. That's poetry.

Tom.
Insensate wretch; can nothing stir thy soul,
But tempests brewed from earthly elements?
No light break through thy darkness, save a gleam,
The offspring of corruption? Is there nought
Can cheat thee for a moment of thy grossness?

Dick.
He's talking big,—I'll wake the imp within him. (Aside.)

I cannot blame thee—nay, I pity thee
For such unseemly license of thy tongue;
Touched in the brain,—I feared it might be so;
'T was wrong—it was most cruel in the girl,
To play so false a game. Who would have thought it,—
A coach, a parson, and a man in whiskers.

Tom.
Oh devil! what! speak, let me hear it all—
Not Julia! Parson! whiskers! tell me all,
And I will love thee.

Dick.
Who has spoke of Julia?
Are there no women in the world but Julia?
I was but thinking of an ancient spinster,
Miss Sally or Miss Celia Somebody,
That ran away from Time to play with Cupid.

Tom.
Lend me your kerchief—I am much exhausted:
What if I'd drawn that razor—

Dick.
There'd have been
Another tombstone, and a lie upon it.
I would have dressed you an obituary,
That should be really decent, and have written
With mine own hands a fancy epitaph.

Tom.
Come, you are caustic,—but you know my nature.
I'll show thee something for thine age to dream of,
A token of her beauty and her love;
Look at that auburn ringlet, boy, and think
On what a peerless brow it must have floated!
Her own white fingers did unweave the ray
From the soft coronal of light and beauty.

Dick.
Call you that auburn? it is hardly crimson.
There is a something of Aurora red—
A something like to filaments of flame,—
And yet they are not cobwebs in their texture,
Right thick and rosy.

Tom.
Ha! what is't you say?
Take that to help you in your rhetoric.

(Striking DICK.)
Dick.
Infant! I will not beat thee. Here's a chair.
And here's a neckcloth—yes, and here's a towel,
And I will truss thee like a callow goose.
(Trying him to the chair.)
So, thou art fixed, thou paralytic tiger—
I'm sorry to have been so rough with thee,
How is it, do you call it auburn still?

Tom.
Were every muscle beaten to a pulp,
And my bones powdered, I would call it auburn.

Dick.
There's tragedy! It shall be auburn, then.
Hark, there's a step with something leaden in it,
As one that is not full of merriment,—
I'll fling my cloak upon you—there, keep still.

Tom.
I'm d---dly battered, an' it please the Tutor.

(Enter TUTOR.)
Tutor.
Men ye are troublous,—there has been a noise,
As of exceeding vehement discussion.
If ye must talk of controverted things,
Wait till your beards do give you gravity.

(Exit.)

III

(DICK, solus.)
Ay—if a viper coiled upon her doorstep—
If the broad river were a stream of fire
And I must cross it on a raft of tinder—
If Cerberus stood keeper of the toll,
And I were penniless—I'd see the girl.
A vixen and a jilt—but still I love her.
An arrant baggage, who would tear my letters
To paper up her hair—but still I love her.
Not that the rose is fairer on her cheek,
Not that the light is brighter in her eye,
Than half the seraph sisterhood can boast.
Where lurks the influence that thus can steal,
Like the sweet music of a prisoned lyre,
Through all the marble barriers of the heart?
So are we tempered, that we know not why
We love or hate, we follow or we shun.
Is it in outward seeming? do we stoop
To meet the bending statute? do we press
The lips that glow unbreathing on the canvas?
Nay, are there not a thousand living shapes
That are like shadows to the listless soul,
Lifeless and pulseless? yet we turn from them
To one less fair, and think her born of heaven.
Who sees the bow when Love lets loose the shaft?
A plague upon the nice anatomy
That cuts up feeling into curves and angles.
Her eye is blue—and so too is her bonnet—
Her forehead white—so is a sheet of paper—
Her hair is golden—I can buy enough
Of just such hair to fill a bushel basket—
Her voice is smooth—why so is milk and water;
And this is what you get for analyzing.
But take her in the whole, form, voice, and motion,
I love the compound.—If she loves not me,
Why, she has lost a—might pretty fellow;
A six-foot man, with most effulgent whiskers,
And two good hands to put in empty pockets.
I wonder how my grandam stood the frost.
How the old spider hangs upon her cobweb!
They say her will is made, and when she tumbles,
Perhaps a pension to her gray-beard tom-cat,
Some small post mortem acts of piety,
To crutch her poor rheumatic soul upon,
And I shall dust the dear old lady's guineas.
Ha! when we rattle in our own good tandem,
And crack the ivory-handled whip we paid for,
There'll be a stir among the plumes and ribbons!
Lightly he treads who steps on golden slippers—
Sweetly he speaks whose purse has music in it.
Pray die, dear grandam; we will have you buried
All nice and decent, and we'll have a sermon
To call you pretty names, and buy some kerchiefs
To soak up bitter tears, and feed your tomcat,
As if he never scratched us—curse upon him.

(Enter six BORES.)
All.
A pleasant evening—

Dick.
Yes a pleasant evening,
A devilish pleasant evening out of doors.

1st Bore.
What have you here to eat? I am not hungry,
But I might taste a pie; I am not thirsty,
But I might drink to please these honest fellows;
Or, as I mean to sit, I'll smoke a little.

Dick.
We're out of victual and we're out of wine,
There's water in the pail—smoke and be d---d.

2d Bore.
Lend me a book, I mean to sit a little,
And I am not in mood for conversation.

Dick.
Here's Worcester's Walker's Johnson's Dictionary;
Open at Ass—a very fitting subject.

3d Bore.
I saw your very worthy grandmother
A short time since; she seemed extremely hearty.
O what a blessing such a woman is!
In all the circle of domestic love
There is no greater—

Dick.
No, there is no greater—
Just as you say—a most eternal blessing.

4th Bore.
I'll take a nap—you'll wake me in an hour,
Or two at farthest—so I'll shut the door.

(Goes into the bedroom.)
Dick.
And I will lock it. Sleep till bedbugs wake you.

(Locks the door.)
5th Bore.
Come boy, let's have a game or two of chequers
Before we try the chess, and then backgammon,
Or else a little whist—just run along
And order up some claret and some oysters.

Dick.
My board is broken and my foot is lame.

6th Bore.
I think of making something of a call,
And so I'll take my coat and waistcoat off,
Wait a few hours until the rest are gone
And I will read you something I have written.

(Cry of fire.)
Five Bores.
O, there's a row—good night—we'll call again.

(Exeunt five BORES.)
Dick,
solus.
Go, blessed boobies, and the devil singe you—
Sleep, snoring lubber, and the night-fiend gnaw you—
Another step before the door is bolted!
(Enter TOM.)
Ah, soft Lothario, with thy lady cheek,
Didst thou exhale upon us from a dew-drop?
Or wast thou wafted on an evening zephyr?

Tom.
I hang myself to-morrow—Julia's bolted!
Off in a tangent with that ugly captain!
I did not care for Julia—I was tired
Of all her tricks and fancies—but to think
Of such a rocket tied to such a stick
Would make one hang himself for human folly.
So once again, for universal woman!
Does the new coat sit close about the waist?

Dick.
Ay, put a pismire's girdle on a porpoise,
It will sit closer than a sailor's jacket.
Now diet for a while on water-gruel,
And take a dose or two of bleaching salts,
And run a razor round the barren course,
And when you're hanged for stealing, men will say
He was a pale, thin pigmy, with a beard.

Tom.
Why, man you're biting as a seedling radish.
Did Clara pout? nay, do not look so rosy,
Her mother told me all about your love,
And asked me of your prospects and your standing;
I told her—but no matter what I told her.

Dick.
The wrinkled hag—and thou, infernal imp,
What didst thou say?

Tom.
I only now remember
Some general hints about your evil habits,
Your sad propensity to gin and water,
Your singular asperity of temper—
I did not call you absolutely dirty,
But only rather slovenly and careless—
For rank, that you was like a serpent's rattle,
That makes some noise, though very near the tail—
That as to money, save the bills you owed,
You had but little to remind you of it.
I did not like it, but it was my duty,
And I am honest, so I tell you all.

Dick.
Now, fellow, I will mash you to a pumice,
Or beat thee to a tumor—

Tom.
Hold a moment
It was all stuff—I never saw the woman;
But since you seemed in such a frosty mood,
I fired a squib at your philosophy
And laughed to see it catch—so keep your beating
To make your children grow.—Now come along
And drown your anger in a good potation.

Dick.
And you curry people down with lies,
And smooth it with a julep. But I'll go,
And leave that sleeping carrion in the bedroom,
Among his brother vermin,—peace be with him.

(Exeunt.)

THE CANNIBAL

AN INVOCATION

(TRANSLATED FROM THE ARABIC)

THE MONKEYS

THE DEPARTURE

THE FISH PIECES

THE GIPSY

LADY DRINKING

THE GRADUATE'S SONG

MOONSHINE

OCTOSYLLABICS

THE OLD GENTLEMAN'S STORY

THE TAIL-PIECE

For The Collegian

CONFESSIONS OF A COCOANUT

THE GALLOWS BIRD'S LAST SONG

REFLECTIONS IN A BALL ROOM

THE TWO SHADOWS

CROSSING THE FORD

DOMESTIC THOUGHTS

THE FLIES

INFELIX SENECTUS

SONG OF THE HENPECKED

THE FAIRY WORLD

THE LOST BOY

TO THE LADY OPPOSITE

CITY MADRIGALS

TO MY NEIGHBOUR WHO SINGS, AND PLAYS ON THE PIANO-FORTE

LOVE-SONG

TO FAME

TO A LADY WITH HER BACK TO ME

THE DESTROYERS

THE TOAD AND THE NIGHTINGALE

WORDS TO WOMAN

SENTIMENT

Alas! that in our earliest blush
Our danger first we feel,
And tremble when the rising flush
Betrays some angel's seal!
Alas! for care and pallid wo
Sit watchers in their turn,
Where heaven's too faint and transient glow
So soon forgets to burn!
Maiden, through every change the same
Sweet semblance thou may'st wear;
Ay, scorch thy very soul with shame,
Thy brow may still be fair:
But if thy lovely cheek forget
The rose of purer years—
Say, does not memory sometimes wet
That changeless cheek with tears?

NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS

One year, God bless You! quoth the man of rhyme,
Is but a small parenthesis in time;
It chimes with others, like a mingling tone;
It hath its meaning though it stand alone.
Trace the short seasons from the vernal cloud
To where they slumber in their winter shroud;
Within that circle every human dream
Has flushed and faded like the planet's beam,
All thoughts, all passions that shall ever glide
Through living channels with their changeless tide,
Have had their being, and are dimly cast
In Memory's outline on the hueless past.
Life's kindling torch, and Death's enveloped urn
Receive the flame and ashes in their turn;
Love doats and sickens; Anger frets and dies
With every twinkle in the starry skies;
And, as the wild autumnal winds that bear
Earth's myriad foliage through the desert air,
Time sweeps the trophies with his shriveled wings,
Torn from the bosom of all breathing things.
What if the tempest strike a deeper stain
On the gray summit which it beats in vain?
What if the cataract scoop the quivering rock
A little deeper with its ceaseless shock?
What if a nation change its badge or name,
Is man, is nature, then, no more the same?
Alas, poor drawler, throw the quill away
That will be serious when it should be gay;
Wrench a tough feather from some veteran bird!
File into satire every iron word,
Let the rank plume, for which the vulture bled,
Drip scalding poison, and thou may'st be read;
But keep thy wisdom, all its odds and ends,
For blue-eyed misses and lymphatic friends.
Spirit of Dulness! not for me alone
Bends thy vague shadow from its leaden throne;
Thy sceptre darkens o'er a wider reign
Than the dull precincts of my wearied brain;
Speak, prostrate Caesar, from thy school-boy page
Green with the verdure of reviving age;
The robe of empire cannot purple now
The poppies shadowing thy patrician brow!
We leave the follies of the passing year
Save one too noisy for a quiet ear.
What though it flourish o'er the astonished town,
The saintly drapery of the prelate's gown;
What though, great Æolus, this gentle strain
Shall make dull music for thine idiot brain;
When the lost pilot steers the bark no more
Well may the rhymester of a day deplore
The freight of science, sinking fast from view,
Swamped in the verbiage of her precious crew.
Yet for the stranger, on whose lonely grave
No flowers familiar to his childhood wave,
In this frail record be one passing sigh
Breathed o'er the darkness where his ashes lie.
Oh if the errors could the wise beguile,
Warmed by the magic of his winning smile,
Be they forgotten, and above him bend
Truth for her champion, Virtue for her friend.
Hark! with the clarion that the storm has blown
A southern trumpet blends its angry tone;
See, with the drapery of the tattered sky,
The nameless banner of a faction fly;
Why breaks that menace on the peaceful breeze
That wafts the treasures of an hundred seas?
Why floats the shadow of that flag afar,
Whose folds are blazoned with a falling star?
Go to the chaos where creation lay
Ere night receded from the shores of day,
And ask the spirit, whose annulling glance
Checked each abortion of eternal chance,
Why Life was scattered, gathering into form,
And Beauty smothered ere her lips could warm?
Our last year's verses—with paternal care
We keep one copy for our unborn heir—
Touched but too lightly on the wasting flame
Whose distant sparkles perished as they came.
God of all judgements, how that awful word
Has thrilled and trembled where it since was heard;
Pale lips pronounced it at the morning's dawn;
Those lips were silent ere the day was gone.
As on the forest sinks the dewy cloud,
Death fell and dampened on the shivering crowd;
War's thunder threatens ere his arrows fly,
And Famine whispers from her blazing sky:
Thou hadst no herald till thy bursting waves
Swept the shrunk victims to their shallow graves,
Farewell, sweet reader; once the song I raised
The Transcript quoted and the Courier praised.
Ah, then no drudgery chained my buoyant mind,
And thou, dear idol of my love, wast kind,
Alas! these objects that around me gleam
Like the red phial, in a druggist's dream;
The bell that calls me from each nascent line,
(Three strokes, O stranger, on that bell are mine;)
And years, whose progress every bosom feels,
Must wear the axle while it rolls the wheels,
Shall plead for Freedom till this wreath of rhyme
To-morrow tosses from the locks of Time.

SIX VERSES

IV. THE HEART'S OWN SECRET

[I, a poor actor, paid to please a throng,—]

I, a poor actor, paid to please a throng,—
Painted and plumed in all the pride of song;
I, that have brought these mercenary strains
Whose every couplet clanks its golden chains;
I, self-enrolled among the shining set
That outrage virtue with their “Muse to let;”
Have I no visions, as again I rise
And read my welcome in your waiting eyes?
Fresh from the hills that feed with icy springs
Rough brakes that rustle with the wild-bird's wings;
From solemn woodlands where in awful shade,
Heaped with green mounds, the forest kings are laid,
While round their graves the bleeding maples flow,
And mourning hemlocks droop in weeds of wo;
From groves of glossy beech the wood thrush fills
In the dim twilight with his rapturous trills;
From sweet still pastures, cropped by nodding kine,
Their noon-tide tent the century-counting pine;
From the brown stream along whose winding shore
Each sleepy inlet knows my resting oar;
From the broad meadows, where the mowers pass
Their scythes slow-breathing through the feathered grass;
From tawny rye-fields, where the cradler strikes
With whistling crash among the bearded spikes;
Fresh from such glories, how shall I forget
My summer's day-dream, now the sun is set?
And ah! too well my burning cheek betrays
I too have clasped the jewelled cup of praise;
The cup, once tasted, like the reveller's draught,
The lip still clings to, till its dregs are quaffed.
These reverend sires, with wrinkled front severe,
Fain would I win to pardon all they hear;
These dry, hot souls, inflamed by angry tongues,
Scorched with the furnace-blast from fiery lungs,
With liquid verse I long to soothe and cool.
And lead them, grateful, from its healing pool.
These rose-lipped daughters of the younger time,
Whose nicer ear is fed with daintiest rhyme,
Whose youthful eyes, half-threatening while they shine,
Must lend the light they cannot ask from mine.
Still would I please, if yet the power remain;
Say not, sweet listeners, that I long in vain!
The Heart's own Secret! How a single word
Would tell our history,—and we die unheard!
When Love's dear witchery makes us more than kind;
When Friendship lifts the flood-gates of the mind;
When the red wine-cup brings its half-eclipse,
And the heart's night-birds flutter round the lips;
That single word the faithful traitors shun:
Tell follies, sins, and secrets,—all but ONE.
Behold the simple thread that intertwines
Its sober strand along my pictured lines.

[Pictures enough! 'Tis time the gallery close]

Pictures enough! 'Tis time the gallery close;
The slumbering nod, the waking need repose.
Yet ere we rake the ashes on the coals,
One brighter spark shall fire these wearied souls.
The lonely man, whose story none could tell,—
The knave, who kept his secret till he fell,—
The lover's silent lip and wasting cheek,—
The brooding mother's hope that would not speak,—
The fevered statesman's soul-consuming dream,—
Enough of these; I ask a loftier theme!
[OMITTED]
Ye that proclaim the fierce destroyer's creed,
Shut your white lips and listen while I read:
“When tongues are fiery hot and hearts are cold,
“When faith grows weak and faction waxes bold,
“When the wise whisper and the fools are loud,
“When every brawler has his noisy crowd,
“When peaceful Abel leaves his fruits and grain
“To call hard names and shake his fist at Cain,
“When gray old Judah casts his open vote
“To sell his brother in the patch-work coat,
“Shout, Despots, shout across the shuddering wave!
“The Sexton stands by Freedom's open grave!”
Still let us hope!—What sudden mists arise
And veil the shapes that filled my outward eyes?
A vision floats before my dreaming soul;—
A proud fair maiden clasps a mystic scroll;
On hand is circled on a lofty spear,
One foot is planted on a pictured sphere.
“Behold!” she cries, “and tremble as ye read;
“This is the patriot's first and latest creed!
“Wo to the unborn children of the age
“That blots or rends its Heaven-emblazoned page!”
Large is the scroll; its living lines how bright,
As the long legend flashes in the light!
O for one word! for those mysterious gleams
Cheat my strained vision, as in midnight dreams.
Spread the curled leaf that holds the solemn creed,
Now, now, if ever, is the hour to read!
The maiden smiles; a purple hem she tears
And blinds it fluttering to the lance she bears.
Borne on the quivering staff in upper air
The winds unfold it, flowing broad and fair;
See how it waves and widens! Now, behold!
Rayed like the morning! Fired with spots of gold!
I know the milk-white bands—the flaming bars—
My country's flag, with all its radiant stars!
One hue it borrows from the tropic's rose,
And one comes glistening from the polar snows,
Forever braided, till the crownless Queen
Sweeps with its folds the mighty world between!