PROSIT NEUJAHRBe the new year sweet and shortAs the days of girl and boy are,Full of friendship, full of sport—Prosit Neujahr!Be it beautiful and greatAs the days of grief and joy are,Full of wonder and of fate—Prosit Neujahr!FAIR HARVARDFair Harvard, the winter of Puritan snowsThat enshrouded thy tremulous birthMelts slowly to spring, now the south wind blowsO'er the face of this generous earth.Thy elms are outspreading their flexible armsOver meadows more fruitful and broad,And soft ivy is veiling with negligent charmsThe gaunt walls of the castle of God.With freedom for heritage, reason for star,And friendship for sojourner here,Shall music long tremblingly sound from afarOr genius be smothered in fear?Where the ages may meet and the spirit may climbTo a truth that is builded on doubt,The eternal may dwell mid the currents of timeAnd peace above barbarous rout,And the just voice unlearn to be strident and sharp,And, attuned to life's happier choir,Join the stress of all David might shout to his harpWith all Lysis might lisp to his lyre,And Olympia again call the strong and the fleetTo glory and art and control,And a deathless Academy build a retreatTo ponder the things of the soul.If to glory, young Mother, thy destiny tend,If thy labours have honour in store,Our loves shall not die, though their chronicle endNor mortals remember us more.For once from their dreaming the man and the boy,Fair Harvard, awoke at thy name,And our happiest years were a part of thy joy,And our light was a spark of thy flame.COLLEGE DRINKING SONGAs we say good-bye at the parting ways,Let us sing together a song of praise,Let us drink a toast to our college days,To the walks through a world made for you and me,To the boisterous farce and the echoing glee,To the wonderful A and the dreadful E,Drink, boys, drink!To the games we won and the games we lost,For we could n't tell which before we tossed,And who cares now who paid the cost?To the woman's love that came and went,To the good wine drunk and the money spent,To the night-long foolish argument,Drink, boys, drink!To the times when men were men indeed,To our fathers' youth and our mothers' creed,And to every faith that may succeed,To the after age and the later tongueThat will ring the changes we have rungAnd sing the songs we have left unsung,Drink, boys, drink!When the eye is dull and the hand is cold,Then should the pocket be full of gold,For no one will love us when we 're old.So to vulgar gold and what it getsAnd an honest end to all our debts,For an old wine softens old regrets,Drink, boys, drink!When we are asleep beneath grey stone,Our children's lives shall repeat our own,For the light remains though the days be flown.To the opening buds of this ended May,And to all sweet things that will not stay,And to every dog that has had his day,Drink, boys, drink!SIX WISE FOOLSTwelve had struck. Our talk subsided.We were comrades in the schoolsBy the world awhile divided—Six sententious merry fools.And I said, "We 've talked of college,Resurrecting callow youth.But you since have lived; what knowledgeHave you gathered of the Truth?And you first, most learned scholar,Whom I 'm proud to sit beside,Speak: does wisdom sans a dollarLeave you wholly satisfied?You have walked, and never wavered,In the paths the sages tookAnd three publishers have favouredWith a yet unpublished book.The soul's garden you have weededWhich we mortals trample through,You love much we leave unheeded.Speak, and let us learn of you."And the student thus proceeded,As a gentle sigh he drew:THE SCHOLARI'm thankful that as matters goI neither toil nor spin,But read the good old wits, heigh ho!And live with elder kin;That I need neither reap nor sowNor gather into barns,But dwell among my books, heigh ho!Repeating ancient yarns.Dead things are not my science, no,Nor fossil parts of speech,But the great human heart, heigh ho!That pedants never reach.The record of man's joy and woeUpon his sculptured faceI read by my heart's light, heigh ho!And vanquish time and space.I find no vice so foul and lowBut nature lurks therein,Nor any thought so high, heigh ho!But pays the price of sin.I feel the pity and the glowOf truth's sublime communion,And learn to smile at fate, heigh ho!In friendship's happy union.Let this but last till death's wind blowAnd till my bones are rotten,Then let the world sail on, heigh ho!And be ray name forgotten."Now you, votary of pleasure,"Turning to the next, I said,"Count the profit of your leisureAnd the cost of unearned bread.Tell us what civilisationMerits your impartial praise,In what climate, in what nationYou have spent most joyous days."Quoth he, as if in admirationThat such questions I should raise:THE SPORTAll things are nice when they are new,When they are old, all things are horrid.After the storm I like the blue,After the arctic zone the torrid.My loves are many, brief, and true,By mutual jealousy unworried.I like to leave my house and homeAnd cross the mountains and the sea;With one small bag on earth to roam,That is the height of bliss for me.To roam on earth without my bag,That is the depth of misery.That freedom cheats us with a wordWhich sets up knaves and murders kings.What soul is free that never stirred?Go cut your mother's apron-strings,And putting money in your purse,Fly off on the express-train's wings.I'll stay at home when I am lame,And build a church when stuffed with gold,I will be grave when known to fame,I will be chaste when I am old.Then all the angels will rejoiceThat I, lost lamb, regain the fold."Without some evil, nothing good,"Your subtle theologians say.I glorify their rectitudeBy straying in my artless way.My needful sins make possibleThe higher morals of the day.This is our only chance to tasteThe sweet and bitter fruits of earth.To pluck them all, we've need of haste;We cannot ask what each is worth.Up, up, wise virgin; do not wasteThe little time 'twixt death and birth.Come feel the joy of changing skies,Of rushing streams and windy weather.Though we be bound by fortune's ties,We' 11 to the utmost stretch the tether,And be they gay or be they sad,We'll go and see the sights together.THE CRITIC"Shall men agree?" the next man said,"Each mind is shut within some head(Pacethe minds of all the dead)With two eyes, seldom of a size,And spectacles before the eyes.Then, if men differ, what surprise?"See the wight who wrapped in sadnessGrieves how soon this life is done,And, disgusted with the madnessOf the way the world is run,Scorns the hollowness of gladnessAnd the idiocy of fun:Why, the spots upon the sunCan be seen, when the ray passesBlue eye-glasses."And what makes the moonlight shimmerWith the dancing of the seaAnd the little stars cold glimmerTwinkle with an inward gleeWhile this working-world grows dimmerIf my Mary looks with me?Not the moon or stars or sea,But the fickle cause, alas, isLove's eye-glasses."Oh, how sad a world to cough inIs a world once warm and fair,And how many fallings off inOld men's world of falling hair,Till they think within the coffinThat there's no world anywhere.For I fancy dead men wear(Take your look now, lads and lasses!)No eye-glasses."He stopped, and with a civil lookSaid to his neighbour, "You come next,"Who had been looking at a bookAnd seemed a trifle bored and vexed.He laid the book down, stretched his legsAnd yawned, and, emptying his glass,Made a grimace as if the dregsWere bitter, and replied, "I pass."When pressed, he shook his languid headUntil at last he hemmed and said:THE PESSIMISTI set my heart on being good,Believed the Bible to the letter,Yes, joined a Christian brotherhoodWhen I was young and knew no better;And, if I sometimes sinned, I weptThat God's commandments were not kept.As time went on, I understoodThat it was wrong to be so good.My heart I set on being wiseAnd passing for a clever fellow:Reading o' nights I spoilt my eyes,And lack of fresh air turned me yellow.Each book I read said t' other lied,I saw the less the more I pried,And so I found, to my surprise,I was a fool to be so wise.I set my heart on making friendsPleasant and clever, kind and witty;They now are at the earth's four ends,Two only have n't left the city.The one is given up to trade,The other in the churchyard laid.And when youth's gone and leisure ends,It is too late for making friends.I set my heart upon a girlWho chose at my approach to smile.Did she but pat some frizzled curl,I knew the angel free from guile.But now a rich man owns my belle,I find the others smile as well,And my moustache no more I twirl,Nor set my heart upon a girl.I set my heart on seeing things,And wished through every land to travel,See Troja's ruins, Nikis' springs,And culture's history unravel.When many a sea had made me sick,Men still were bipeds, houses brick.Since nearer Truth no journey bringsI make an end of seeing things.I set my heart on politics;I glowed for honesty and freedom.My earnest thoughts I tried to fixUpon the poor, and how to feed 'em.But the reformer cheats himself,He serves his prejudice or pelf,And no man's will but inward fateGoverns the fortunes of the state.I set my heart on nothing now,But bless the gifts of every hour,Holding my hand beneath life's boughTo catch the fruit or falling flower.With the world breathing at my feet,I find the sunset stillness sweet,And with the night wind on my browI set my heart on nothing now.He scarce had done, when the last man,Who'd listened hard to every word,Thus, rising in his place, beganAs if impatient to be heard:THE LOVEROh, you men who are not marriedHave n't known the joy of living,On the margin you have tarried,Never putting out to sea;All your musing, all your grieving,Is a childish thing to me.I have done with idle mopingAnd have seen my manly duty.There is no more doubt and groping,Since I took a woman's hand,And the loadstar of her beautyLed me to the promised land.For her sake my work is pleasureAnd I thrive in my devotion,Though I seek repute and treasureBut to have the gifts to give,For my love, like River Ocean,Rounds the world in which I live.When I feel, in softest slumber,Her fair head upon my pillow,I think how the misty HumberAnd the Ganges' holy streamSend their treasures o'er the billowTo embalm my lady's dream.Rightly did my father rear meClose beside the village steeple,Rightly shall my sons revere meWhen they come to take my place,For I serve my land and peopleAnd maintain my sturdy race.Fill your glasses up with liquor,Drink it down while yet it bubbles.When the heart beats quick and quickerLove is knocking. Drink with me:Here is death to all your troubles,And long life, fair love, to thee!"Yes, fill your glasses up, I pray you,"Said I, "and make it bumpers now,For whatsoever passion sway youSome noble love we all avow."We bear a mark, an inward token,That parts us from the common herd.To each of us some muse has spokenA holy, unforgotten word."Our stars, conjoined in youth's first season,Whether to musing moved or strife.Obedient to one touch of reasonTogether make the round of life."Drink to the loves we knitted here,A bond by distance not undone.High thoughts outlive the wasted year;I drink to that which makes us one."ATHLETIC ODEI hear a rumour and a shout,A louder heart-throb pulses in the air.Fling, Muse, thy lattice open, and bewareTo keep the morning out.Beckon into the chamber of thy careThe bird of healing wingThat trilleth thereBlithe happy passion of the strong and fair.Their wild heart singeth. Do thou also sing.How vain, how vainThe feeble croaking of a reasoning tongueThat heals no painAnd prompts no bright deed worthy to be sungToo soon cold earthRefuses flowers. Oh, greet their lovely birth!Too soon dull deathQuiets the heaving of our doubtful breath.Deem not its worthToo high for honouring mirth;Sing while the lyre is strung,And let the heart beat, while the heart is young.When the dank earth begins to thaw and yieldThe early clover, didst thou never passSome balmy noon from field to sunny fieldAnd press thy feet against the tufted grass?So hadst thou seenA spring palæstra on the tender green.Here a tall stripling, with a woman's face,Draws the spiked sandal on his upturned heel,Sure-footed for the race;Another hurls the quoit of heavy steelAnd glories to be strong;While yet another, lightest of the throng,Crouching on tiptoe for the sudden bound,Flies o'er the level race-course, like the hound,And soon is lost afar;Another jumps the bar,For some god taught him easily to spring,The legs drawn under, as a bird takes wing,Till, tempting fortune farther than is meet,At last he fails, and fails, and vainly tries,And blushing, and ashamed to lift his eyes,Shakes the light earth from his feet.Him friendly plaudits greetAnd pleasing to the unaccustomed ear.Come then afield, come with the sporting yearAnd watch the youth at play,For gentle is the strengthening sun, and sweetThe soul of boyhood and the breath of May.And with the milder rayOf the declining sun, when sky and shore,In purple drest and misty silver-grey.Hang curtains round the day,Come list the beating of the plashing oar,For grief in rhythmic labour glides away.The glancing blades make circles where they dip,Now flash and dripCool wind-blown drops into the glassy river,Now sink and cleave,While the lithe rowers heaveAnd feel the boat beneath them leap and quiver.The supple oars in time,Shattering the mirror of the rippled water,Fly, fly as poets climb,Borne by the pliant promise of their rhyme,Or as bewitched by Nereus' loveliest daughterThe painted dolphins, following along,Leap to the measure of her liquid song.But the blasts of late October,Tempering summer's paling griefWith a russet glow and sober,Bring of these sports the latest and the chief.Then bursts the flame from many a smouldering ember,And many an ardent boyWoos harsher pleasures sweeter to remember,Hugged with a sterner and a tenser joy.Look where the rivals come:Each little phalanx on its chosen groundStrains for the sudden shock, and all aroundThe multitude is dumb.Come, watch the stubborn fightAnd doubtful, in the sightOf wide-eyed beauty and unstinted loveAy, the wise gods above,Attentive to this hot and generous fray,Smile on its fortunes and its end prepare,For play is also life, and far from careTheir own glad life is play.Ye nymphs and fauns, to Bacchus dear,That woke Cithæron with your midnight rout,Arise, arise and shout!Your day returns, your haunt is here.Shake off dull sleep and long despair;There is intoxication in this air,And frenzy in this yelping cheer.How oft of old the enraptured Muses sungOlympian victors' praise.Lo! even in these daysThe world is young.Life like a torrent flungFor ever downFor ever wears a rainbow for a crown.O idle sigh for loveliness outworn,When the red flush of each unfailing mornFloods every field and grove,And no moon wanes but some one is in love.O wasted tear,A new soul wakes with each awakened year.Beneath these rags, these blood-clots on the face,The valiant soul is still the same, the sameThe strength, the art, the inevitable grace,The thirst unquenched for fameQuenching base passion, the high will severe,The long obedience, and the knightly flameOf loyalty to honour and a name.Give o'er, ye chords, your music ere ye tire,Be sweetly mute, O lyre.Words soon are cold, and life is warm for ever.One half of honour is the strong endeavour,Success the other, but when both conspireYouth has her perfect crown, and age her old desire.THE BOTTLES AND THE WINELINES READ AT THE REUNION OF A COLLEGE CLUBWould you have an illustrationOf the thing we fellows are?Liken every generationTo the bottles in the bar:Vessels full of precious liquorStanding in their brave array,—Neverbosom friends were thickerOr of franker heart than they,There congenially hobnobbing,Always ready for a bout,As half laughing and half sobbingThe fine spirits bubble out.We buy, break, drink, waste, decant them—Bottles come and bottles go—Yet there always, when you want them,Stand the bottles in a row:Port and sherry, rum and brandy,Irish, Bourbon, Scotch, and rye,Always smiling, always handyWhen the heart's a trifle dry.Though the bottles change their labelAnd tag on another name,They're as welcome at the table,For the liquor's still the same.Days gone by saw jugs in plenty,Now less frequently on view.Every year some ten or twentyPass to fields and pastures new.There, replenished, they grow fatterAnd their bellies bulge amain,But though full as yet of matter,You may mark a certain drain,For the busy world's contentionBrings the liquid down a bit,And a small god I won't mentionSometimes takes a pull at it.Yet apart from some mischances,Though not standing where they stood,For big dinners and small dancesOur old bottles still are good.But when once the dregs are emptied,We throw bottles in a heap,Not one favourite exempted,Were its spirit fine or cheap.They 're doled out in the back alleyBy the scrawny hands of hagsWhen gaunt Death comes shilly-shallyCrying, "Bottles and old rags!"What of that? While face and feature,Manners, minds, and pleasures pass,Mature breeds a younger creature.Mate to what the other was,And the sports we had forsaken,And the fancies blown awayIn the brighter souls they wakenLive for ever and a day.The proud glories that entice usNo more fail because we passThan the founts of DionysusFor the quaffing of a glass.But what happens to the liquor?The old bottles' fate to share,Only that its flight is quickerUp the vortices of air?Is it lost as soon as tasted,Rising upon moth-like wingsTo be caught and scorched and wastedIn this foolish flame of things?Ah, the blood of nature's spillingTrickles back into her veins,And her cup is ever fillingWith the vintage that she strains.For a moment she befriends usWith unsealing of our eyes,But the light of life she lends usFloods her everlasting skies.The sweet wine that makes our passionLinking heart to mortal heartIs her ancient fire to fashionAll the marvels of her art.It has painted woman's beauty,It is parent to the flowers,It has wedded joy to duty,Portioned loves among the hours,Built us palaces and churches,Plucked its music from the lyre,Lighted all the spirit's searchesThrough the mazes of desire,Yes, and scorning earthly placesAnd our human loves and warsIt has peopled heaven's spacesAnd has gilded heaven's stars.Drink, then, of this cup and drain it.Let the wine renew the soul,And all vessels that contain it,May they long be sound and wholeTo receive the boon and give itThat makes mortal joys divine.Here's to life and all who live it,To the bottles and the wine.THE POETIC MEDIUMIn Chelsea dwells a Sibyl known to fameCalled Mrs. Fakir—necromantic name!Past, present, future, open to her viewShe (for ten dollars) will reveal to you.I for less sums—the discount to the trade—Quaff at her fount and seek her undismayed.I found the priestess in her wonted lairUp three steep flights of narrow dirty stair.Chill was the darkened chamber. A thick fumeOf kerosene lent odour to the gloom.Clothed in black weeds, pale, with delirious hair,Rocked Mrs. Fakir in her rocking-chair.I told my errand; with some hushed complaintAbout the fee, she fell into a faint,Thrice rolled her eyes, thrice snorted through her nose,Thrice wrung her hands, and wriggled thrice her toes,Then spoke. (I versify: she uttered vulgar prose.)"You want some verse: not every poet's soulWhose aid you crave is still in my control.Whom would you summon? You must ask the boonOf some frail wight that floats below the moon.The spirits that have risen to the starsReck not the echoes of our earthly jars.Their troubles past, they have forgotten ours,And move unmoved by even magic powers.Only weak souls entangled in the meshOf passion, dying, still are bond to flesh,And hover o'er the battle-field of lifeTo smell their kindred blood and pine for strife.Such I may summon, for they have no choiceWho crave to live again and find a voice.""'T is well," I answered. "If the gods so please,We will not call on Aristophanes,Horace shall slumber, Juvenal be dumb.They rest in peace. But haply Swift will come.""Not Swift," she said, "not Swift. I cannot tellWhether he flew to heaven or to hell,But he is gone far from this mild, low-born,And canting age, incapable of scorn.""Well, summon Byron, then," I said and sighed."Byron is also safe," the witch replied."The first sin punished and the first forgivenIs love's, the slip of climbers into heaven.The petted passion and the shallow dreamHe purged at last; the heart survived supreme.""Byron gone too," thought I, "what wit remainsAll younger sprites have water in their veins.But, ah! might not the living help me out?Don't phantoms of the living flit about?""They do, they do," quoth Chelsea's Pythoness."Here in my telepathic cave's recessAll that they say or think or wish or feelI read aloud, but most what they conceal.Whom would you plagiarise? You 're silent? Why,Have you forgot the ages galaxy—"I trembled as she named them one by one,From Willy Frilly down to Spider Spun."Spare me," I cried. "Shall some prolific bardReel off bright lyrics at a cent a yard,All about April rain, December snow,The brook, the sunset, and the squawking crow?Shall little Swinburnes turn a verse with easeAnd sing the flaccid pleasures of disease?Shall mimics, drunk with each Castalian rill,Be any poet but themselves at will,Luscious when Keats, when Spenser quaint and dull,When Browning turgid, and Noodles null?Shall weaklings, in thick verse and tortured prose,Strike affectation's quintessential pose,Sniffing the odours of a perfumed brainWhere melts a Wordsworthplusa Paul Verlaine?When, with no art, were precious fabrics wrought,When metaphysics with no mastering thought?No, Mrs. Fakir, none of this small fry.Catch me some ghost of sense, or else good-bye.Not at my bidding shall this choir prolongThe cloying drivel of unmeaning song,Enrich the echo, maul the note and tease,Miauling nothing in a hundred keys.Better Pope's squirrel eye and polished sneerThan idiot mouthings, false without veneer.Better Boileau's 'monotony in wire,'Dressing good wit in periwigged attire;For in a garden's alleys or a woodHung all in green, monotony is good,And a frail stem may need a bit of wireTo keep the rose from trailing in the mire.Never will they dig deep or build for timeWho of unreason weave a maze of rhyme,Worship a weakness, nurse a whim, and bindWreaths about temples tenantless of mind,Forsake the path the seeing Muses trod,And shatter Nature to discover God.He only climbs the skies and proudly singsWhose heart, attentive, feels the pulse of things,Masters the fact, and hails the changeless goalThat beckons, purges, and fulfils the soul."I ceased: no ghost was willing to befriend,And all the living useless to my end.Meantime the hag awoke with vacant stare,And passed her bony fingers through her hair.I left her den and hastened back to town,Writing the while my sad experience down.This you have heard. 'T is little that I give,But it makes sense. Long, masters, may you live.YOUNG SAMMY'S FIRST WILD OATSLINES WRITTEN BEFORE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1900Mid Uncle Sam's expanded acresThere's an old, secluded gladeWhere grey Puritans and QuakersStill grow fervid in the shade;And the same great elms and beechesThat once graced the ancestral farm,Bending to the old men's speeches,Lend their words an echo's charm.Laurel, clematis, and vineWeave green trellises about,And three maples and a pineShut the mucker-village out.Yet the smoke of trade and battleCannot quite be banished hence,And the air-line to SeattleWhizzes just behind the fence.As one day old Deacon PlasterHobbled to the wonted nook,There was Doctor Wise, the pastor,Meekly sitting with his book."What has happened, Brother Deacon,That you look so hot and vexed?Is it something I might speak onWhen I preach on Sabbath next?""Doctor Wise," replied the other,As he wiped the sweat away,'T is a wicked sin, my brother,You should preach on every day.Cousin Sammy's gone a-tootingTo the Creole County fair,Where the very sun's pollutingAnd there's fever in the airHe has picked up three young lasses,Three mulattoes on the mart,Who have offered him free passesTo their fortune and their heart.One young woman he respected,Vowed he only came to woo.But his word may be neglectedSince he ravished the other two.In the Porto Rican billingAnd carousing, I allowThat the little minx was willing,Though she may be sorry now.But what came of those embracesAnd that taint of nigger blood?Now he looks on outraged facesAnd can laugh, defying God:He can stretch his hand, relieving,And strike down a cheated slave.Oh, if Uncle Sam were living,This would bring him to his grave!"Deacon Plaster ceased and, sighing,Mopped the reeking of his brain.Doctor Wise, before replying,Put his goggles on again."Brother Plaster, to be candid,Were I managing the farm,I should do as the old man did—Lyinglow and safe from harm,Shoot at poachers from the hedges,If they ventured within range,Just round out my acre's edges,Grow and grow, but never change.I am old, and you are old, sir:Old the thoughts we live among.If the truth were to be told, sir,None of us was ever young.In the towns of sombre Britain—MerryEngland turned about—Wewere marked at birth and smittenWhom the Lord had chosen out;Picked to found a pilgrim nation,Far from men, estranged, remote,With the desert for a stationAnd the ocean for a moat;To rebuke by sober living,In the dread of wrath to come,Of the joys of this world's givingThe abominable sum.Yet all passion's seeds came smuggledIn our narrow pilgrim ark,And, unwatered, grew and struggled,Pushed for ages through the dark,And, when summer granted pardon,Burst into the upper air,Till that desert was a gardenAnd that sea a thoroughfare.Thus the virtue we rely onMelted 'neath the heathen sun,And what should have been a ZionCame to be this Babylon.Ignorant of ancient sorrow,With hot young blood in their veins,Now the prophets of the morrowPly the spur and hold the reins.Can we blame them? Rather blame us,—Us, who uttered idle things.Our false prophecies shall shame us,And our weak imaginings.Liberty! delicious sound!The world loved it, and is free.But what's freedom? To be boundBy a chance majority.Few are rich and many poor,Though all minds show one dull hue.Equality we don't secure,Mediocrity we do.Ah! what dreams beguiled our youth!Brothers we had hoped to be;But competition is the truthOf what we called fraternity.Can we blame them we mistaughtIf now they seek another guideAnd, since our wisdom comes to naught,Take counsel of their proper pride?Nature beckons them, invitingTo a deeper draught of fate,And, the heart's desire inciting,Can we stop and bid them wait?"If old Uncle Sam were living,This, you say, should never be:Ah! if Uncle Sam were living,He might weep, but he must see.Yet he died in time, believingIn the gods that ruled his days.We, alas! survive him, grievingUnder gods we will not praise.The keen pleasures of DecemberMean the joys of April lost;And shall rising suns rememberAll the dream worlds they have crossed?All things mortal have their season:Nothing lives, for ever young,But renews its life by treasonTo the thing from which it sprung,And when man has reached immortalMansions, after toiling long,Life deserts him at the portal,And he only lives in song."As for Sam, the son, I wonderIf you know the fellow's heart:There may yet be something underNobler than the outer part.When he told that señoritaThat he kissed and hugged her closeLike a brother, did he cheat her?Did he cheat himself? Who knows?That he liked her, that is certain;That he wronged her is n't true.On his thoughts I draw the curtain:I don't know them, nor do you.In her maid, the facile Rica,We have quite another case.Hardly did he go to seek her,When she rushed to his embrace.I confess it was improper,But all flesh, alas! is flesh.Things had gone too far to drop her;Each was in the other's mesh.But with that poor Filipina,When she shrank from his caress,His contemptible demeanourIs n't easy to express.First he bought her, then he kicked her;But the truth is, he was drunk,For that day had crowned him victor,And a Spanish fleet was sunk."You perceive I do not spare him,Nor am blinded to his motesBy the Christian love I bear him;Yes; he's sowing his wild oats.But you can't deny him talent;Once his instinct is awake,He can play the part of gallantAnd of soldier and of rake.And it's something to have spiritThough in rashness first expressed.Give me good blood to inherit:Time and trial do the rest.He's not Uncle Sam, the father,That prim, pompous, pious man,Yankee, or Virginian, rather:Sammy's an American—Lavish, clever, loud, and pushing,Loving bargains, loving strife,Kindly, fearless-eyed, unblushing,Not yet settled down in life.Send him forth; the world will mellowHis bluff youth, or nothing can.Nature made the hearty fellow,Life will make the gentleman.And if Cousin Sam is callow,It was we who did the harm,Letting his young soul lie fallow—The one waste spot in the farm—Trained by sordid inventoriesTo scorn all he could n't buy,Puffed with miserable gloriesShouted at an empty sky,Fooled with cant of a past era,Droned 'twixt dreamy lid and lid,Till his God was a chimeraAnd the living God was hid.Let him look up from his standardTo the older stars of heaven,Seaward by whose might, and landward,All the tribes of men are driven;By whom ancient hopes were blasted,Ancient labours turned to dust;Whence the little that has lastedBorrows patience to be just:And beholding tribulation,Seeing whither states are hurled,Let him sign his declarationOf dependence on the world."Thus the Doctor's sermon ended;The old Deacon shook his head,For his conscience was offendedAnd his wits had lost the thread.So have mine, but there's my fable:Now, and when you cast your votes,Be as lenient as you 're ableOn "Young Sammy's First Wild Oats."SPAIN IN AMERICAWhen scarce the echoes of Manila Bay,Circling each slumbering billowy hemisphere,Had met where Spain's forlorn Armada layLocked amid hostile hills, and whispered nearThe double omen of that groan and cheer—Hasteto do now what must be done anonOr some mad hope of selling triumph dearDrove the ships forth: soon wasTeresagone,Furór, Pluton, Vizcaya, Oquendo, andColón.And when the second morning dawned sereneO'er vivid waves and foam-fringed mountains, dressedLike Nessus in their robe's envenomed sheen,Scarce by some fiery fleck the place was guessedWhere each hulk smouldered; while from crest to crestLeapt through the North the news of victory,Victory tarnished by a boorish jestYet touched with pity, lest the unkindly seaShould too much aid the strong and leave no enemy.As the anguished soul, that gasped for difficult breath,Passes to silence from its house of pain,So from those wrecks, in fumes of lurid death,Passed into peace the heavy pride of Spain,Passed from that aching tenement, half fain,Back to her castled hills and windy moors,No longer tossed upon the treacherous mainOnce boasted hers, which with its watery luresToo long enticed her sons to unhallowed sepultures.Why went Columbus to that highland race,Frugal and pensive, prone to love and ire,Despising kingdoms for a woman's face,For honour riches and for faith desire?On Spain's own breast was snow, within it fire;In her own eyes and subtle tongue was mirth;The eternal brooded in her skies, whence nigherThe trebled starry host admonished earthTo shame away her grief and mock her baubles' worth.Ah! when the crafty Tyrian came to SpainTo barter for her gold his motley wares,Treading her beaches he forgot his gain.The Semite became noble unawares.Her passion breathed Hamilcar's cruel prayers;Her fiery winds taught Hannibal his vows;Out of her tribulations and despairsThey wove a sterile garland for their brows.To her sad ports they fled before the Roman prows.And the Greek coming too forgot his art,And that large temperance which made him wise.The wonder of her mountains choked his heart,The languor of her gardens veiled his eyes;He dreamed, he doubted; in her deeper skiesHe read unfathomed oracles of woe,And stubborn to the onward destinies,Like some dumb brute before a human foe,Sank in Saguntum's flames and deemed them brighter so.The mighty Roman also when he came,Bringing his gods, his justice, and his tongue,Put off his greatness for a sadder fame,And what a Cæsar wrought a Lucan sung.Nor was the pomp of his proud music, wrungFrom Latin numbers, half so stern and dire,Nor the sad majesties he moved amongHalf so divine, as her unbreathed desire.Shall longing break the heart and not untune the lyre?When after many conquerors came Christ,The only conqueror of Spain indeed,Not Bethlehem nor Golgotha sufficedTo show him forth, but every shrine must bleedAnd every shepherd in his watches heedThe angels' matins sung at heaven's gate.Nor seemed the Virgin Mother wholly freedFrom taint of ill if born in frail estate,But shone the seraphs' queen and soared immaculate.And when the Arab from his burning sandsSwept o'er the waters like a heavenly flail,He took her lute into his conquering hands,And in her midnight turned to nightingale.With woven lattices and pillars frailHe screened the pleasant secrets of his bower,Yet little could his subtler arts availAgainst the brutal onset of the Giaour.The rose passed from his courts, the muezzin from his tower.Only one image of his wisdom stayed,One only relic of his magic lore,—Allah the Great, whom silent fate obeyed,More than Jehovah calm and hidden more,Allah remained in her heart's kindred coreHigh witness of these terrene shifts of wrong.Into his ancient silence she could pourHer passions' frailty—He alone is strong—And chant with lingering wail the burden of her song.Seizing at Covadonga the rude crossPelayo raised amid his mountaineers,She bore it to Granada, one day's lossRansomed with battles of a thousand years.A nation born in harness, fed on tears,Christened in blood, and schooled in sacrifice,All for a sweeter music in the spheres,All for a painted heaven—at a priceShould she forsake her loves and sail to Ind for spice?Had Genoa in her merchant palacesNo welcome for a heaven-guided son?Had Venice, mistress of the inland seas,No ships for bolder venture? Pisa none?Was sated Rome content? Her mission done?Saw Lusitania in her seaward dreamsNo floating premonition, beckoning onTo vast horizons, gilded yet with gleamsOf old Atlantis, whelmed beneath the bubbling streams?Or if some torpor lay upon the South,Tranced by the might of memories divine,Dwelt no shrewd princeling by the marshy mouthOf Scheldt, or by the many mouths of Rhine?Rode Albion not at anchor in the brineWhose throne but now the thrifty Tudor stoleChanging a noble for a crafty line?Swarmed not the Norsemen yet about the pole,Seeking through endless mists new havens for the soul?These should have been thy mates, Columbus, thesePatrons and partners of thy enterprise,Sad lovers of immeasurable seas,Bound to no hallowed earth, no peopled skies.No ray should reach them of their ladies' eyesIn western deserts: no pure minstrel's rhyme,Echoing in forest solitudes, surpriseTheir heart with longing for a sweeter clime.These, these should found a world who drag no chains of time.In sooth it had seemed folly, to revealTo stubborn Aragon and evil-eyedThese perilous hopes, folly to dull CastileMoated in jealous faith and walled in pride,Save that those thoughts, to Spain's fresh deeds allied,Painted new Christian conquests, and her handItched for that sword, now dangling at her side,Which drove the Moslem forth and purged the land.And then she dreamed a dream her heart could understand.Three caravels, a cross upon the prow,A broad cross on the banner and the sail,The liquid fields of Hesperus should ploughBorne by the leaping waters and the gale.Before that sign all hellish powers should quailTroubling the deep: no dragon's obscene crest,No serpent's slimy coils should aught avail,Till ivory cities looming in the westShould gleam from high Cathay or Araby the Blest,Then, as with noble mien and debonairThe captains from the galleys leapt to land,Or down the temple's alabaster stairOr by the river's marge of silvery sand,Proud Sultans should descend with outstretched handGreeting the strangers, and by them apprisedOf Christ's redemption and the Queen's command,Being with joy and gratitude baptised,Should lavish gifts of price by rarest art devised.Or if (since churls there be) they should demurTo some least point of fealty or faith,A champion, clad in arms from crest to spur,Should challenge the proud caitiffs to their deathAnd, singly felling them, from their last breathExtort confession that the Lord is lord,And India's Catholic queen, Elizabeth.Whereat yon turbaned tribes, with one accord,Should beat their heathen breasts and ope their treasures' horde.Or, if the worst should chance and high debatesShould end in insult and outrageous deed,And, many Christians rudely slain, their matesShould summon heaven to their direful need,Suddenly from the clouds a snow-white steedBearing a dazzling rider clad in flamesShould plunge into the fray: with instant speedRout all the foe at once, while mid acclaimsThe slaughtered braves should rise, crying,Saint James! Saint James!Then, the day won, and its bright arbiterVanished, save for peace he left behind,Each in his private bosom should bestirPlis dearest dream: as that perchance there pinedSome lovely maiden of angelic mindIn those dark towers, awaiting out of SpainTwo Saviours that her horoscope divinedShould thence arrive. She (womanlike) were fainNot to be wholly free, but wear a chosen chain.That should be youth's adventure. Riper daysWould crave the guerdon of a prouder powerAnd pluck their nuggets from an earthly mazeFor rule and dignity and children's dower.And age that thought to near the fatal hourShould to a magic fount descend instead,Whose waters with the fruit revive the flowerAnd deck in all its bloom the ashen head,Where a green heaven spreads, not peopled of the dead.By such false meteors did those helmsmen steer,Such phantoms filled their vain and vaulting soulsWith divers ardours, while this brooding sphereSwung yet ungirdled on her silent poles.All journeys took them farther from their goals,All battles won defeated their desire,Barred from one India by the other's shoals,Each sighted star extinguishing its fire,Cape doubled after cape, and never haven nigher.How many galleons sailed to sail no more,How many battles and how many slain,Since first Columbus touched the Cuban shore,Till Aurocania felt the yoke of Spain!What mounting miseries! What dwindling gain!To till those solitudes, soon swept of gold,And bear that ardent sun, across the mainSlaves must come writhing in the festering holdOf galleys.—Poison works, though men be brave and bold.That slothful planter, once the buccaneer,Lord of his bastards and his mongrel clan,Ignorant, harsh, what could he list or hearOf Europe and the heritage of man?No petty schemer sees the larger plan,No privy tyrant brooks the mightier law,But lash in hand rides forth a partisanOf freedom: base, without the touch of awe,He poisoned first the blood his poniard was to draw.By sloth and lust and mindlessness and pelfSpain sank in sadness and dishonour down,Each in her service serving but himself,Each in his passion striking at her crown.Not that these treasons blotted her renownEmblazoned higher than such hands can reach:There where she reaped but sorrow she has sownThe balm of sorrow; all she had to teachShe taught the younger world—her faith and heart and speech.And now within her sea-girt walls withdrawnShe waits in silence for the healing years,While where her sun has set a second dawnComes from the north, with other hopes and fears.Spain's daughters stand, half ceasing from their tears,And watch the skies from Cuba to the Horn."What is this dove or eagle that appears,"They seem to cry, "what herald of what mornHovers o'er Andes' peaks in love or guile or scorn?""O brooding Spirit, fledgling of the North,Winged for the levels of its shifting light,Child of a labouring ocean and an earthShrouded in vapours, fear the southward flight,Dread waveless waters and their warm delight,Beware of peaks that cleave the cloudless blueAnd hold communion with the naked night.The souls went never back that hither flew,But sighing fell to earth or broke the heavens through."Haunt still thy storm-swept islands, and endureThe shimmering forest where thy visions live.Then if we love thee—for thy heart is pure—Thoushalt have something worthy love to give.Thrust not thy prophets on us, nor believeThy sorry riches in our eyes are fair.Thy unctuous sophists never will deceiveA mortal pang, or charm away despair.Not for the stranger's fee we plait our lustrous hair."But of thy lingering twilight bring some gleam,Memorial of the immaterial fireLighting thy heart, and to a wider dreamWaken the music of our plaintive lyre.Check our rash word, hush, hush our base desire.Hang paler clouds of reverence aboutOur garish skies: laborious hope inspireThat uncomplaining walks the paths of doubt,A wistful heart within, a mailed breast without."Gold found is dross, but long Promethean artTransmutes to gold the unprofitable ore.Bring labour's joy, yet spare that better partOur mother, Spain, bequeathed to all she bore,For who shall covet if he once adore?Leave in our skies, strange Spirit passing there,No less of vision but of courage more,And of our worship take thy equal share,Thou who wouldst teach us hope, with her who taught us prayer."
YOUTH'S IMMORTALITYWhat, when hearts have met, shall severHeart from heart, though heaven fall?They alone are dead for everWho have never lived at all.Roses that have bloomed to sweetnessNever can untimely fade,Blessed by death in their completenessAnd on beauty's bosom laid,Garnered in the breast eternalWhere all noble joys are one,Sweet Elysium, fair and vernal,Where they mount who face the sun.Happy he whom men call lonely,Whose companion is the truth,And whose heart is ravished onlyBy the world's immortal youth.Happy he whose single treasureIs the infinite unfurled,And whose voice has caught the measureOf the music of the world.When Death gathers up our ashesAnd our sorry shades depart,Lo, Life's flame, rekindled, flashesFrom another mortal heart,And Death turns about, deridedBy the Life he would deride.Vainly space and time dividedWhat eternity allied.One great hope guides all our seeing,One pure heaven lends us light.Love is still the crown of being,Faith the better part of sight.The same wisdom's ancient pagesStir again the generous soulTo the mighty task of agesCrawling still to reason's goal.The prophetic Muse of StorySings her ancient legend o'er,And the sea, still young and hoary,Chants along the beaten shore.Spring yet yields her flowery treasuresTo the guiltless hands of boys,Chastening their noisy pleasuresTo the depth of human joys.One eternal passion drives us,Zealots of the stars above,And our better part survives us,Living in the things we love.