Brief words, when actions wait, are well
The prompter's hand is on his bell;
The coming heroes, lovers, kings,
Are idly lounging at the wings;
Behind the curtain's mystic fold
The glowing future lies unrolled,--
And yet, one moment for the Past;
One retrospect,--the first and last.
"The world's a stage," the master said.
To-night a mightier truth is read:
Not in the shifting canvas screen,
The flash of gas, or tinsel sheen;
Not in the skill whose signal calls
From empty boards baronial halls;
But, fronting sea and curving bay,
Behold the players and the play.
Ah, friends! beneath your real skies
The actor's short-lived triumph dies:
On that broad stage, of empire won
Whose footlights were the setting sun,
Whose flats a distant background rose
In trackless peaks of endless snows;
Here genius bows, and talent waits
To copy that but One creates.
Your shifting scenes: the league of sand,
An avenue by ocean spanned;
The narrow beach of straggling tents,
A mile of stately monuments;
Your standard, lo! a flag unfurled,
Whose clinging folds clasp half the world,--
This is your drama, built on facts,
With "twenty years between the acts."
One moment more: if here we raise
The oft-sung hymn of local praise,
Before the curtain facts must sway;
_Here_ waits the moral of your play.
Glassed in the poet's thought, you view
What _money_ can, yet cannot do;
The faith that soars, the deeds that shine,
Above the gold that builds the shrine.
And oh! when others take our place,
And Earth's green curtain hides our face,
Ere on the stage, so silent now,
The last new hero makes his bow:
So may our deeds, recalled once more
In Memory's sweet but brief encore,
Down all the circling ages run,
With the world's plaudit of "Well done!"
The Lost Galleon.
In sixteen hundred and forty-one,
The regular yearly galleon,
Laden with odorous gums and spice,
India cottons and India rice,
And the richest silks of far Cathay,
Was due at Acapulco Bay.
Due she was, and over-due,--
Galleon, merchandise, and crew,
Creeping along through rain and shine,
Through the tropics, under the line.
The trains were waiting outside the walls,
The wives of sailors thronged the town,
The traders sat by their empty stalls,
And the viceroy himself came down;
The bells in the tower were all a-trip,
_Te Deums_ were on each father's lip,
The limes were ripening in the sun
For the sick of the coming galleon.
All in vain. Weeks passed away,
And yet no galleon saw the bay:
India goods advanced in price;
The governor missed his favorite spice;
The senoritas mourned for sandal,
And the famous cottons of Coromandel;
And some for an absent lover lost,
And one for a husband,--Donna Julia,
Wife of the captain, tempest-tossed,
In circumstances so peculiar:
Even the fathers, unawares,
Grumbled a little at their prayers;
And all along the coast that year
Votive candles were scarce and dear.
Never a tear bedims the eye
That time and patience will not dry;
Never a lip is curved with pain
That can't be kissed into smiles again:
And these same truths, as far as I know,
Obtained on the coast of Mexico
More than two hundred years ago,
In sixteen hundred and fifty-one,--
Ten years after the deed was done,--
And folks had forgotten the galleon:
The divers plunged in the Gulf for pearls,
White as the teeth of the Indian girls;
The traders sat by their full bazaars;
The mules with many a weary load,
And oxen, dragging their creaking cars,
Came and went on the mountain road.
Where was the galleon all this while:
Wrecked on some lonely coral isle?
Burnt by the roving sea-marauders,
Or sailing north under secret orders?
Had she found the Anian passage famed,
By lying Moldonado claimed,
And sailed through the sixty-fifth degree
Direct to the North Atlantic sea?
Or had she found the "River of Kings,"
Of which De Fonte told such strange things
In sixteen forty? Never a sign,
East or West or under the line,
They saw of the missing galleon;
Never a sail or plank or chip,
They found of the long-lost treasure-ship,
Or enough to build a tale upon.
But when she was lost, and where and how,
Are the facts we're coming to just now.
Take, if you please, the chart of that day
Published at Madrid,--_por el Rey_;
Look for a spot in the old South Sea,
The hundred and eightieth degree
Longitude, west of Madrid: there,
Under the equatorial glare,
Just where the East and West are one,
You'll find the missing galleon,--
You'll find the "San Gregorio," yet
Riding the seas, with sails all set,
Fresh as upon the very day
She sailed from Acapulco Bay.
How did she get there? What strange spell
Kept her two hundred years so well,
Free from decay and mortal taint?
What? but the prayers of a patron saint!
A hundred leagues from Manilla town,
The "San Gregorio's" helm came down;
Round she went on her heel, and not
A cable's length from a galliot
That rocked on the waters, just abreast
Of the galleon's course, which was west-sou-west.
Then said the galleon's commandante,
General Pedro Sobriente
(That was his rank on land and main,
A regular custom of Old Spain),
"My pilot is dead of scurvy: may
I ask the longitude, time, and day?"
The first two given and compared;
The third,--the commandante stared!
"The _first_ of June? I make it second."
Said the stranger, "Then you've wrongly-reckoned;
I make it _first_: as you came this way,
You should have lost--d'ye see--a day;
Lost a day, as plainly see,
On the hundred and eightieth degree."
"Lost a day?" "Yes: if not rude,
When did you make east longitude?"
"On the ninth of May,--our patron's day."
"On the ninth?--_you had no ninth of May!_
Eighth and tenth was there; but stay"--
Too late; for the galleon bore away.
Lost was the day they should have kept,
Lost unheeded and lost unwept;
Lost in a way that made search vain,
Lost in the trackless and boundless main;
Lost like the day of Job's awful curse,
In his third chapter, third and fourth verse;
Wrecked was their patron's only day,--
What would the holy fathers say?
Said the Fray Antonio Estavan,
The galleon's chaplain,--a learned man,--
"Nothing is lost that you can regain:
And the way to look for a thing is plain
To go where you lost it, back again.
Back with your galleon till you see
The hundred and eightieth degree.
Wait till the rolling year goes round,
And there will the missing day be found;
For you'll find--if computation's true--
That sailing _east_ will give to you
Not only one ninth of May, but two,--
One for the good saint's present cheer,
And one for the day we lost last year."
Back to the spot sailed the galleon;
Where, for a twelve-month, off and on
The hundred and eightieth degree,
She rose and fell on a tropic sea:
But lo! when it came to the ninth of May,
All of a sudden becalmed she lay
One degree from that fatal spot,
Without the power to move a knot;
And of course the moment she lost her way,
Gone was her chance to save that day.
To cut a lengthening story short,
She never saved it. Made the sport
Of evil spirits and baffling wind,
She was always before or just behind,
One day too soon, or one day too late,
And the sun, meanwhile, would never wait:
She had two eighths, as she idly lay,
Two tenths, but never a _ninth_ of May;
And there she rides through two hundred years
Of dreary penance and anxious fears:
Yet through the grace of the saint she served,
Captain and crew are still preserved.
By a computation that still holds good,
Made by the Holy Brotherhood,
The "San Gregorio" will cross that line
In nineteen hundred and thirty-nine:
Just three hundred years to a day
From the time she lost the ninth of May.
And the folk in Acapulco town,
Over the waters, looking down,
Will see in the glow of the setting sun
The sails of the missing galleon,
And the royal standard of Philip _Rey_;
The gleaming mast and glistening spar,
As she nears the surf of the outer bar.
A _Te Deum_ sung on her crowded deck,
An odor of spice along the shore,
A crash, a cry from a shattered wreck,--
And the yearly galleon sails no more,
In or out of the olden bay;
For the blessed patron has found his day.
* * * * *
Such is the legend. Hear this truth:
Over the trackless past, somewhere,
Lie the lost days of our tropic youth,
Only regained by faith and prayer,
Only recalled by prayer and plaint:
Each lost day has its patron saint!
A Second Review of the Grand Army.
I read last night of the Grand Review
In Washington's chiefest avenue,--
Two Hundred Thousand men in blue,
I think they said was the number,--
Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet,
The bugle blast and the drum's quick beat,
The clatter of hoofs in the stony street,
The cheers of people who came to greet,
And the thousand details that to repeat
Would only my verse encumber,--
Till I fell in a reverie, sad and sweet,
And then to a fitful slumber.
When, lo! in a vision I seemed to stand
In the lonely Capitol. On each hand
Far stretched the portico, dim and grand
Its columns ranged like a martial band
Of sheeted spectres, whom some command
Had called to a last reviewing.
And the streets of the city were white and bare;
No footfall echoed across the square;
But out of the misty midnight air
I heard in the distance a trumpet blare,
And the wandering night-winds seemed to bear
The sound of a far tattooing.
Then I held my breath with fear and dread;
For into the square, with a brazen tread,
There rode a figure whose stately head
O'erlooked the review that morning,
That never bowed from its firm-set seat
When the living column passed its feet,
Yet now rode steadily up the street
To the phantom bugle's warning:
Till it reached the Capitol square, and wheeled,
And there in the moonlight stood revealed
A well-known form that in State and field
Had led our patriot sires;
Whose face was turned to the sleeping camp,
Afar through the river's fog and damp,
That showed no flicker, nor waning lamp,
Nor wasted bivouac fires.
And I saw a phantom army come,
With never a sound of fife or drum,
But keeping time to a throbbing hum
Of wailing and lamentation:
The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,
Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,
The men whose wasted figures fill
The patriot graves of the nation.
And there came the nameless dead,--the men
Who perished in fever swamp and fen,
The slowly-starved of the prison-pen;
And, marching beside the others,
Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow's fight,
With limbs enfranchised and bearing bright;
I thought--perhaps 'twas the pale moonlight--
They looked as white as their brothers!
And so all night marched the Nation's dead
With never a banner above them spread,
Nor a badge, nor a motto brandished;
No mark--save the bare uncovered head
Of the silent bronze Reviewer;
With never an arch save the vaulted sky;
With never a flower save those that lie
On the distant graves--for love could buy
No gift that was purer or truer.
So all night long swept the strange array,
So all night long till the morning gray
I watched for one who had passed away,
With a reverent awe and wonder,--
Till a blue cap waved in the lengthening line,
And I knew that one who was kin of mine
Had come; and I spake--and lo! that sign
Awakened me from my slumber.
Part II.
Before the Curtain.
Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,
A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze
Of flaring gas, and curious eyes that gaze.
The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,
And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride,
Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.
Ah, well! no passion walks its humble boards;
O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords:
The simplest skill is all its space affords.
The song and jest, the dance and trifling play,
The local hit at follies of the day,
The trick to pass an idle hour away,--
For these, no trumpets that announce the Moor,
No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,--
A single fiddle in the overture!
The Stage-Driver's Story.
It was the stage-driver's story, as he stood with his back to the wheelers,
Quietly flecking his whip, and turning his quid of tobacco;
While on the dusty road, and blent with the rays of the moonlight,
We saw the long curl of his lash and the juice of tobacco descending.
"Danger! Sir, I believe you,--indeed, I may say on that subject,
You your existence might put to the hazard and turn of a wager.
I have seen danger? Oh, no! not me, sir, indeed, I assure you:
'Twas only the man with the dog that is sitting alone in yon wagon.
It was the Geiger Grade, a mile and a half from the summit:
Black as your hat was the night, and never a star in the heavens.
Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent flying
Over the precipice side,--a thousand feet plumb to the bottom.
Half-way down the grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and creaking,
Then a lurch to one side, as we hung on the bank of the canon;
Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind me,
The off hind wheel of the coach just loosed from its axle, and following.
One glance alone I gave, then gathered together my ribbons,
Shouted, and flung them, outspread, on the straining necks of my cattle;
Screamed at the top of my voice, and lashed the air in my frenzy,
While down the Geiger Grade, on _three_ wheels, the vehicle thundered.
Speed was our only chance, when again came the ominous rattle:
Crack, and another wheel slipped away, and was lost in the darkness.
_Two_ only now were left; yet such was our fearful momentum,
Upright, erect, and sustained on _two_ wheels, the vehicle thundered.
As some huge boulder, unloosed from its rocky shelf on the mountain,
Drives before it the hare and the timorous squirrel, far-leaping,
So down the Geiger Grade rushed the Pioneer coach, and before it
Leaped the wild horses, and shrieked in advance of the danger impending.
But to be brief in my tale. Again, ere we came to the level,
Slipped from its axle a wheel; so that, to be plain in my statement,
A matter of twelve hundred yards or more, as the distance may be,
We travelled upon _one_ wheel, until we drove up to the station.
Then, sir, we sank in a heap; but, picking myself from the ruins,
I heard a noise up the grade; and looking, I saw in the distance
The three wheels following still, like moons on the horizon whirling,
Till, circling, they gracefully sank on the road at the side of the
station.
This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I assure you.
Much more, perchance, might be said; but I hold him, of all men, most
lightly
Who swerves from the truth in his tale--No, thank you--Well, since you
_are_ pressing,
Perhaps I don't care if I do: you may give me the same, Jim,--no sugar."
Aspiring Miss de Laine.
A Chemical Narrative.
Certain facts which serve to explain
The physical charms of Miss Addie De Laine,
Who, as the common reports obtain,
Surpassed in complexion the lily and rose;
With a very sweet mouth and a _retrousse_ nose;
A figure like Hebe's, or that which revolves
In a milliner's window, and partially solves
That question which mentor and moralist pains,
If grace may exist _minus_ feeling or brains.
Of course the young lady had beaux by the score,
All that she wanted,--what girl could ask more?
Lovers that sighed, and lovers that swore,
Lovers that danced, and lovers that played,
Men of profession, of leisure, and trade;
But one, who was destined to take the high part
Of holding that mythical treasure, her heart,--
This lover--the wonder and envy of town--
Was a practising chemist,--a fellow called Brown.
I might here remark that 'twas doubted by many,
In regard to the heart, if Miss Addie had any;
But no one could look in that eloquent face,
With its exquisite outline, and features of grace,
And mark, through the transparent skin, how the tide
Ebbed and flowed at the impulse of passion or pride,--
None could look, who believed in the blood's circulation
As argued by Harvey, but saw confirmation,
That here, at least, Nature had triumphed o'er art,
And, as far as complexion went, she had a heart.
But this, _par parenthesis_. Brown was the man
Preferred of all others to carry her fan,
Hook her glove, drape her shawl, and do all that a belle
May demand of the lover she wants to treat well.
Folks wondered and stared that a fellow called Brown--
Abstracted and solemn, in manner a clown,
Ill dressed, with a lingering smell of the shop--
Should appear as her escort at party or hop.
Some swore he had cooked up some villanous charm,
Or love philter, not in the regular Pharm--
Acopea, and thus, from pure _malis prepense_,
Had bewitched and bamboozled the young lady's sense;
Others thought, with more reason, the secret to lie
In a magical wash or indelible dye;
While Society, with its censorious eye
And judgment impartial, stood ready to damn
What wasn't improper as being a sham.
For a fortnight the townfolk had all been agog
With a party, the finest the season had seen,
To be given in honor of Miss Pollywog,
Who was just coming out as a belle of sixteen.
The guests were invited: but one night before,
A carriage drew up at the modest back-door
Of Brown's lab'ratory; and, full in the glare
Of a big purple bottle, some closely-veiled fair
Alighted and entered: to make matters plain,
Spite of veils and disguises,--'twas Addie De Laine.
As a bower for true love, 'twas hardly the one
That a lady would choose to be wooed in or won:
No odor of rose or sweet jessamine's sigh
Breathed a fragrance to hallow their pledge of troth by,
Nor the balm that exhales from the odorous thyme;
But the gaseous effusions of chloride of lime,
And salts, which your chemist delights to explain
As the base of the smell of the rose and the drain.
Think of this, O ye lovers of sweetness! and know
What you smell, when you snuff up Lubin or Pinaud.
I pass by the greetings, the transports and bliss,
Which, of course, duly followed a meeting like this,
And come down to business;--for such the intent
Of the lady who now o'er the crucible leant,
In the glow of a furnace of carbon and lime,
Like a fairy called up in the new pantomime;--
And give but her words as she coyly looked down,
In reply to the questioning glances of Brown:
"I am taking the drops, and am using the paste,
And the little, white powders that had a sweet taste,
Which you told me would brighten the glance of my eye,
And the depilatory, and also the dye,
And I'm charmed with the trial; and now, my dear Brown,
I have one other favor,--now, ducky, don't frown,--
Only one, for a chemist and genius like you
But a trifle, and one you can easily do.
Now listen: tomorrow, you know, is the night
Of the birthday _soiree_ of that Pollywog fright;
And I'm to be there, and the dress I shall wear
Is _too_ lovely; but"--"But what then, _ma chere_?"
Said Brown, as the lady came to a full stop,
And glanced round the shelves of the little back shop.
"Well, I want--I want something to fill out the skirt
To the proper dimension, without being girt
In a stiff crinoline, or caged in a hoop
That shows through one's skirt like the bars of a coop;
Something light, that a lady may waltz in, or polk,
With a freedom that none but you masculine folk
Ever know. For, however poor woman aspires,
She's always bound down to the earth by these wires.
Are you listening? nonsense! don't stare like a spoon,
Idiotic; some light thing, and spacious, and soon--
Something like--well, in fact--something like a balloon!"
Here she paused; and here Brown, overcome by surprise,
Gave a doubting assent with still wondering eyes,
And the lady departed. But just at the door
Something happened,--'tis true, it had happened before
In this sanctum of science,--a sibilant sound,
Like some element just from its trammels unbound,
Or two substances that their affinities found.
The night of the anxiously looked-for _soiree_
Had come, with its fair ones in gorgeous array;
With the rattle of wheels, and the tinkle of bells,
And the "How do ye dos," and the "Hope you are wells;"
And the crash in the passage, and last lingering look
You give as you hang your best hat on the hook;
The rush of hot air as the door opens wide;
And your entry,--that blending of self-possessed pride
And humility shown in your perfect-bred stare
At the folk, as if wondering how they got there;
With other tricks worthy of Vanity Fair.
Meanwhile that safe topic, the heat of the room,
Already was losing its freshness and bloom;
Young people were yawning, and wondering when
The dance would come off, and why didn't it then:
When a vague expectation was thrilling the crowd,
Lo, the door swung its hinges with utterance proud!
And Pompey announced, with a trumpet-like strain,
The entrance of Brown and Miss Addie De Laine.
She entered: but oh, how imperfect the verb
To express to the senses her movement superb!
To say that she "sailed in" more clearly might tell
Her grace in its buoyant and billowy swell.
Her robe was a vague circumambient space,
With shadowy boundaries made of point-lace.
The rest was but guess-work, and well might defy
The power of critical feminine eye
To define or describe: 'twere as futile to try
The gossamer web of the cirrus to trace,
Floating far in the blue of a warm summer sky.
'Midst the humming of praises and the glances of beaux,
That greet our fair maiden wherever she goes,
Brown slipped like a shadow, grim, silent, and black,
With a look of anxiety, close in her track.
Once he whispered aside in her delicate ear,
A sentence of warning,--it might be of fear:
"Don't stand in a draught, if you value your life."
(Nothing more,--such advice might be given your wife
Or your sweetheart, in times of bronchitis and cough,
Without mystery, romance, or frivolous scoff.)
But hark to the music: the dance has begun.
The closely-draped windows wide open are flung;
The notes of the piccolo, joyous and light,
Like bubbles burst forth on the warm summer night.
Round about go the dancers; in circles they fly;
Trip, trip, go their feet as their skirts eddy by;
And swifter and lighter, but somewhat too plain,
Whisks the fair circumvolving Miss Addie De Laine.
Taglioni and Cerito well might have pined
For the vigor and ease that her movements combined;
E'en Rigelboche never flung higher her robe
In the naughtiest city that's known on the globe.
'Twas amazing, 'twas scandalous: lost in surprise,
Some opened their mouths, and a few shut their eyes.
But hark! At the moment Miss Addie De Laine,
Circling round at the outer edge of an ellipse,
Which brought her fair form to the window again,
From the arms of her partner incautiously slips!
And a shriek fills the air, and the music is still,
And the crowd gather round where her partner forlorn
Still frenziedly points from the wide window-sill
Into space and the night; for Miss Addie was gone!
Gone like the bubble that bursts in the sun;
Gone like the grain when the reaper is done;
Gone like the dew on the fresh morning grass;
Gone without parting farewell; and alas!
Gone with a flavor of Hydrogen Gas.
When the weather is pleasant, you frequently meet
A white-headed man slowly pacing the street;
His trembling hand shading his lack-lustre eye,
Half blind with continually scanning the sky.
Rumor points him as some astronomical sage,
Reperusing by day the celestial page;
But the reader, sagacious, will recognize Brown,
Trying vainly to conjure his lost sweetheart down,
And learn the stern moral this story must teach,
That Genius may lift its love out of its reach.
California Madrigal.
On the Approach of Spring.
Oh come, my beloved! from thy winter abode,
From thy home on the Yuba, thy ranch overflowed;
For the waters have fallen, the winter has fled,
And the river once more has returned to its bed.
Oh, mark how the spring in its beauty is near!
How the fences and tules once more re-appear!
How soft lies the mud on the banks of yon slough
By the hole in the levee the waters broke through!
All Nature, dear Chloris, is blooming to greet
The glance of your eye, and the tread of your feet;
For the trails are all open, the roads are all free,
And the highwayman's whistle is heard on the lea.
Again swings the lash on the high mountain trail,
And the pipe of the packer is scenting the gale;
The oath and the jest ringing high o'er the plain,
Where the smut is not always confined to the grain.
Once more glares the sunlight on awning and roof,
Once more the red clay's pulverized by the hoof,
Once more the dust powders the "outsides" with red,
Once more at the station the whiskey is spread.
Then fly with me, love, ere the summer's begun,
And the mercury mounts to one hundred and one;
Ere the grass now so green shall be withered and sear,
In the spring that obtains but one month in the year.
St. Thomas.
A Geographical Survey.
(1868.)
Very fair and full of promise
Lay the island of St. Thomas:
Ocean o'er its reefs and bars
Hid its elemental scars;
Groves of cocoanut and guava
Grew above its fields of lava.
So the gem of the Antilles,--
"Isles of Eden," where no ill is,--
Like a great green turtle slumbered
On the sea that it encumbered.
Then said William Henry Seward,
As he cast his eye to leeward,
"Quite important to our commerce
Is this island of St. Thomas."
Said the Mountain ranges, "Thank'ee,
But we cannot stand the Yankee
O'er our scars and fissures poring,
In our very vitals boring,
In our sacred caverns prying,
All our secret problems trying,--
Digging, blasting, with dynamit
Mocking all our thunders! Damn it!
Other lands may be more civil,
Bust our lava crust if we will."
Said the Sea,--its white teeth gnashing
Through its coral-reef lips flashing,--
"Shall I let this scheming mortal
Shut with stone my shining portal,
Curb my tide, and check my play,
Fence with wharves my shining bay?
Rather let me be drawn out
In one awful water-spout!"
Said the black-browed Hurricane,
Brooding down the Spanish main,
"Shall I see my forces, zounds!
Measured by square inch and pounds,
With detectives at my back
When I double on my track,
And my secret paths made clear,
Published o'er the hemisphere
To each gaping, prying crew?
Shall I? Blow me if I do!"
So the Mountains shook and thundered,
And the Hurricane came sweeping,
And the people stared and wondered
As the Sea came on them leaping:
Each, according to his promise,
Made things lively at St. Thomas.
Till one morn, when Mr. Seward
Cast his weather eye to leeward,
There was not an inch of dry land
Left to mark his recent island.
Not a flagstaff or a sentry,
Not a wharf or port of entry,--
Only--to cut matters shorter--
Just a patch of muddy water
In the open ocean lying,
And a gull above it flying.
The Ballad of Mr. Cooke.
A Legend of the Cliff House, San Francisco.
Where the sturdy ocean breeze
Drives the spray of roaring seas
That the Cliff-House balconies
Overlook:
There, in spite of rain that balked,
With his sandals duly chalked,
Once upon a tight-rope walked
Mr. Cooke.
But the jester's lightsome mien,
And his spangles and his sheen,
All had vanished, when the scene
He forsook;----
Yet in some delusive hope,
In some vague desire to cope,
One still came to view the rope
Walked by Cooke.
Amid Beauty's bright array,
On that strange eventful day,
Partly hidden from the spray,
In a nook,
Stood Florinda Vere de Vere;
Who with wind-dishevelled hair,
And a rapt, distracted air,
Gazed on Cooke.
Then she turned, and quickly cried
To her lover at her side,
While her form with love and pride
Wildly shook,
"Clifford Snook! oh, hear me now!
Here I break each plighted vow:
There's but one to whom I bow,
And that's Cooke!"
Haughtily that young man spoke:
"I descend from noble folk.
'Seven Oaks,' and then 'Se'nnoak,'
Lastly Snook,
Is the way my name I trace:
Shall a youth of noble race
In affairs of love give place
To a Cooke?"
"Clifford Snook, I know thy claim
To that lineage and name,
And I think I've read the same
In Horne Tooke;
But I swear, by all divine,
Never, never to be thine,
'Till thou canst upon yon line
Walk like Cooke."
Though to that gymnastic feat
He no closer might compete
Than to strike a _balance_-sheet
In a book;
Yet thenceforward, from that day,
He his figure would display
In some wild athletic way,
After Cooke.
On some household eminence,
On a clothes-line or a fence,
Over ditches, drains, and thence
O'er a brook,
He, by high ambition led,
Ever walked and balanced;
Till the people, wondering, said,
"How like Cooke!"
Step by step did he proceed,
Nerved by valor, not by greed,
And at last the crowning deed
Undertook:
Misty was the midnight air,
And the cliff was bleak and bare,
When he came to do and dare
Just like Cooke.
Through the darkness, o'er the flow,
Stretched the line where he should go
Straight across, as flies the crow
Or the rook:
One wild glance around he cast;
Then he faced the ocean blast,
And he strode the cable last
Touched by Cooke.
Vainly roared the angry seas;
Vainly blew the ocean breeze;
But, alas! the walker's knees
Had a crook;
And before he reached the rock
Did they both together knock,
And he stumbled with a shock--
Unlike Cooke!
Downward dropping in the dark,
Like an arrow to its mark,
Or a fish-pole when a shark
Bites the hook,
Dropped the pole he could not save,
Dropped the walker, and the wave
Swift ingulfed the rival brave
Of J. Cooke!
Came a roar across the sea
Of sea-lions in their glee,
In a tongue remarkably
Like Chinnook;
And the maddened sea-gull seemed
Still to utter, as he screamed,
"Perish thus the wretch who deemed
Himself Cooke!"
But, on misty moonlit nights,
Comes a skeleton in tights,
Walks once more the giddy heights
He mistook;
And unseen to mortal eyes,
Purged of grosser earthly ties,
Now at last in spirit guise
Outdoes Cooke.
Still the sturdy ocean breeze
Sweeps the spray of roaring seas,
Where the Cliff-House balconies
Overlook;
And the maidens in their prime,
Reading of this mournful rhyme,
Weep where, in the olden time,
Walked J. Cooke.
The Legends of the Rhine.
Beetling walls with ivy grown,
Frowning heights of mossy stone;
Turret, with its flaunting flag
Flung from battlemented crag;
Dungeon-keep and fortalice
Looking down a precipice
O'er the darkly glancing wave
By the Lurline-haunted cave;
Robber haunt and maiden bower,
Home of Love and Crime and Power,--
That's the scenery, in fine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.
One bold baron, double-dyed
Bigamist and parricide,
And, as most the stories run,
Partner of the Evil One;
Injured innocence in white,
Fair but idiotic quite,
Wringing of her lily hands;
Valor fresh from Paynim lands,
Abbot ruddy, hermit pale,
Minstrel fraught with many a tale,--
Are the actors that combine
In the Legends of the Rhine.
Bell-mouthed flagons round a board;
Suits of armor, shield, and sword;
Kerchief with its bloody stain;
Ghosts of the untimely slain;
Thunder-clap and clanking chain;
Headsman's block and shining axe;
Thumbscrews, crucifixes, racks;
Midnight-tolling chapel bell,
Heard across the gloomy fell,--
These, and other pleasant facts,
Are the properties that shine
In the Legends of the Rhine.
Maledictions, whispered vows
Underneath the linden boughs;
Murder, bigamy, and theft;
Travellers of goods bereft;
Rapine, pillage, arson, spoil,--
Every thing but honest toil,
Are the deeds that best define
Every Legend of the Rhine.
That Virtue always meets reward,
But quicker when it wears a sword;
That Providence has special care
Of gallant knight and lady fair;
That villains, as a thing of course,
Are always haunted by remorse,--
Is the moral, I opine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.
Mrs. Judge Jenkins.
[Being the Only Genuine Sequel to "Maud Muller."]
Maud Muller, all that summer day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay;
Yet, looking down the distant lane,
She hoped the judge would come again.
But when he came, with smile and bow,
Maud only blushed, and stammered, "Ha-ow?"
And spoke of her "pa," and wondered whether
He'd give consent they should wed together.
Old Muller burst in tears, and then
Begged that the judge would lend him "ten;"
For trade was dull, and wages low,
And the "craps," this year, were somewhat slow.
And ere the languid summer died,
Sweet Maud became the judge's bride.
But, on the day that they were mated,
Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated;
And Maud's relations, twelve in all,
Were very drunk at the judge's hall.
And when the summer came again,
The young bride bore him babies twain.
And the judge was blest, but thought it strange
That bearing children made such a change:
For Maud grew broad and red and stout;
And the waist that his arm once clasped about
Was more than he now could span. And he
Sighed as he pondered, ruefully,
How that which in Maud was native grace
In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;
And thought of the twins, and wished that they
Looked less like the man who raked the hay
On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain
Of the day he wandered down the lane.
And, looking down that dreary track,
He half regretted that he came back.
For, had he waited, he might have wed
Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;
For there be women fair as she,
Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.
Alas for maiden! alas for judge!
And the sentimental,--that's one-half "fudge;"
For Maud soon thought the judge a bore,
With all his learning and all his lore.
And the judge would have bartered Maud's fair face
For more refinement and social grace.
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, "It might have been,"
More sad are these we daily see:
"It is, but hadn't ought to be."
Avitor.
An Aerial Retrospect.
What was it filled my youthful dreams,
In place of Greek or Latin themes,
Or beauty's wild, bewildering beams?
Avitor?
What visions and celestial scenes
I filled with aerial machines,--
Montgolfier's and Mr. Green's!
Avitor.
What fairy tales seemed things of course!
The rock that brought Sindbad across,
The Calendar's own winged-horse!
Avitor!
How many things I took for facts,--
Icarus and his conduct lax,
And how he sealed his fate with wax!
Avitor!
The first balloons I sought to sail,
Soap-bubbles fair, but all too frail,
Or kites,--but thereby hangs a tail.
Avitor!
What made me launch from attic tall
A kitten and a parasol,
And watch their bitter, frightful fall?
Avitor?
What youthful dreams of high renown
Bade me inflate the parson's gown,
That went not up, nor yet came down?
Avitor?
My first ascent, I may not tell:
Enough to know that in that well
My first high aspirations fell,
Avitor!
My other failures let me pass:
The dire explosions; and, alas!
The friends I choked with noxious gas,
Avitor!
For lo! I see perfected rise
The vision of my boyish eyes,
The messenger of upper skies,
Avitor!
A White-Pine Ballad.
Recently with Samuel Johnson this occasion I improved,
Whereby certain gents of affluence I hear were greatly moved;
But not all of Johnson's folly, although multiplied by nine,
Could compare with Milton Perkins, late an owner in White Pine.
Johnson's folly--to be candid--was a wild desire to treat
Every able male white citizen he met upon the street;
And there being several thousand--but this subject why pursue?
'Tis with Perkins, and not Johnson, that to-day we have to do.
No: not wild promiscuous treating, not the winecup's ruby flow,
But the female of his species brought the noble Perkins low.
'Twas a wild poetic fervor, and excess of sentiment,
That left the noble Perkins in a week without a cent.
"Milton Perkins," said the Siren, "not thy wealth do I admire,
But the intellect that flashes from those eyes of opal fire;
And methinks the name thou bearest surely cannot be misplaced,
And, embrace me, Mister Perkins!" Milton Perkins her embraced.
But I grieve to state, that even then, as she was wiping dry
The tear of sensibility in Milton Perkins' eye,
She prigged his diamond bosom-pin, and that her wipe of lace
Did seem to have of chloroform a most suspicious trace.
Enough that Milton Perkins later in the night was found
With his head in an ash-barrel, and his feet upon the ground;
And he murmured "Seraphina," and he kissed his hand, and smiled
On a party who went through him, like an unresisting child.
Moral.
Now one word to Pogonippers, ere this subject I resign,
In this tale of Milton Perkins,--late an owner in White Pine,--
You shall see that wealth and women are deceitful, just the same;
And the tear of sensibility has salted many a claim.
What the Wolf Really Said to Little Red Riding-Hood.
Wondering maiden, so puzzled and fair,
Why dost thou murmur and ponder and stare?
"Why are my eyelids so open and wild?"--
Only the better to see with, my child!
Only the better and clearer to view
Cheeks that are rosy, and eyes that are blue.
Dost thou still wonder, and ask why these arms
Fill thy soft bosom with tender alarms,
Swaying so wickedly?--are they misplaced,
Clasping or shielding some delicate waist:
Hands whose coarse sinews may fill you with fear
Only the better protect you, my dear!
Little Red Riding-Hood, when in the street,
Why do I press your small hand when we meet?
Why, when you timidly offered your cheek,
Why did I sigh, and why didn't I speak?
Why, well: you see--if the truth must appear--
I'm not your grandmother, Riding-Hood, dear!
The Ritualist.