BOUGHTON, had you bid me chant Nay, but where my hand must fail In the dark-beamed Council-Chamber. Only art like yours can touch Only art like yours can show Till the fire-light laughs and passes Then I come and write beneath, TO A PASTORAL POET (H. E. B.) AMONG my best I put your Book; O Poet of the breeze and brook! (That breeze and brook which blows and falls More soft to those in city walls) Among my best: and keep it still Then I shall take your Book, and dream TO ONE WHO BIDS ME SING "The straw is too old to make pipes of." -DON QUIXOTE You ask a "many-winter'd" Bard Where hides his old vocation? I'll give the answer is not hardA classic explanation. "Immortal" though he be, he still, Could that too-sprightly Nymph but leave Her ageless grace and beauty, They might, betwixt them both, achieve A hymn de Senectute; But She She can't grow gray; and so, Her slave, whose hairs are falling, Must e'en his Doric flute forego, And seek some graver calling,— Not ill-content to stand aside, (TO E. G., WITH A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS) WHE HEN You and I have wandered beyond the reach of call, And all our Works immortal lie scattered on the It Stall, may be some new Reader, in that remoter age, Will find the present Volume and listless turn the page. For him I speak these verses. And, Sir (I say to him), This Book you see before you,-this masterpiece of Whim, Of Wisdom, Learning, Fancy (if you will, please, attend), Was written by its Author, who gave it to his Friend. For they had worked together,-been Comrades of the Pen; They had their points at issue, they differed now and then; |