TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. LOOK where a three-point star shall weave his beam Of wishing love that through men's hearts doth go: E'en when thou strivest there within Art's sky (Each star must o'er a strenuous orbit fly), Full calm thine image in our love doth lie, A Motion glassed in a Tranquillity. So triple-rayed, thou mov'st, yet stay'st, serene— Art's artist, Love's dear woman, Fame's good queen! BALTIMORE, 1875. THE STIRRUP-CUP. DEATH, thou 'rt a cordial old and rare : David to thy distillage went, Keats, and Gotama excellent, Omar Khayyam, and Chaucer bright, Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt: TAMPA, FLORIDA, 1877. A SONG OF ETERNITY IN TIME. ONCE, at night, in the manor wood My Love, in aimless love and grief, A star that had remarked her pain Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming." MACON, GEORGIA, 1867. Revised in 1879. OWL AGAINST ROBIN. FROWNING, the owl in the oak complained him Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest. "From the north, from the east, from the south and the west, Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover, Over and over and over and over, Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven, Peep! you whistle, and cheep! cheep! cheep! Are ye singing for fame, and who shall be first? And the summer is cursed with the silly outburst By day, when all honest birds ought to be sleeping. Good heavens, not day-time! A vulgar flaunt is the flaring day, That leaves not a stain nor a secret untold,- Poh! Shut the eyes, let the sense go numb The mortal black marshes bubble with heat But oh, the sweetness, and oh, the light Of the high-fastidious night! Oh, to awake with the wise old stars- The cultured, the careful, the Chesterfield stars, That wink at the work-a-day fact of crime And shine so rich through the ruins of time That Baalbec is finer than London; oh, To sit on the bough that zigzags low And loudly laugh at man, the fool' That vows to the vulgar sun; oh, rare, To wheel from the wood to the window where A day-worn sleeper is dreaming of care, And perch on the sill and straightly stare Through his visions; rare, to sail Aslant with the hill and a-curve with the vale,— |