IN TO BRANDER MATTHEWS [With a Volume of Verses] N vain to-day I scrape and blot: He will not canter, walk nor trot, I spur, I beat, My Pegasus. I spur, In vain to-day! And yet 'twere sure the saddest lot That I should fail to leave complete One poor... the rhyme suggests "conceit !' Alas! 'Tis all too clear I'm not In vein to-day. TO THE LATE H. C. BUNNER [With a Volume of Verses] WITNESS my hand (and seal thereto): ye who wrong by word or sign, This unprotected Muse of mine, May all your bills at once fall due! May She, whose grace you seek, decline! Witness my hand! But you, acute, accomplished, true Discern a spark (or sparks) divine, Be blessed! There's good in store for You, Witness my hand! TO RICHARD WATSON GILDER OLD [With a Volume of Verses] LD friends are best! And so to you No unfamiliar shapes of song, But those that once you liked and knew. You surely will not do them wrong; Old books, old wine, old Nankin blue ;- All these I prize, but (entre nous) Old friends are best! "GOOD LUCK TO YOUR FISHING!" [For a Picture by Mr. G. F. WATTS, R.A.] G OOD luck to your fishing! She irks me, she irks me, Good luck to your fishing! But would you had caught Dan Cupid, for me! A BALLAD OF ANTIQUARIES 'HE days decay as flowers of grass, TH The years as silent waters flow; All things that are depart, alas! As leaves the winnowing breezes strow; And still while yet, full-orbed and slow, New suns the old horizon climb, Old Time must reap, as others sow: We are the gleaners after Time! We garner all the things that pass, All gifts the hurrying Fates bestow; We hoard old lore of lad and lass, Old flowers that in old gardens grow, Old records writ on tomb and brass, Old spoils of arrow-head and bow, Old wrecks of old worlds' overthrow, Old relics of Earth's primal slime, All drift that wanders to and fro :We are the gleaners after Time! |