THE LOST ELIXIR

"One drop of ruddy human blood puts more life into the veins of a poem than all the delusive aurum potabile' that can be distilled out of the choicest library."-LOWELL.

AH, yes, that "drop of human blood!"—
We had it once, may be,

When our young song's impetuous flood
First poured its ecstasy;

But now the shrunk poetic vein

Yields not that priceless drop again.

We toil, as toiled we not of old;
Our patient hands distil

The shining spheres of chemic gold
With hard-won, fruitless skill;
But that red drop still seems to be
Beyond our utmost alchemy.

Perchance, but most in later age,
Time's after-gift, a tear,

Will strike a pathos on the page

Beyond all art sincere;

But that "one drop of human blood"

Has gone with life's first leaf and bud.

MEMORIAL VERSES

A DIALOGUE

TO THE MEMORY OF MR. ALEXANDER POPE

"Non injussa cano.'

POET. I sing of POPE—

"__VIRG.

FRIEND. What, POPE, the Twitnam Bard, Whom Dennis, Cibber, Tibbald push'd so hard! POPE of the Dunciad! POPE who dar'd to woo, And then to libel, Wortley-Montagu!

POPE of the Ham-walks story

P. Scandals all!

Scandals that now I care not to recall.
Surely a little, in two hundred Years,
One may neglect Contemporary Sneers :-
Surely allowance for the Man may make
That had all Grub Street yelping in his Wake!
And who (I ask you) has been never Mean,
When urged by Envy, Anger or the Spleen?
No: I prefer to look on POPE as one
Not rightly happy till his Life was done;
Whose whole Career, romance it as you please,
Was (what he call'd it) but a "long Disease":
Think of his Lot,-his Pilgrimage of Pain,
His "crazy Carcass" and his restless Brain;

Think of his Night-Hours with their Feet of Lead,
His dreary Vigil and his aching Head;
Think of all this, and marvel then to find
The "crooked Body with a crooked Mind!"
Nay rather, marvel that, in Fate's Despite,
You find so much to solace and delight,—
So much of Courage, and of Purpose high
In that unequal Struggle not to die.

I grant you freely that POPE played his Part
Sometimes ignobly-but he lov'd his Art;
I grant you freely that he sought his Ends
Not always wisely-but he lov'd his Friends;
And who of Friends a nobler Roll could show--
Swift, St. John, Bathurst, Marchmont, Peterb'ro',
Arbuthnot-

FR. ATTICUS ?

P. Well (entre nous),

Most that he said of Addison was true.

Plain Truth, you know

FR. Is often not polite

(So Hamlet thought)—

P.

But leave POPE'S Life.

And Hamlet (Sir) was right.
To-day, methinks, we touch

The Work too little and the Man too much.

Take up the Lock, the Satires, Eloise

What Art supreme, what Elegance, what Ease!
How keen the Irony, the Wit how bright,

The Style how rapid, and the Verse how light!