Puslapio vaizdai
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FOR A COPY OF HERRICK

MANY days have come and gone,

Many suns have set and shone, HERRICK, since thou sang'st of Wake, Morris-dance and Barley-break ;— Many men have ceased from care, Many maidens have been fair, Since thou sang'st of JULIA's eyes, JULIA'S lawns and tiffanies;Many things are past: but thou, GOLDEN-MOUTH, art singing now, Singing clearly as of old,

And thy numbers are of gold!

✔ WITH A VOLUME OF VERSE

BOUT the ending of the Ramadán,

When leanest grows the famished Mussulman, A haggard ne'er-do-well, Mahmoud by name, At the tenth hour to Caliph OMAR came. "Lord of the Faithful (quoth he), at the last The long moon waneth, and men cease to fast; Hard then, O hard! the lot of him must be, Who spares to eat . . . but not for piety!" "Hast thou no calling, Friend?"--the Caliph said. "Sir, I make verses for my daily bread.” "Verse!"-answered OMAR. ""Tis a dish, indeed, Whereof but scantily a man may feed.

Go. Learn the Tenter's or the Potter's Art,— Verse is a drug not sold in any mart."

I know not if that hungry Mahmoud died;
But this I know he must have versified,
For, with his race, from better still to worse,
The plague of writing follows like a curse;
And men will scribble though they fail to dine,
Which is the Moral of more Books than mine.

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BOUGHTON, had you bid me chant
Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant !
Had you bid me sing of Wouter,
(He! the Onion-head! the Doubter!)
But to rhyme of this one,-Mocker!
Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker?

Nay, but where my hand must fail
There the more shall yours avail;
You shall take your brush and paint
All that ring of figures quaint,-
All those Rip-van-Winkle jokers,—
All those solid-looking smokers,
Pulling at their pipes of amber

In the dark-beamed Council-Chamber.

Only art like yours can touch

Shapes so dignified . . and Dutch;

Only art like yours can show

How the pine-logs gleam and glow,

Till the fire-light laughs and passes
"Twixt the tankards and the glasses,
Touching with responsive graces
All those grave Batavian faces,-
Making bland and beatific
All that session soporific.

Then I come and write beneath,
BOUGHTON, he deserves the wreath;
He can give us form and hue-
This the Muse can never do!

U 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
Till down the fair grass-girdled hill,
Where slopes my garden-slip, there goes
The wandering wind that wakes the rose,
And scares the cohort that explore
The broad-faced sun-flower o'er and o'er,
Or starts the restless bees that fret
The bindweed and the mignonette.

Then I shall take your Book, and dream
I lie beside some haunted stream;
And watch the crisping waves that pass,
And watch the flicker in the grass;
And wait-and wait-and wait to see
The Nymph. . . that never comes to me!

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