To HIS BOOK

TO HIS BOOK

(HOR., EP. I. 20)

FOR mart and street you seem to pine

With restless glances, Book of mine!
Still craving on some stall to stand,
Fresh pumiced from the binder's hand.
You chafe at locks, and burn to quit
Your modest haunt and audience fit
For hearers less discriminate.

I reared you up for no such fate.
Still, if you must be published, go;

But mind, you can't come back, you know!

"What have I done?" I hear you cry, And writhe beneath some critic's eye; "What did I want?"—when, scarce polite, They do but yawn, and roll you tight. And yet methinks, if I may guess (Putting aside your heartlessness In leaving me and this your home),

You should find favour, too, at Rome.

That is, they'll like you while you're young, When you are old, you'll pass among

The Great Unwashed,—then thumbed and sped,
Be fretted of slow moths, unread,
Or to Ilerda you'll be sent,

Or Utica, for banishment!

And I, whose counsel you disdain,
At that your lot shall laugh amain,
Wryly, as he who, like a fool,

Thrust o'er the cliff his restive mule.
Nay! there is worse behind. In age
They e'en may take your babbling page
In some remotest "slum" to teach
Mere boys their rudiments of speech!

But go.

When on warm days you see

A chance of listeners, speak of me.
Tell them I soared from low estate,
A freedman's son, to higher fate
(That is, make up to me in worth
What you must take in point of birth);
Then tell them that I won renown

In peace and war, and pleased the town;
Paint me as early gray, and one
Little of stature, fond of sun,
Quick-tempered, too,—but nothing more.
Add (if they ask) I'm forty-four,
Or was, the year that over us
Both Lollius ruled and Lepidus.

FOR A COPY OF HERRICK

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

ABOUT 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.

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,