Chapter X: Epilogue

'Tis pleasant business making books,
When other people furnish brains;
Like finding them in running brooks,--
The pleasure, minus all the pains!
They tell us Wordsworth once declared
That he could, if he had the mind,
Write plays like those of Avon's bard;
Whereat the stammering Lamb rejoined,
"S-s-s-s-s-so you see,
That all he wanted was the mind!"
O gentle Wordsworth, to deride
Thy simple speech I'm not inclined;
For these good friends, and thou beside,
Have freely lent me of their mind.
I've Shakespeare's point, and Burns's fire,
And Bulwer's own gentility,
And Elia's meekness, yet aspire
To Pope's infallibility.
I've made myself at home with Holmes;
I'm in two Taylors' garments dressed;
Campbell has told his rhymes for me,
And Shelley shelled out like the rest,
And Hood put on his thinking-cap,
And Goldsmith beaten out his best.
I've pilfered Alfred's laureate strains,
And boldly counted Henry's chickens,
And drained Harte's blood from his best veins,
And stol'n from Dickens like the dickens;
Of Hogg I have not gone the whole,
But of three Proctors tithes demanded,
And from a Miller taken toll,
And plucked a Reade, to do as Pan did.
I've beaten Beattie like a tree
That sheds its fruit for every knocker,
Nor let Sir Walter go Scott free,
And filched a shot from Frederick's Locker.
The ladies, too--God bless them all!--
What pieces of their minds I've taken!
It would Achilles' self appall,
If hiding here to save his bacon.
By Hawthorne's genius hedged about,
And deep in Browning's brownest study,
This is the sure retreat, no doubt,
From critics' favors, fair or muddy.
Ah, How it Reads, How well it looks!--
What one May call a death to pains!--
This pleasant way of making books,
With clever folks to furnish brains!

NEW YORK, July, 1875.

* * * * *

INDEX OF FIRST LINES.

A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun 213
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! 52
Ah! Jeane, my maid, I stood to you 20
Ah! my heart is weary waiting 91
All houses wherein men have lived and died 73
As an unperfect actor on the stage 50
As ships becalmed at eve, that lay 69
A steed! a steed of matchlesse speed 132
As upland fields were sunburnt brown 43
At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still 175
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead 161
Before I trust my fate to thee 46
Behold this ruin! 'Twas a skull 201
Between the dark and the daylight 152
Bird of the wilderness 104
Break, break, break 53
By the waters of Life we sat together 84
Close his eyes; his work is done! 134
Come, all ye jolly shepherds 30
Come in the evening, or come in the morning 35
Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer 46
Could we but know 220
Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas 167
Deep on the convent-roof the snows 215
Drawn by horses with decorous feet 185
Eyes which can but ill define 88
Farewell! since nevermore for thee 173
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea 112
From Stirling castle we had seen 93
"Give us a song!" the soldiers cried 130
God makes sech nights, all white an' still 26
Go, Soul, the body's guest 204
Green be the turf above thee 169
Hail to thee, blithe spirit! 106
He clasps the crag with hookéd hands 105
He is gone on the mountain 133
Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling 168
He wiled me through the furzy croft 59
Ho! pretty page with the dimpled chin 115
Ho, sailor of the sea! 150
How sleep the brave who sink to rest 139
I arise from dreams of thee 42
I cannot make him dead! 154
I fill this cup to one made up 21
I have had playmates, I have had companions 66
I heard the trailing garments of the night 103
I mourn no more my vanished years 221
I'm sittin' on the stile, Mary 158
I'm wearin' awa', John 156
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 16
I remember, I remember 72
I saw her once,--so freshly fair 67
I saw him once before 117
It was the calm and silent night 217
I wandered by the brookside 36
I was thy neighbor once, thou rugged pile! 209
Just for a handful of silver he left us 119
Life! I know not what thou art 193
Like as the damask rose you see 189
Like to the falling of a star 192
Look at me with thy large brown eyes 149
Love not, love not! ye hapless sons of clay! 51
Maid of Athens, ere we part 45
Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning 32
My boat is on the shore 110
My fairest child, I have no song to give you 199
My glass shall not persuade me I am old 49
My heid is like to rend, Willie 56
My life is like the summer rose 113
My mother bore me in the southern wild 181
Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew 104
No bird-song floated down the hill 82
O, a dainty plant is the ivy green 90
Oft in the stilly night 64
O little feet! that such long years 227
O Mary, go and call the cattle home 102
O, sing unto my roundelay! 171
Our bugles sang truce; for the night-cloud had lowered 127
Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass 140
Over the river they beckon to me 78
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 177
O Woman of Three Cows, agragh! don't let your tongue thus rattle! 196
O World! O Life! O Time! 192
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin 228
September strews the woodland o'er 63
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 50
She died in beauty,--like a rose 164
She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps 170
She walks in beauty like the night 84
She was a phantom of delight 18
She was not fair, nor full of grace 165
Slave of the dark and dirty mine 183
Sleep sweetly in your humble graves 136
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn 123
Stars of the summer night! 41
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright 203
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean 65
Tell me not, sweet, I am unkinde 125
That which her slender waist confined 23
The glories of our birth and state 182
The glow and the glory are plighted 24
The heath this night must be my bed 124
The maid who binds her warrior's sash 142
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year 100
There sat an old man on a rock 120
These years! these years! these naughty years! 114
The shadows lay along Broadway 207
The splendor falls on castle walls 40
The sunlight fills the trembling air 86
The winds that once the Argo bore 144
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall 193
They are all gone into the world of light 80
They grew in beauty, side by side 174
They sleep so calm and stately 137
This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling 146
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign 214
This sweet child which hath climbed upon my knee 219
Thou lingering star, with lessening ray 61
Thou still unravished bride of quietness! 199
Three fishers went sailing out into the west 143
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright 96
'Tis a fearful night in the winter time 97
'Tis pleasant business making books 231
'Tis the last rose of summer 111
To him who in the love of nature holds 75
Touch us gently, Time! 122
Tread softly,--bow the head 208
Weave no more the marriage-chain! 163
We count the broken lyres that rest 229
We left behind the painted buoy 13
We watched her breathing through the night 160
We were not many,--we who stood 128
What constitutes a state? 148
What hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells? 212
What was he doing, the great god Pan? 11
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow 48
When I consider how my light is spent 143
When I do count the clock that tells the time 49
When Liberty lives loud on every lip 179
When the latest strife is lost, and all is done with 54
Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn? 133
Whom first we love, you know, we seldom wed 71
With blackest moss the flower-pots 37
With what clear guile of gracious love enticed 224
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 166
You ask me, why, though ill at ease 126

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