Chapter I: BELIEVE that the copies of verses I've spun,

Like Scheherezade's tales, are a thousand and one; You remember the story,--those mornings in bed,-- 'T was the turn of a copper,--a tale or a head.

A doom like Scheherezade's falls upon me In a mandate as stern as the Sultan's decree I'm a florist in verse, and what would people say If I came to a banquet without my bouquet?

It is trying, no doubt, when the company knows Just the look and the smell of each lily and rose, The green of each leaf in the sprigs that I bring, And the shape of the bunch and the knot of the string.

Yes,--"the style is the man," and the nib of one's pen Makes the same mark at twenty, and threescore and ten; It is so in all matters, if truth may be told; Let one look at the cast he can tell you the mould.

How we all know each other! no use in disguise; Through the holes in the mask comes the flash of the eyes; We can tell by his--somewhat--each one of our tribe, As we know the old hat which we cannot describe.

Though in Hebrew, in Sanscrit, in Choctaw you write, Sweet singer who gave us the Voices of Night, Though in buskin or slipper your song may be shod; Or the velvety verse that Evangeline trod,

We shall say, "You can't cheat us,--we know it is you," There is one voice like that, but there cannot be two, Maestro, whose chant like the dulcimer rings And the woods will be hushed while the nightingale sings.

And he, so serene, so majestic, so true, Whose temple hypethral the planets shine through, Let us catch but five words from that mystical pen, We should know our one sage from all children of men.

And he whose bright image no distance can dim, Through a hundred disguises we can't mistake him, Whose play is all earnest, whose wit is the edge (With a beetle behind) of a sham-splitting wedge.

Do you know whom we send you, Hidalgos of Spain? Do you know your old friends when you see them again? Hosea was Sancho! you Dons of Madrid, But Sancho that wielded the lance of the Cid!

And the wood-thrush of Essex,--you know whom I mean, Whose song echoes round us while he sits unseen, Whose heart-throbs of verse through our memories thrill Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze from the hill,

So fervid, so simple, so loving, so pure, We hear but one strain and our verdict is sure,-- Thee cannot elude us,--no further we search,-- 'T is Holy George Herbert cut loose from his church!

We think it the voice of a seraph that sings,-- Alas! we remember that angels have wings,-- What story is this of the day of his birth? Let him live to a hundred! we want him on earth!

One life has been paid him (in gold) by the sun; One account has been squared and another begun; But he never will die if he lingers below Till we've paid him in love half the balance we owe!

TWO SONNETS: HARVARD

At the meeting of the New York Harvard Club, February 21, 1878.

"CHRISTO ET ECCLESLE." 1700

To GOD'S ANOINTED AND HIS CHOSEN FLOCK So ran the phrase the black-robed conclave chose To guard the sacred cloisters that arose Like David's altar on Moriah's rock. Unshaken still those ancient arches mock The ram's-horn summons of the windy foes Who stand like Joshua's army while it blows And wait to see them toppling with the shock. Christ and the Church. Their church, whose narrow door Shut out the many, who if overbold Like hunted wolves were driven from the fold, Bruised with the flails these godly zealots bore, Mindful that Israel's altar stood of old Where echoed once Araunah's threshing-floor.

1643 "VERITAS." 1878

TRUTH: So the frontlet's older legend ran, On the brief record's opening page displayed; Not yet those clear-eyed scholars were afraid Lest the fair fruit that wrought the woe of man By far Euphrates--where our sire began His search for truth, and, seeking, was betrayed-- Might work new treason in their forest shade, Doubling the curse that brought life's shortened span. Nurse of the future, daughter of the past, That stern phylactery best becomes thee now Lift to the morning star thy marble brow Cast thy brave truth on every warring blast! Stretch thy white hand to that forbidden bough, And let thine earliest symbol be thy last!

THE COMING ERA

THEY tell us that the Muse is soon to fly hence, Leaving the bowers of song that once were dear, Her robes bequeathing to her sister, Science, The groves of Pindus for the axe to clear.

Optics will claim the wandering eye of fancy, Physics will grasp imagination's wings, Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy, The workshop hammer where the minstrel sings,

No more with laugher at Thalia's frolics Our eyes shall twinkle till the tears run down, But in her place the lecturer on hydraulics Spout forth his watery science to the town.

No more our foolish passions and affections The tragic Muse with mimic grief shall try, But, nobler far, a course of vivisections Teach what it costs a tortured brute to die.

The unearthed monad, long in buried rocks hid, Shall tell the secret whence our being came; The chemist show us death is life's black oxide, Left when the breath no longer fans its flame.

Instead of crack-brained poets in their attics Filling thin volumes with their flowery talk, There shall be books of wholesome mathematics; The tutor with his blackboard and his chalk.

No longer bards with madrigal and sonnet Shall woo to moonlight walks the ribboned sex, But side by side the beaver and the bonnet Stroll, calmly pondering on some problem's x.

The sober bliss of serious calculation Shall mock the trivial joys that fancy drew, And, oh, the rapture of a solved equation,-- One self-same answer on the lips of two!

So speak in solemn tones our youthful sages, Patient, severe, laborious, slow, exact, As o'er creation's protoplasmic pages They browse and munch the thistle crops of fact.

And yet we 've sometimes found it rather pleasant To dream again the scenes that Shakespeare drew,-- To walk the hill-side with the Scottish peasant Among the daisies wet with morning's dew;

To leave awhile the daylight of the real, Led by the guidance of the master's hand, For the strange radiance of the far ideal,-- "The light that never was on sea or land."

Well, Time alone can lift the future's curtain,-- Science may teach our children all she knows, But Love will kindle fresh young hearts, 't is certain, And June will not forget her blushing rose.

And so, in spite of all that Time is bringing,-- Treasures of truth and miracles of art, Beauty and Love will keep the poet singing, And song still live, the science of the heart.

IN RESPONSE

Breakfast at the Century Club, New York, May, 1879.

SUCH kindness! the scowl of a cynic would soften, His pulse beat its way to some eloquent words, Alas! my poor accents have echoed too often, Like that Pinafore music you've some of you heard.

Do you know me, dear strangers--the hundredth time comer At banquets and feasts since the days of my Spring? Ah! would I could borrow one rose of my Summer, But this is a leaf of my Autumn I bring.

I look at your faces,--I'm sure there are some from The three-breasted mother I count as my own; You think you remember the place you have come from, But how it has changed in the years that have flown!

Unaltered, 't is true, is the hall we call "Funnel," Still fights the "Old South" in the battle for life, But we've opened our door to the West through the tunnel, And we've cut off Fort Hill with our Amazon knife.

You should see the new Westminster Boston has builded,-- Its mansions, its spires, its museums of arts,-- You should see the great dome we have gorgeously gilded,-- 'T is the light of our eyes, 't is the joy of our hearts.

When first in his path a young asteroid found it, As he sailed through the skies with the stars in his wake, He thought 't was the sun, and kept circling around it Till Edison signalled, "You've made a mistake."

We are proud of our city,--her fast-growing figure, The warp and the woof of her brain and her hands,-- But we're proudest of all that her heart has grown bigger, And warms with fresh blood as her girdle expands.

One lesson the rubric of conflict has taught her Though parted awhile by war's earth-rending shock, The lines that divide us are written in water, The love that unites us cut deep in the rock.

As well might the Judas of treason endeavor To write his black name on the disk of the sun As try the bright star-wreath that binds us to sever And blot the fair legend of "Many in One."

We love You, tall sister, the stately, the splendid,-- The banner of empire floats high on your towers, Yet ever in welcome your arms are extended,-- We share in your splendors, your glory is ours.

Yes, Queen of the Continent! All of us own thee,-- The gold-freighted argosies flock at thy call, The naiads, the sea-nymphs have met to enthrone thee, But the Broadway of one is the Highway of all!

I thank you. Three words that can hardly be mended, Though phrases on phrases their eloquence pile, If you hear the heart's throb with their eloquence blended, And read all they mean in a sunshiny smile.

FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

MAY 28, 1879.

ENCHANTER of Erin, whose magic has bound us, Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim, Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us That blush into life at the sound of thy name.

The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers,-- I hear the old song with its tender refrain,-- What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers What perfume of youth in each exquisite strain!

The home of my childhood comes back as a vision,-- Hark! Hark! A soft chord from its song-haunted room,-- 'T is a morning of May, when the air is Elysian,-- The syringa in bud and the lilac in bloom,--

We are clustered around the "Clementi" piano,-- There were six of us then,--there are two of us now,-- She is singing--the girl with the silver soprano-- How "The Lord of the Valley" was false to his vow;

"Let Erin remember" the echoes are calling; Through "The Vale of Avoca" the waters are rolled; "The Exile" laments while the night-dews falling; "The Morning of Life" dawns again as of old.

But ah! those warm love-songs of fresh adolescence! Around us such raptures celestial they flung That it seemed as if Paradise breathed its quintessence Through the seraph-toned lips of the maiden that sung!

Long hushed are the chords that my boyhood enchanted As when the smooth wave by the angel was stirred, Yet still with their music is memory haunted, And oft in my dreams are their melodies heard.

I feel like the priest to his altar returning,-- The crowd that was kneeling no longer is there, The flame has died down, but the brands are still burning, And sandal and cinnamon sweeten the air.

II. The veil for her bridal young Summer is weaving In her azure-domed hall with its tapestried floor, And Spring the last tear-drop of May-dew is leaving On the daisy of Burns and the shamrock of Moore.

How like, how unlike, as we view them together, The song of the minstrels whose record we scan,-- One fresh as the breeze blowing over the heather, One sweet as the breath from an odalisque's fan!

Ah, passion can glow mid a palace's splendor; The cage does not alter the song of the bird; And the curtain of silk has known whispers as tender As ever the blossoming hawthorn has heard.

No fear lest the step of the soft-slippered Graces Should fright the young Loves from their warm little nest, For the heart of a queen, under jewels and laces, Beats time with the pulse in the peasant girl's breast!

Thrice welcome each gift of kind Nature's bestowing! Her fountain heeds little the goblet we hold; Alike, when its musical waters are flowing, The shell from the seaside, the chalice of gold.

The twins of the lyre to her voices had listened; Both laid their best gifts upon Liberty's shrine; For Coila's loved minstrel the holly-wreath glistened; For Erin's the rose and the myrtle entwine.

And while the fresh blossoms of summer are braided For the sea-girdled, stream-silvered, lake-jewelled isle, While her mantle of verdure is woven unfaded, While Shannon and Liffey shall dimple and smile,

The land where the staff of Saint Patrick was planted, Where the shamrock grows green from the cliffs to the shore, The land of fair maidens and heroes undaunted, Shall wreathe her bright harp with the garlands of Moore!

TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE

APRIL 4, 1880