Part 6

I set my heart on making friends Pleasant and clever, kind and witty; They now are at the earth's four ends, Two only have n't left the city. The one is given up to trade, The other in the churchyard laid. And when youth's gone and leisure ends, It is too late for making friends.

I set my heart upon a girl Who chose at my approach to smile. Did she but pat some frizzled curl, I knew the angel free from guile. But now a rich man owns my belle, I find the others smile as well, And my moustache no more I twirl, Nor set my heart upon a girl.

I set my heart on seeing things, And wished through every land to travel, See Troja's ruins, Nikis' springs, And culture's history unravel. When many a sea had made me sick, Men still were bipeds, houses brick. Since nearer Truth no journey brings I make an end of seeing things.

I set my heart on politics; I glowed for honesty and freedom. My earnest thoughts I tried to fix Upon the poor, and how to feed 'em. But the reformer cheats himself, He serves his prejudice or pelf, And no man's will but inward fate Governs the fortunes of the state.

I set my heart on nothing now, But bless the gifts of every hour, Holding my hand beneath life's bough To catch the fruit or falling flower. With the world breathing at my feet, I find the sunset stillness sweet, And with the night wind on my brow I set my heart on nothing now.

He scarce had done, when the last man, Who'd listened hard to every word, Thus, rising in his place, began As if impatient to be heard:

THE LOVER

Oh, you men who are not married Have n't known the joy of living, On the margin you have tarried, Never putting out to sea; All your musing, all your grieving, Is a childish thing to me.

I have done with idle moping And have seen my manly duty. There is no more doubt and groping, Since I took a woman's hand, And the loadstar of her beauty Led me to the promised land.

For her sake my work is pleasure And I thrive in my devotion, Though I seek repute and treasure But to have the gifts to give, For my love, like River Ocean, Rounds the world in which I live.

When I feel, in softest slumber, Her fair head upon my pillow, I think how the misty Humber And the Ganges' holy stream Send their treasures o'er the billow To embalm my lady's dream.

Rightly did my father rear me Close beside the village steeple, Rightly shall my sons revere me When they come to take my place, For I serve my land and people And maintain my sturdy race.

Fill your glasses up with liquor, Drink it down while yet it bubbles. When the heart beats quick and quicker Love is knocking. Drink with me: Here is death to all your troubles, And long life, fair love, to thee!

"Yes, fill your glasses up, I pray you," Said I, "and make it bumpers now, For whatsoever passion sway you Some noble love we all avow.

"We bear a mark, an inward token, That parts us from the common herd. To each of us some muse has spoken A holy, unforgotten word.

"Our stars, conjoined in youth's first season, Whether to musing moved or strife. Obedient to one touch of reason Together make the round of life.

"Drink to the loves we knitted here, A bond by distance not undone. High thoughts outlive the wasted year; I drink to that which makes us one."

ATHLETIC ODE

I hear a rumour and a shout, A louder heart-throb pulses in the air. Fling, Muse, thy lattice open, and beware To keep the morning out. Beckon into the chamber of thy care The bird of healing wing That trilleth there Blithe happy passion of the strong and fair. Their wild heart singeth. Do thou also sing. How vain, how vain The feeble croaking of a reasoning tongue That heals no pain And prompts no bright deed worthy to be sung Too soon cold earth Refuses flowers. Oh, greet their lovely birth! Too soon dull death Quiets the heaving of our doubtful breath. Deem not its worth Too high for honouring mirth; Sing while the lyre is strung, And let the heart beat, while the heart is young.

When the dank earth begins to thaw and yield The early clover, didst thou never pass Some balmy noon from field to sunny field And press thy feet against the tufted grass? So hadst thou seen A spring palæstra on the tender green. Here a tall stripling, with a woman's face, Draws the spiked sandal on his upturned heel, Sure-footed for the race; Another hurls the quoit of heavy steel And glories to be strong; While yet another, lightest of the throng, Crouching on tiptoe for the sudden bound, Flies o'er the level race-course, like the hound, And soon is lost afar; Another jumps the bar, For some god taught him easily to spring, The legs drawn under, as a bird takes wing, Till, tempting fortune farther than is meet, At last he fails, and fails, and vainly tries, And blushing, and ashamed to lift his eyes, Shakes the light earth from his feet. Him friendly plaudits greet And pleasing to the unaccustomed ear. Come then afield, come with the sporting year And watch the youth at play, For gentle is the strengthening sun, and sweet The soul of boyhood and the breath of May.

And with the milder ray Of the declining sun, when sky and shore, In purple drest and misty silver-grey. Hang curtains round the day, Come list the beating of the plashing oar, For grief in rhythmic labour glides away. The glancing blades make circles where they dip, Now flash and drip Cool wind-blown drops into the glassy river, Now sink and cleave, While the lithe rowers heave And feel the boat beneath them leap and quiver. The supple oars in time, Shattering the mirror of the rippled water, Fly, fly as poets climb, Borne by the pliant promise of their rhyme, Or as bewitched by Nereus' loveliest daughter The painted dolphins, following along, Leap to the measure of her liquid song.

But the blasts of late October, Tempering summer's paling grief With a russet glow and sober, Bring of these sports the latest and the chief. Then bursts the flame from many a smouldering ember, And many an ardent boy Woos harsher pleasures sweeter to remember, Hugged with a sterner and a tenser joy. Look where the rivals come: Each little phalanx on its chosen ground Strains for the sudden shock, and all around The multitude is dumb. Come, watch the stubborn fight And doubtful, in the sight Of wide-eyed beauty and unstinted love Ay, the wise gods above, Attentive to this hot and generous fray, Smile on its fortunes and its end prepare, For play is also life, and far from care Their own glad life is play.

Ye nymphs and fauns, to Bacchus dear, That woke Cithæron with your midnight rout, Arise, arise and shout! Your day returns, your haunt is here. Shake off dull sleep and long despair; There is intoxication in this air, And frenzy in this yelping cheer. How oft of old the enraptured Muses sung Olympian victors' praise. Lo! even in these days The world is young. Life like a torrent flung For ever down For ever wears a rainbow for a crown. O idle sigh for loveliness outworn, When the red flush of each unfailing morn Floods every field and grove, And no moon wanes but some one is in love. O wasted tear, A new soul wakes with each awakened year. Beneath these rags, these blood-clots on the face, The valiant soul is still the same, the same The strength, the art, the inevitable grace, The thirst unquenched for fame Quenching base passion, the high will severe, The long obedience, and the knightly flame Of loyalty to honour and a name.

Give o'er, ye chords, your music ere ye tire, Be sweetly mute, O lyre. Words soon are cold, and life is warm for ever. One half of honour is the strong endeavour, Success the other, but when both conspire Youth has her perfect crown, and age her old desire.

THE BOTTLES AND THE WINE

LINES READ AT THE REUNION OF A COLLEGE CLUB

Would you have an illustration Of the thing we fellows are? Liken every generation To the bottles in the bar: Vessels full of precious liquor Standing in their brave array,--Never bosom friends were thicker Or of franker heart than they, There congenially hobnobbing, Always ready for a bout, As half laughing and half sobbing The fine spirits bubble out.

We buy, break, drink, waste, decant them-- Bottles come and bottles go-- Yet there always, when you want them, Stand the bottles in a row: Port and sherry, rum and brandy, Irish, Bourbon, Scotch, and rye, Always smiling, always handy When the heart's a trifle dry.

Though the bottles change their label And tag on another name, They're as welcome at the table, For the liquor's still the same. Days gone by saw jugs in plenty, Now less frequently on view. Every year some ten or twenty Pass to fields and pastures new. There, replenished, they grow fatter And their bellies bulge amain,

But though full as yet of matter, You may mark a certain drain, For the busy world's contention Brings the liquid down a bit, And a small god I won't mention Sometimes takes a pull at it. Yet apart from some mischances, Though not standing where they stood, For big dinners and small dances Our old bottles still are good. But when once the dregs are emptied, We throw bottles in a heap, Not one favourite exempted, Were its spirit fine or cheap. They 're doled out in the back alley By the scrawny hands of hags When gaunt Death comes shilly-shally Crying, "Bottles and old rags!" What of that? While face and feature, Manners, minds, and pleasures pass, Mature breeds a younger creature.

Mate to what the other was, And the sports we had forsaken, And the fancies blown away In the brighter souls they waken Live for ever and a day. The proud glories that entice us No more fail because we pass Than the founts of Dionysus For the quaffing of a glass.

But what happens to the liquor? The old bottles' fate to share, Only that its flight is quicker Up the vortices of air? Is it lost as soon as tasted, Rising upon moth-like wings To be caught and scorched and wasted In this foolish flame of things? Ah, the blood of nature's spilling Trickles back into her veins, And her cup is ever filling With the vintage that she strains. For a moment she befriends us With unsealing of our eyes, But the light of life she lends us Floods her everlasting skies. The sweet wine that makes our passion Linking heart to mortal heart Is her ancient fire to fashion All the marvels of her art. It has painted woman's beauty, It is parent to the flowers, It has wedded joy to duty, Portioned loves among the hours, Built us palaces and churches, Plucked its music from the lyre, Lighted all the spirit's searches Through the mazes of desire, Yes, and scorning earthly places And our human loves and wars It has peopled heaven's spaces And has gilded heaven's stars.

Drink, then, of this cup and drain it. Let the wine renew the soul, And all vessels that contain it, May they long be sound and whole To receive the boon and give it That makes mortal joys divine. Here's to life and all who live it, To the bottles and the wine.

THE POETIC MEDIUM

In Chelsea dwells a Sibyl known to fame Called Mrs. Fakir--necromantic name! Past, present, future, open to her view She (for ten dollars) will reveal to you. I for less sums--the discount to the trade-- Quaff at her fount and seek her undismayed. I found the priestess in her wonted lair Up three steep flights of narrow dirty stair. Chill was the darkened chamber. A thick fume Of kerosene lent odour to the gloom. Clothed in black weeds, pale, with delirious hair, Rocked Mrs. Fakir in her rocking-chair. I told my errand; with some hushed complaint About the fee, she fell into a faint, Thrice rolled her eyes, thrice snorted through her nose, Thrice wrung her hands, and wriggled thrice her toes, Then spoke. (I versify: she uttered vulgar prose.) "You want some verse: not every poet's soul Whose aid you crave is still in my control. Whom would you summon? You must ask the boon Of some frail wight that floats below the moon. The spirits that have risen to the stars Reck not the echoes of our earthly jars. Their troubles past, they have forgotten ours, And move unmoved by even magic powers. Only weak souls entangled in the mesh Of passion, dying, still are bond to flesh, And hover o'er the battle-field of life To smell their kindred blood and pine for strife. Such I may summon, for they have no choice Who crave to live again and find a voice." "'T is well," I answered. "If the gods so please, We will not call on Aristophanes, Horace shall slumber, Juvenal be dumb. They rest in peace. But haply Swift will come." "Not Swift," she said, "not Swift. I cannot tell Whether he flew to heaven or to hell, But he is gone far from this mild, low-born, And canting age, incapable of scorn." "Well, summon Byron, then," I said and sighed. "Byron is also safe," the witch replied. "The first sin punished and the first forgiven Is love's, the slip of climbers into heaven. The petted passion and the shallow dream He purged at last; the heart survived supreme." "Byron gone too," thought I, "what wit remains All younger sprites have water in their veins. But, ah! might not the living help me out? Don't phantoms of the living flit about?" "They do, they do," quoth Chelsea's Pythoness. "Here in my telepathic cave's recess All that they say or think or wish or feel I read aloud, but most what they conceal. Whom would you plagiarise? You 're silent? Why, Have you forgot the ages galaxy--" I trembled as she named them one by one, From Willy Frilly down to Spider Spun. "Spare me," I cried. "Shall some prolific bard Reel off bright lyrics at a cent a yard, All about April rain, December snow, The brook, the sunset, and the squawking crow? Shall little Swinburnes turn a verse with ease And sing the flaccid pleasures of disease? Shall mimics, drunk with each Castalian rill, Be any poet but themselves at will, Luscious when Keats, when Spenser quaint and dull, When Browning turgid, and Noodles null? Shall weaklings, in thick verse and tortured prose, Strike affectation's quintessential pose, Sniffing the odours of a perfumed brain Where melts a Wordsworth _plus_ a Paul Verlaine? When, with no art, were precious fabrics wrought, When metaphysics with no mastering thought? No, Mrs. Fakir, none of this small fry. Catch me some ghost of sense, or else good-bye. Not at my bidding shall this choir prolong The cloying drivel of unmeaning song, Enrich the echo, maul the note and tease, Miauling nothing in a hundred keys. Better Pope's squirrel eye and polished sneer Than idiot mouthings, false without veneer. Better Boileau's 'monotony in wire,' Dressing good wit in periwigged attire; For in a garden's alleys or a wood Hung all in green, monotony is good, And a frail stem may need a bit of wire To keep the rose from trailing in the mire. Never will they dig deep or build for time Who of unreason weave a maze of rhyme, Worship a weakness, nurse a whim, and bind Wreaths about temples tenantless of mind, Forsake the path the seeing Muses trod, And shatter Nature to discover God. He only climbs the skies and proudly sings Whose heart, attentive, feels the pulse of things, Masters the fact, and hails the changeless goal That beckons, purges, and fulfils the soul." I ceased: no ghost was willing to befriend, And all the living useless to my end. Meantime the hag awoke with vacant stare, And passed her bony fingers through her hair. I left her den and hastened back to town, Writing the while my sad experience down. This you have heard. 'T is little that I give, But it makes sense. Long, masters, may you live.

YOUNG SAMMY'S FIRST WILD OATS

LINES WRITTEN BEFORE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1900

Mid Uncle Sam's expanded acres There's an old, secluded glade Where grey Puritans and Quakers Still grow fervid in the shade; And the same great elms and beeches That once graced the ancestral farm, Bending to the old men's speeches, Lend their words an echo's charm. Laurel, clematis, and vine Weave green trellises about, And three maples and a pine Shut the mucker-village out. Yet the smoke of trade and battle Cannot quite be banished hence, And the air-line to Seattle Whizzes just behind the fence.

As one day old Deacon Plaster Hobbled to the wonted nook, There was Doctor Wise, the pastor, Meekly sitting with his book. "What has happened, Brother Deacon, That you look so hot and vexed? Is it something I might speak on When I preach on Sabbath next?" "Doctor Wise," replied the other, As he wiped the sweat away, "'T is a wicked sin, my brother, You should preach on every day. Cousin Sammy's gone a-tooting To the Creole County fair, Where the very sun's polluting And there's fever in the air He has picked up three young lasses, Three mulattoes on the mart, Who have offered him free passes To their fortune and their heart. One young woman he respected, Vowed he only came to woo. But his word may be neglected Since he ravished the other two. In the Porto Rican billing And carousing, I allow That the little minx was willing, Though she may be sorry now. But what came of those embraces And that taint of nigger blood? Now he looks on outraged faces And can laugh, defying God: He can stretch his hand, relieving, And strike down a cheated slave. Oh, if Uncle Sam were living, This would bring him to his grave!"

Deacon Plaster ceased and, sighing, Mopped the reeking of his brain. Doctor Wise, before replying, Put his goggles on again. "Brother Plaster, to be candid, Were I managing the farm, I should do as the old man did--Lying low and safe from harm, Shoot at poachers from the hedges, If they ventured within range, Just round out my acre's edges, Grow and grow, but never change. I am old, and you are old, sir: Old the thoughts we live among. If the truth were to be told, sir, None of us was ever young. In the towns of sombre Britain--Merry England turned about--We were marked at birth and smitten Whom the Lord had chosen out; Picked to found a pilgrim nation, Far from men, estranged, remote, With the desert for a station And the ocean for a moat; To rebuke by sober living, In the dread of wrath to come, Of the joys of this world's giving The abominable sum. Yet all passion's seeds came smuggled In our narrow pilgrim ark, And, unwatered, grew and struggled, Pushed for ages through the dark, And, when summer granted pardon, Burst into the upper air, Till that desert was a garden And that sea a thoroughfare. Thus the virtue we rely on Melted 'neath the heathen sun, And what should have been a Zion Came to be this Babylon. Ignorant of ancient sorrow, With hot young blood in their veins, Now the prophets of the morrow Ply the spur and hold the reins. Can we blame them? Rather blame us,-- Us, who uttered idle things. Our false prophecies shall shame us, And our weak imaginings. Liberty! delicious sound! The world loved it, and is free. But what's freedom? To be bound By a chance majority. Few are rich and many poor, Though all minds show one dull hue. Equality we don't secure, Mediocrity we do. Ah! what dreams beguiled our youth! Brothers we had hoped to be; But competition is the truth Of what we called fraternity. Can we blame them we mistaught If now they seek another guide And, since our wisdom comes to naught, Take counsel of their proper pride? Nature beckons them, inviting To a deeper draught of fate, And, the heart's desire inciting, Can we stop and bid them wait?

"If old Uncle Sam were living, This, you say, should never be: Ah! if Uncle Sam were living, He might weep, but he must see. Yet he died in time, believing In the gods that ruled his days. We, alas! survive him, grieving Under gods we will not praise. The keen pleasures of December Mean the joys of April lost; And shall rising suns remember All the dream worlds they have crossed? All things mortal have their season: Nothing lives, for ever young, But renews its life by treason To the thing from which it sprung, And when man has reached immortal Mansions, after toiling long, Life deserts him at the portal, And he only lives in song.

"As for Sam, the son, I wonder If you know the fellow's heart: There may yet be something under Nobler than the outer part. When he told that señorita That he kissed and hugged her close Like a brother, did he cheat her? Did he cheat himself? Who knows? That he liked her, that is certain; That he wronged her is n't true. On his thoughts I draw the curtain: I don't know them, nor do you. In her maid, the facile Rica, We have quite another case. Hardly did he go to seek her, When she rushed to his embrace. I confess it was improper, But all flesh, alas! is flesh. Things had gone too far to drop her; Each was in the other's mesh. But with that poor Filipina, When she shrank from his caress, His contemptible demeanour Is n't easy to express. First he bought her, then he kicked her; But the truth is, he was drunk, For that day had crowned him victor, And a Spanish fleet was sunk.