Part 4

"Man facing man, the sanguine strife began, Jack, Jim and Joe against Tom, Dick and Harry, Each several pair its own account to square, Till both were down or one stood solitary.

"And the great fight raged furious all the night Till every integer was made a fraction; Reader, wouldst know what history has to show As net result of the above transaction?

"Whole coat-tails, four; stray fragments, several score; A heap of spectacles; a deaf man's trumpet; Six lawyers' briefs; seven pocket-handkerchiefs; Twelve canes wherewith the owners used to stump it;

"Odd rubber-shoes; old gloves of different hues; Tax--bills,--unpaid,--and several empty purses; And, saved from harm by some protecting charm, A printed page with Smith's immortal verses;

"Trifles that claim no very special name,-- Some useful, others chiefly ornamental; Pins, buttons, rings, and other trivial things, With various wrecks, capillary and dental.

"Also, one flag,--'t was nothing but a rag, And what device it bore it little matters; Red, white, and blue, but rent all through and through, 'Union forever' torn to shreds and tatters.

"They fought so well not one was left to tell Which got the largest share of cuts and slashes; When heroes meet, both sides are bound to beat; They telescoped like cars in railroad smashes.

"So the great split that baffled human wit And might have cost the lives of twenty millions, As all may see that know the rule of three, Was settled just as well by these civilians.

"As well. Just so. Not worse, not better. No, Next morning found the Nation still divided; Since all were slain, the inference is plain They left the point they fought for undecided."

If not quite true, as I have told it you, This tale of mutual extermination, To minds perplexed with threats of what comes next, Perhaps may furnish food for contemplation.

To cut men's throats to help them count their votes Is asinine--nay, worse--ascidian folly; Blindness like that would scare the mole and bat, And make the liveliest monkey melancholy.

I say once more, as I have said before, If voting for our Tildens and our Hayeses Means only fight, then, Liberty, good night! Pack up your ballot-box and go to blazes.

Unfurl your blood-red flags, you murderous hags, You petroleuses of Paris, fierce and foamy; We'll sell our stock in Plymouth's blasted rock, Pull up our stakes and migrate to Dahomey!

THE LAST SURVIVOR

1878

YES! the vacant chairs tell sadly we are going, going fast, And the thought comes strangely o'er me, who will live to be the last? When the twentieth century's sunbeams climb the far-off eastern hill, With his ninety winters burdened, will he greet the morning still?

Will he stand with Harvard's nurslings when they hear their mother's call And the old and young are gathered in the many alcoved hall? Will he answer to the summons when they range themselves in line And the young mustachioed marshal calls out "Class of '29 "?

Methinks I see the column as its lengthened ranks appear In the sunshine of the morrow of the nineteen hundredth year; Through the yard 't is creeping, winding, by the walls of dusky red,-- What shape is that which totters at the long procession's head?

Who knows this ancient graduate of fourscore years and ten,-- What place he held, what name he bore among the sons of men? So speeds the curious question; its answer travels slow; "'T is the last of sixty classmates of seventy years ago."

His figure shows but dimly, his face I scarce can see,-- There's something that reminds me,--it looks like--is it he? He? Who? No voice may whisper what wrinkled brow shall claim The wreath of stars that circles our last survivor's name.

Will he be some veteran minstrel, left to pipe in feeble rhyme All the stories and the glories of our gay and golden time? Or some quiet, voiceless brother in whose lonely,loving breast Fond memory broods in silence, like a dove upon her nest?

Will it be some old Emeritus, who taught so long ago The boys that heard him lecture have heads as white as snow? Or a pious, painful preacher, holding forth from year to year Till his colleague got a colleague whom the young folks flocked to hear?

Will it be a rich old merchant in a square-tied white cravat, Or select-man of a village in a pre-historic hat? Will his dwelling be a mansion in a marble-fronted row, Or a homestead by a hillside where the huckleberries grow?

I can see our one survivor, sitting lonely by himself,-- All his college text-books round him, ranged in order on their shelf; There are classic "interliners" filled with learning's choicest pith, Each _cum notis variorum, quas recensuit doctus_ Smith;

Physics, metaphysics, logic, mathematics--all the lot Every wisdom--crammed octavo he has mastered and forgot, With the ghosts of dead professors standing guard beside them all; And the room is fall of shadows which their lettered backs recall.

How the past spreads out in vision with its far receding train, Like a long embroidered arras in the chambers of the brain, From opening manhood's morning when first we learned to grieve To the fond regretful moments of our sorrow-saddened eve!

What early shadows darkened our idle summer's joy When death snatched roughly from us that lovely bright-eyed boy! The years move swiftly onwards; the deadly shafts fall fast,-- Till all have dropped around him--lo, there he stands,--the last!

Their faces flit before him, some rosy-hued and fair, Some strong in iron manhood, some worn with toil and care; Their smiles no more shall greet him on cheeks with pleasure flushed! The friendly hands are folded, the pleasant voices hushed!

My picture sets me dreaming; alas! and can it be Those two familiar faces we never more may see? In every entering footfall I think them drawing near, With every door that opens I say, "At last they 're here!"

The willow bends unbroken when angry tempests blow, The stately oak is levelled and all its strength laid low; So fell that tower of manhood, undaunted, patient, strong, White with the gathering snowflakes, who faced the storm so long.

And he,--what subtle phrases their varying light must blend To paint as each remembers our many-featured friend! His wit a flash auroral that laughed in every look, His talk a sunbeam broken on the ripples of a brook,

Or, fed from thousand sources, a fountain's glittering jet, Or careless handfuls scattered of diamond sparks unset; Ah, sketch him, paint him, mould him in every shape you will, He was himself--the only--the one unpictured still!

Farewell! our skies are darkened and--yet the stars will shine, We 'll close our ranks together and still fall into line Till one is left, one only, to mourn for all the rest; And Heaven bequeath their memories to him who loves us best!

THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS

A MODERNIZED VERSION

1879

I DON'T think I feel much older; I'm aware I'm rather gray, But so are many young folks; I meet 'em every day. I confess I 'm more particular in what I eat and drink, But one's taste improves with culture; that is all it means, I think.

_Can you read as once you used to?_ Well, the printing is so bad, No young folks' eyes can read it like the books that once we had. _Are you quite as quick of hearing?_ Please to say that once again. _Don't I use plain words, your Reverence?_ Yes, I often use a cane,

But it's not because I need it,--no, I always liked a stick; And as one might lean upon it, 't is as well it should be thick. Oh, I'm smart, I'm spry, I'm lively,--I can walk, yes, that I can, On the days I feel like walking, just as well as you, young man!

_Don't you get a little sleepy after dinner every day?_ Well, I doze a little, sometimes, but that always was my way. _Don't you cry a little easier than some twenty years ago?_ Well, my heart is very tender, but I think 't was always so.

_Don't you find it sometimes happens that you can't recall a name?_ Yes, I know such lots of people,--but my memory 's not to blame. What! You think my memory's failing! Why, it's just as bright and clear, I remember my great-grandma! She's been dead these sixty year!

_Is your voice a little trembly?_ Well, it may be, now and then, But I write as well as ever with a good old-fashioned pen; It 's the Gillotts make the trouble,--not at all my finger-ends,-- That is why my hand looks shaky when I sign for dividends.

_Don't you stoop a little, walking?_ It 's a way I 've always had, I have always been round-shouldered, ever since I was a lad. _Don't you hate to tie your shoe-strings?_ Yes, I own it--that is true. _Don't you tell old stories over?_ I am not aware I do.

_Don't you stay at home of evenings? Don't you love a cushioned seat_ _In a corner, by the fireside, with your slippers on your feet?_ _Don't you wear warm fleecy flannels? Don't you muffle up your throat_ _Don't you like to have one help you when you're putting on your coat?_

_Don't you like old books you've dogs-eared, you can't remember when?_ _Don't you call it late at nine o'clock and go to bed at ten?_ _How many cronies can you count of all you used to know_ _Who called you by your Christian name some fifty years ago?_

_How look the prizes to you that used to fire your brain?_ _You've reared your mound-how high is it above the level plain?_ _You 've drained the brimming golden cup that made your fancy reel,_ _You've slept the giddy potion off,--now tell us how you feel!_

_You've watched the harvest ripening till every stem was cropped,_ _You 've seen the rose of beauty fade till every petal dropped,_ _You've told your thought, you 've done your task, you've tracked your dial round,_ --I backing down! Thank Heaven, not yet! I'm hale and brisk and sound,

And good for many a tussle, as you shall live to see; My shoes are not quite ready yet,--don't think you're rid of me! Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he was older far, And where will you be if I live to beat old Thomas Parr?

_Ah well,--I know,--at every age life has a certain charm,_-- _You're going? Come, permit me, please, I beg you'll take my arm._ I take your arm! Why take your arm? I 'd thank you to be told I 'm old enough to walk alone, but not so _very_ old!

THE SHADOWS

1880

"How many have gone?" was the question of old Ere Time our bright ring of its jewels bereft; Alas! for too often the death-bell has tolled, And the question we ask is, "How many are left?"

Bright sparkled the wine; there were fifty that quaffed; For a decade had slipped and had taken but three. How they frolicked and sung, how they shouted and laughed, Like a school full of boys from their benches set free!

There were speeches and toasts, there were stories and rhymes, The hall shook its sides with their merriment's noise; As they talked and lived over the college-day times,-- No wonder they kept their old name of "The Boys"!

The seasons moved on in their rhythmical flow With mornings like maidens that pouted or smiled, With the bud and the leaf and the fruit and the snow, And the year-books of Time in his alcoves were piled.

There were forty that gathered where fifty had met; Some locks had got silvered, some lives had grown sere, But the laugh of the laughers was lusty as yet, And the song of the singers rose ringing and clear.

Still flitted the years; there were thirty that came; "The Boys" they were still, and they answered their call; There were foreheads of care, but the smiles were the same, And the chorus rang loud through the garlanded hall.

The hour-hand moved on, and they gathered again; There were twenty that joined in the hymn that was sung; But ah! for our song-bird we listened in vain,-- The crystalline tones like a seraph's that rung!

How narrow the circle that holds us to-night! How many the loved ones that greet us no more, As we meet like the stragglers that come from the fight, Like the mariners flung from a wreck on the shore!

We look through the twilight for those we have lost; The stream rolls between us, and yet they seem near; Already outnumbered by those who have crossed, Our band is transplanted, its home is not here!

They smile on us still--is it only a dream?-- While fondly or proudly their names we recall; They beckon--they come--they are crossing the stream-- Lo! the Shadows! the Shadows! room--room for them all!

BENJAMIN PEIRCE

ASTRONOMER, MATHEMATICIAN. 1809-1890

1881

FOR him the Architect of all Unroofed our planet's starlit hall; Through voids unknown to worlds unseen His clearer vision rose serene.

With us on earth he walked by day, His midnight path how far away! We knew him not so well who knew The patient eyes his soul looked through;

For who his untrod realm could share Of us that breathe this mortal air, Or camp in that celestial tent Whose fringes gild our firmament?

How vast the workroom where he brought The viewless implements of thought! The wit how subtle, how profound, That Nature's tangled webs unwound;

That through the clouded matrix saw The crystal planes of shaping law, Through these the sovereign skill that planned,-- The Father's care, the Master's hand!

To him the wandering stars revealed The secrets in their cradle sealed The far-off, frozen sphere that swings Through ether, zoned with lucid rings;

The orb that rolls in dim eclipse Wide wheeling round its long ellipse,-- His name Urania writes with these And stamps it on her Pleiades.

We knew him not? Ah, well we knew The manly soul, so brave, so true, The cheerful heart that conquered age, The childlike silver-bearded sage.

No more his tireless thought explores The azure sea with golden shores; Rest, wearied frame I the stars shall keep A loving watch where thou shalt sleep.

Farewell! the spirit needs must rise, So long a tenant of the skies,-- Rise to that home all worlds above Whose sun is God, whose light is love.

IN THE TWILIGHT

1882

NOT bed-time yet! The night-winds blow, The stars are out,--full well we know The nurse is on the stair, With hand of ice and cheek of snow, And frozen lips that whisper low, "Come, children, it is time to go My peaceful couch to share."

No years a wakeful heart can tire; Not bed-time yet! Come, stir the fire And warm your dear old hands; Kind Mother Earth we love so well Has pleasant stories yet to tell Before we hear the curfew bell; Still glow the burning brands.

Not bed-time yet! We long to know What wonders time has yet to show, What unborn years shall bring; What ship the Arctic pole shall reach, What lessons Science waits to teach, What sermons there are left to preach. What poems yet to sing.

What next? we ask; and is it true The sunshine falls on nothing new, As Israel's king declared? Was ocean ploughed with harnessed fire? Were nations coupled with a wire? Did Tarshish telegraph to Tyre? How Hiram would have stared!

And what if Sheba's curious queen, Who came to see,--and to be seen,-- Or something new to seek, And swooned, as ladies sometimes do, At sights that thrilled her through and through, Had heard, as she was "coming to," A locomotive's shriek,

And seen a rushing railway train As she looked out along the plain From David's lofty tower,-- A mile of smoke that blots the sky And blinds the eagles as they fly Behind the cars that thunder by A score of leagues an hour!

See to my _fiat lux_ respond This little slumbering fire-tipped wand,-- One touch,--it bursts in flame! Steal me a portrait from the sun,-- One look,--and to! the picture done! Are these old tricks, King Solomon, We lying moderns claim?

Could you have spectroscoped a star? If both those mothers at your bar, The cruel and the mild, The young and tender, old and tough, Had said, "Divide,--you're right, though rough,"-- Did old Judea know enough To etherize the child?

These births of time our eyes have seen, With but a few brief years between; What wonder if the text, For other ages doubtless true, For coming years will never do,-- Whereof we all should like a few, If but to see what next.

If such things have been, such may be; Who would not like to live and see-- If Heaven may so ordain-- What waifs undreamed of, yet in store, The waves that roll forevermore On life's long beach may east ashore From out the mist-clad main?

Will Earth to pagan dreams return To find from misery's painted urn That all save hope has flown,-- Of Book and Church and Priest bereft, The Rock of Ages vainly cleft, Life's compass gone, its anchor left, Left,--lost,--in depths unknown?

Shall Faith the trodden path pursue The _crux ansata_ wearers knew Who sleep with folded hands, Where, like a naked, lidless eye, The staring Nile rolls wandering by Those mountain slopes that climb the sky Above the drifting sands?

Or shall a nobler Faith return, Its fanes a purer gospel learn, With holier anthems ring, And teach us that our transient creeds Were but the perishable seeds Of harvests sown for larger needs, That ripening years shall bring?

Well, let the present do its best, We trust our Maker for the rest, As on our way we plod; Our souls, full dressed in fleshly suits, Love air and sunshine, flowers and fruits, The daisies better than their roots Beneath the grassy sod.

Not bed-time yet! The full-blown flower Of all the year--this evening hour-- With friendship's flame is bright; Life still is sweet, the heavens are fair, Though fields are brown and woods are bare, And many a joy is left to share Before we say Good-night!

And when, our cheerful evening past, The nurse, long waiting, comes at last, Ere on her lap we lie In wearied nature's sweet repose, At peace with all her waking foes, Our lips shall murmur, ere they close, Good-night! and not Good-by!

A LOVING-CUP SONG

1883

COME, heap the fagots! Ere we go Again the cheerful hearth shall glow; We 'll have another blaze, my boys! When clouds are black and snows are white, Then Christmas logs lend ruddy light They stole from summer days, my boys, They stole from summer days.

And let the Loving-Cup go round, The Cup with blessed memories crowned, That flows whene'er we meet, my boys; No draught will hold a drop of sin If love is only well stirred in To keep it sound and sweet, my boys, To keep it sound and sweet.

Give me, to pin upon my breast, The blossoms twain I love the best, A rosebud and a pink, my boys; Their leaves shall nestle next my heart, Their perfumed breath shall own its part In every health we drink, my boys, In every health we drink.

The breathing blossoms stir my blood, Methinks I see the lilacs bud And hear the bluebirds sing, my boys; Why not? Yon lusty oak has seen Full tenscore years, yet leaflets green Peep out with every spring, my boys, Peep out with every spring.

Old Time his rusty scythe may whet, The unmowed grass is glowing yet Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys; And if the crazy dotard ask, Is love worn out? Is life a task? We'll bravely answer No! my boys, We 'll bravely answer No!

For life's bright taper is the same Love tipped of old with rosy flame That heaven's own altar lent, my boys, To glow in every cup we fill Till lips are mute and hearts are still, Till life and love are spent, my boys, Till life and love are spent.

THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP

1884

SHE gathered at her slender waist The beauteous robe she wore; Its folds a golden belt embraced, One rose-hued gem it bore.

The girdle shrank; its lessening round Still kept the shining gem, But now her flowing locks it bound, A lustrous diadem.

And narrower still the circlet grew; Behold! a glittering band, Its roseate diamond set anew, Her neck's white column spanned.

Suns rise and set; the straining clasp The shortened links resist, Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp The diamond, on her wrist.

At length, the round of changes past The thieving years could bring, The jewel, glittering to the last, Still sparkles in a ring.

So, link by link, our friendships part, So loosen, break, and fall, A narrowing zone; the loving heart Lives changeless through them all.

THE LYRE OF ANACREON

1885

THE minstrel of the classic lay Of love and wine who sings Still found the fingers run astray That touched the rebel strings.

Of Cadmus he would fain have sung, Of Atreus and his line; But all the jocund echoes rung With songs of love and wine.

Ah, brothers! I would fain have caught Some fresher fancy's gleam; My truant accents find, unsought, The old familiar theme.

Love, Love! but not the sportive child With shaft and twanging bow, Whose random arrows drove us wild Some threescore years ago;

Not Eros, with his joyous laugh, The urchin blind and bare, But Love, with spectacles and staff, And scanty, silvered hair.

Our heads with frosted locks are white, Our roofs are thatched with snow, But red, in chilling winter's spite, Our hearts and hearthstones glow.

Our old acquaintance, Time, drops in, And while the running sands Their golden thread unheeded spin, He warms his frozen hands.

Stay, winged hours, too swift, too sweet, And waft this message o'er To all we miss, from all we meet On life's fast-crumbling shore:

Say that, to old affection true, We hug the narrowing chain That binds our hearts,--alas, how few The links that yet remain!

The fatal touch awaits them all That turns the rocks to dust; From year to year they break and fall,-- They break, but never rust.

Say if one note of happier strain This worn-out harp afford,-- One throb that trembles, not in vain,-- Their memory lent its chord.

Say that when Fancy closed her wings And Passion quenched his fire, Love, Love, still echoed from the strings As from Anacreon's lyre!

THE OLD TUNE

THIRTY-SIXTH VARIATION

1886

THIS shred of song you bid me bring Is snatched from fancy's embers; Ah, when the lips forget to sing, The faithful heart remembers!

Too swift the wings of envious Time To wait for dallying phrases, Or woven strands of labored rhyme To thread their cunning mazes.

A word, a sigh, and lo, how plain Its magic breath discloses Our life's long vista through a lane Of threescore summers' roses!

One language years alone can teach Its roots are young affections That feel their way to simplest speech Through silent recollections.

That tongue is ours. How few the words We need to know a brother! As simple are the notes of birds, Yet well they know each other.

This freezing month of ice and snow That brings our lives together Lends to our year a living glow That warms its wintry weather.

So let us meet as eve draws nigh, And life matures and mellows, Till Nature whispers with a sigh, "Good-night, my dear old fellows!"

THE BROKEN CIRCLE

1887

I STOOD On Sarum's treeless plain, The waste that careless Nature owns; Lone tenants of her bleak domain, Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.

Upheaved in many a billowy mound The sea-like, naked turf arose, Where wandering flocks went nibbling round The mingled graves of friends and foes.

The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, This windy desert roamed in turn; Unmoved these mighty blocks remain Whose story none that lives may learn.

Erect, half buried, slant or prone, These awful listeners, blind and dumb, Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown, As wave on wave they go and come.

"Who are you, giants, whence and why?" I stand and ask in blank amaze; My soul accepts their mute reply "A mystery, as are you that gaze.

"A silent Orpheus wrought the charm From riven rocks their spoils to bring; A nameless Titan lent his arm To range us in our magic ring.

"But Time with still and stealthy stride, That climbs and treads and levels all, That bids the loosening keystone slide, And topples down the crumbling wall,--

"Time, that unbuilds the quarried past, Leans on these wrecks that press the sod; They slant, they stoop, they fall at last, And strew the turf their priests have trod.

"No more our altar's wreath of smoke Floats up with morning's fragrant dew; The fires are dead, the ring is broke, Where stood the many stand the few."