IV.

IN THE GROVE.

Once more the huntress clad in silvery mail Seeks her Endymion, over hill and glade; Once more the hour so dear to youth and maid— The hour that all Love’s guardian spirits hail. Wrapped in the moonlight like a lucent veil, Is it for me, young priestess, that, arrayed Still in thy vestal robes, thy feet have strayed So far from where the sacred fires pale?

Last night within the temple’s dim alcove I durst not lift my conscious eyes to thine. Lo, now thy lips and eyes have sought for mine, And round my neck thy sheltering arms entwine, While our commingling footsteps freely rove Through all the mysteries of the silent grove.

TO MY CRITICS.

IMITATED FROM DE MUSSET.

My verse contains some images, ’tis true, On Byron’s pages found, what then, he too On other pages found them long before, (Byron, I think, would hardly grudge them me, Seeing I need them so much worse than he). Read carefully the old Italian lore, If you, to draw it very mild, would see How freely Byron borrowed; he or she As stupid as a school teacher must be Who thinks in eighteen hundred eighty-four To find a thought or rhyme not used before. And yet I must not speak of “waters blue,” Of “sunny skies,” and “eyes of heavenly hue,” Nor use some old stock metaphor at need Because, forsooth, pedantic fools may read, The same in every language,—Sanscrit, Greek, Hebrew and Latin, Dutch and Arabic. Great bards of yore, and they of yesterday, Before whose sun my rushlight pales away, To whose deep flood, my song is but a rill,— All, great and small, hear the same chorus still. Read the old rotting magazines and see The very venom that they void on me; The arsenal where roving malice meets The rusty darts that stung the heart of Keats. Vile innuendo, and malignant sneer, Blanche, Tray, and Sweetheart, hardly changed are here.

The lowest place amid the minstrel throng Is all I claim; in the full tide of song My voice is lost; upon my page appears No burning message from supernal spheres. But Teian glow and Lesbian passion still A thousand lyres in every land they thrill. A chord once found belongs, the whole world through, To every minstrel that can strike it true. My verses rhyme (at least some of them do), And sweet as ever in our ear there chimes The melody of old recurrent rhymes. Dove ever mates with love, and bliss with kiss, In every song from Sappho’s day to this.

THE YOUTH AND THE OLD MAN.

FLORIAN.

“Old man,” said an ambitious youth one day “Show me the path to wealth and fame, I pray.” Answering not, the old man mused awhile, His thin lips wreathing with a cynic smile, Then spoke: “Is fame thy wish? With earnest zeal Devote thyself to serve the commonweal; To her give all thy talents and thy time, The flush of youth, and vigorous manhood’s prime; And should the foeman come with deadly strife, In her defence be swift to lose thy life, Perchance with ‘failure’ branded on thy heart. The road to wealth is surer; seek the mart, Where cunning money-changers lie in wait, Casting their nets with watered stocks for bait. Or join the nobler throng, whose argosies Bear on white wings across the distant seas The honest——” “Hold, old man, I’ll none of these; With intrigue and deceit I would not soil My soul, and yet I shrink from sordid toil.”

Again the old man mused in silence while Around his mouth hovered a cynic smile, Then answered thus: “Why, simply be a fool, And win both fame and wealth, in spite of rule.”

THE CATHEDRAL BELL AND ITS RIVAL.

IRIARTE.

In a renowned cathedral hung a bell, The pride of all the country far and near; A bell whose deep vibrations never fell Save on the greatest church-days of the year. Then for some moments brief the air was thrilled By some deep strokes with solemn pause between; The heart devout with pious awe was filled, And sinners felt repentance swift and keen.

Within a neighboring hamlet poor and small, With crumbling belfry tottering to its fall, There stood a paltry chapel low and mean; A cracked and rusty cow-bell hung therein,

Harsh and discordant, but the sexton sly, Only upon the solemn days and high, Six times a year at most, its voice awoke, Like the cathedral bell with solemn stroke. This strange reserve, in parish bells unknown, Gave to the wretched bell a high renown. Its jangling equalled to the rustic’s ear The tones majestic of its grand compeer.

Pretentious, owl-like silence oft supplies The lack of wit in those accounted wise. “Be swift to listen and be slow to speak,” If a high name for wisdom you would seek.

BLUE EYES AND BLACK EYES.

IMITATED FROM ANDALUSIAN COPLAS.