IV.

ON A FLY-LEAF.

“It is the nightingale, and not the lark!” O poet-heart, enamored of the Past, That Romeo with the ruby in his ear! No longer sicken to detain the dark: Thine eyes along the clear horizon cast: Behold, a fresh imperious dawn is here!

AN IVORY MINIATURE.

When State Street homes were stately still; When out of town was Murray Hill; In late-deceased “old times” Of vast, embowering bonnet-shapes, And creamy-crinkled Canton crapes, And florid annual-rhymes,

He owned a small suburban seat Where now you see a modern street, A monochrome of brown; The sad “brown-brown” of Dante’s dreams, A twilight turned to stone, that seems To weight our city down.

Through leafy chestnuts whitely showed The pillared front of his abode: A garden girt it ’round, Where pungent box did trim enclose The marigold and cabbage-rose, And “pi’ny” heavy-crowned.

Yea, whatso sweets, the changing year’s, He most affected. Gone: but here’s His face who loved them so. Old eyes like sherry, warm and mild; A cheek clear-hued as cheek of child; Sleek head, a sphere of snow.

His mouth was pious, and his nose Patrician; with which mould there goes A disaffected view. In those sublime, be-oratored, Spread-eagle days, his soul deplored So _much_ red-white-and-blue!

In umber ink, with S’s long, He left behind him censure strong In stiffest phrases clothed; But Time—a pleasant jest enough!— Has turned the tory leaves to buff, The liberal hue he loathed.

Of many a gentle deed he made Brief simple record. Never fade Those everlasting-flowers That spring up wild by good men’s walks; Opinions wither on their stalks, And sere grow Fashion’s bowers.

Erect, be-frilled, in neckcloth tall, His semblance sits, removed from all Our needs and noises new; Released from all the rent we pay As tenants of the large To-day, Cool, in a background blue.

And he, beneath a cherub chipped, Plump, squamous-pinioned, pouting-lipped, Sleeps calm where Trinity Points finger dark to clouds that fleet; A warning, seen from surging street, A welcome, seen from sea.

There fall, ghosts glorified of tears Shed for the dead in buried years, The silver notes of chimes; And there, with not unreverent hand Though light, I lay this “greene garlànd,” This woven wreath of rhymes.

TO MY GOLDFISH.

O my gorgeous-mailéd knight, Whom a finger-tip can fright! At my touch upstarting shy, With a silvery-rolling eye, Leaping, winding, sudden splashing, This way dashing, that way flashing! I’ll not harm thee; lie thou still; Heave not fin nor glittering gill; Globe-kept captive, thou shalt find Fellow-feeling makes me kind.

I, too, own a hermit’s heart, Swift at aught unknown to start: And I, too, am walled about, Though the sunbeams find me out. Scarce I see the stirring world More than thou the brook breeze-curled, But must make, like thee, delight From a few small pebbles white; Trifles, that may fancy bear To some rippled pleasance rare.

Let thy thought, free-swimming, make This, thy globe, a spring-fed lake, And with water crystal-bright I’ll refresh it morn and night, That such dreams the easier be: Deal, sweet Fates! as well by me.

“AS THE CROW FLIES.”

Buccaneer with blackest sails, Steering home by compass true, Now that all the rich West pales From its ingot-hue!

Would that compass in thy breast Thou couldst lend, for guiding me here my Hope hath made her nest— In how far a tree!

Swerving not, nor stooping low, To that dear, that distant mark Could I undiverted go, What were coming dark?

—Careless of the twilight ground, O’er the wood and o’er the stream Still he sails, with hollow sound Strange, as in a dream!

SPRIGS O’ HEATHER.