East and West: Poems

The Copperhead

(1864.)

There is peace in the swamp where the Copper head sleeps,Where the waters are stagnant, the white vapor creeps,Where the musk of Magnolia hangs thick in the air,And the lilies' phylacteries broaden in prayer;There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is Death,Though the mist is miasm, the Upas tree's breath,Though no echo awakes to the cooing of doves,—There is peace: yes, the peace that the Copperhead loves!Go seek him: he coils in the ooze and the dripLike a thong idly flung from the slave-driver's whip;But beware the false footstep,—the stumble that bringsA deadlier lash than the overseer swings.Never arrow so true, never bullet so dread,As the straight steady stroke of that hammershaped head;Whether slave, or proud planter, who braves that dull crest,Woe to him who shall trouble the Copperhead's rest!Then why waste your labors, brave hearts and strong men,In tracking a trail to the Copperhead's den?Lay your axe to the cypress, hew open the shadeTo the free sky and sunshine Jehovah has made;Let the breeze of the North sweep the vapors away,Till the stagnant lake ripples, the freed waters play;And then to your heel can you righteously doomThe Copperhead born of its shadow and gloom!

On a Pen of Thomas Starr King

This is the reed the dead musician dropped,  With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;The prompt allegro of its music stopped,  Its melodies unbidden.But who shall finish the unfinished strain,  Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,And bid the slender barrel breathe again,—  An organ-pipe of thunder?His pen! what humbler memories cling about  Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing gracesSlipped from its point, when his full heart went out  In smiles and courtly phrases!The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;  The word of cheer, with recognition in it;The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung  The golden gift within it.But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave:  No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision;The incantation that its power gave  Sleeps with the dead magician.

Lone Mountain

(Cemetery, San Francisco.)

This is that hill of aweThat Persian Sindbad saw,—  The mount magnetic;And on its seaward face,Scattered along its base,  The wrecks prophetic.Here come the argosiesBlown by each idle breeze,  To and fro shifting;Yet to the hill of FateAll drawing, soon or late,—  Day by day drifting;—Drifting forever hereBarks that for many a year  Braved wind and weather;Shallops but yesterdayLaunched on yon shining bay,—  Drawn all together.This is the end of all:Sun thyself by the wall,  O poorer Hindbad!Envy not Sindbad's fame:Here come alike the same,  Hindbad and Sindbad.

California's Greeting to Seward

(1869.)

We know him well: no need of praise  Or bonfire from the windy hillTo light to softer paths and ways  The world-worn man we honor still;No need to quote those truths he spoke  That burned through years of war and shame.While History carves with surer stroke  Across our map his noon-day fame;No need to bid him show the scars  Of blows dealt by the Scaean gate,Who lived to pass its shattered bars,  And see the foe capitulate;Who lived to turn his slower feet  Toward the western setting sun,To see his harvest all complete,  His dream fulfilled, his duty done,—The one flag streaming from the pole,  The one faith borne from sea to sea,—For such a triumph, and such goal,  Poor must our human greeting be.Ah! rather that the conscious land  In simpler ways salute the Man,—The tall pines bowing where they stand,  The bared head of El Capitan,The tumult of the waterfalls,  Pohono's kerchief in the breeze,The waving from the rocky walls,  The stir and rustle of the trees;Till lapped in sunset skies of hope,  In sunset lands by sunset seas,The Young World's Premier treads the slope  Of sunset years in calm and peace.

The Two Ships

As I stand by the cross on the lone mountain's crest,  Looking over the ultimate sea,In the gloom of the mountain a ship lies at rest,  And one sails away from the lea:One spreads its white wings on a far-reaching track,  With pennant and sheet flowing free;One hides in the shadow with sails laid aback,—  The ship that is waiting for me!But lo, in the distance the clouds break away!  The Gate's glowing portals I see;And I hear from the outgoing ship in the bay  The song of the sailors in glee:So I think of the luminous footprints that bore  The comfort o'er dark Galilee,And wait for the signal to go to the shore,  To the ship that is waiting for me.

The Goddess

For the Sanitary Fair

"Who comes?" The sentry's warning cry  Rings sharply on the evening air:Who comes? The challenge: no reply,  Yet something motions there.A woman, by those graceful folds;  A soldier, by that martial tread:"Advance three paces. Halt! until  Thy name and rank be said.""My name? Her name, in ancient song,  Who fearless from Olympus came:Look on me! Mortals know me best  In battle and in flame.""Enough! I know that clarion voice;  I know that gleaming eye and helm;Those crimson lips,—and in their dew  The best blood of the realm."The young, the brave, the good and wise,  Have fallen in thy curst embrace:The juices of the grapes of wrath  Still stain thy guilty face."My brother lies in yonder field,  Face downward to the quiet grass:Go back! he cannot see thee now;  But here thou shalt not pass."A crack upon the evening air,  A wakened echo from the hill:The watch-dog on the distant shore  Gives mouth, and all is still.The sentry with his brother lies  Face downward on the quiet grass;And by him, in the pale moonshine,  A shadow seems to pass.No lance or warlike shield it bears:  A helmet in its pitying handsBrings water from the nearest brook,  To meet his last demands.Can this be she of haughty mien,  The goddess of the sword and shield?Ah, yes! The Grecian poet's myth  Sways still each battle-field.For not alone that rugged war  Some grace or charm from beauty gains;But, when the goddess' work is done,  The woman's still remains.

Address

Opening of the California Theatre, San Francisco, Jan. 19, 1870

Brief words, when actions wait, are wellThe prompter's hand is on his bell;The coming heroes, lovers, kings,Are idly lounging at the wings;Behind the curtain's mystic foldThe glowing future lies unrolled,—And yet, one moment for the Past;One retrospect,—the first and last."The world's a stage," the master said.To-night a mightier truth is read:Not in the shifting canvas screen,The flash of gas, or tinsel sheen;Not in the skill whose signal callsFrom empty boards baronial halls;But, fronting sea and curving bay,Behold the players and the play.Ah, friends! beneath your real skiesThe actor's short-lived triumph dies:On that broad stage, of empire wonWhose footlights were the setting sun,Whose flats a distant background roseIn trackless peaks of endless snows;Here genius bows, and talent waitsTo copy that but One creates.Your shifting scenes: the league of sand,An avenue by ocean spanned;The narrow beach of straggling tents,A mile of stately monuments;Your standard, lo! a flag unfurled,Whose clinging folds clasp half the world,—This is your drama, built on facts,With "twenty years between the acts."One moment more: if here we raiseThe oft-sung hymn of local praise,Before the curtain facts must sway;Here waits the moral of your play.Glassed in the poet's thought, you viewWhat money can, yet cannot do;The faith that soars, the deeds that shine,Above the gold that builds the shrine.And oh! when others take our place,And Earth's green curtain hides our face,Ere on the stage, so silent now,The last new hero makes his bow:So may our deeds, recalled once moreIn Memory's sweet but brief encore,Down all the circling ages run,With the world's plaudit of "Well done!"

The Lost Galleon

In sixteen hundred and forty-one,The regular yearly galleon,Laden with odorous gums and spice,India cottons and India rice,And the richest silks of far Cathay,Was due at Acapulco Bay.Due she was, and over-due,—Galleon, merchandise, and crew,Creeping along through rain and shine,Through the tropics, under the line.The trains were waiting outside the walls,The wives of sailors thronged the town,The traders sat by their empty stalls,And the viceroy himself came down;The bells in the tower were all a-trip,Te Deums were on each father's lip,The limes were ripening in the sunFor the sick of the coming galleon.All in vain. Weeks passed away,And yet no galleon saw the bay:India goods advanced in price;The governor missed his favorite spice;The señoritas mourned for sandal,And the famous cottons of Coromandel;And some for an absent lover lost,And one for a husband,—Donna Julia,Wife of the captain, tempest-tossed,In circumstances so peculiar:Even the fathers, unawares,Grumbled a little at their prayers;And all along the coast that yearVotive candles were scarce and dear.Never a tear bedims the eyeThat time and patience will not dry;Never a lip is curved with painThat can't be kissed into smiles again:And these same truths, as far as I know,Obtained on the coast of MexicoMore than two hundred years ago,In sixteen hundred and fifty-one,—Ten years after the deed was done,—And folks had forgotten the galleon:The divers plunged in the Gulf for pearls,White as the teeth of the Indian girls;The traders sat by their full bazaars;The mules with many a weary load,And oxen, dragging their creaking cars,Came and went on the mountain road.Where was the galleon all this while:Wrecked on some lonely coral isle?Burnt by the roving sea-marauders,Or sailing north under secret orders?Had she found the Anian passage famed,By lying Moldonado claimed,And sailed through the sixty-fifth degreeDirect to the North Atlantic sea?Or had she found the "River of Kings,"Of which De Fonté told such strange thingsIn sixteen forty? Never a sign,East or West or under the line,They saw of the missing galleon;Never a sail or plank or chip,They found of the long-lost treasure-ship,Or enough to build a tale upon.But when she was lost, and where and how,Are the facts we're coming to just now.Take, if you please, the chart of that dayPublished at Madrid,—por el Rey;Look for a spot in the old South Sea,The hundred and eightieth degreeLongitude, west of Madrid: there,Under the equatorial glare,Just where the East and West are one,You'll find the missing galleon,—You'll find the "San Gregorio," yetRiding the seas, with sails all set,Fresh as upon the very dayShe sailed from Acapulco Bay.How did she get there? What strange spellKept her two hundred years so well,Free from decay and mortal taint?What? but the prayers of a patron saint!A hundred leagues from Manilla town,The "San Gregorio's" helm came down;Round she went on her heel, and notA cable's length from a galliotThat rocked on the waters, just abreastOf the galleon's course, which was west-sou-west.Then said the galleon's commandante,General Pedro Sobriente(That was his rank on land and main,A regular custom of Old Spain),"My pilot is dead of scurvy: mayI ask the longitude, time, and day?"The first two given and compared;The third,—the commandante stared!"The first of June? I make it second."Said the stranger, "Then you've wrongly-reckoned;I make it first: as you came this way,You should have lost—d'ye see—a day;Lost a day, as plainly see,On the hundred and eightieth degree.""Lost a day?" "Yes: if not rude,When did you make east longitude?""On the ninth of May,—our patron's day.""On the ninth?—you had no ninth of May!Eighth and tenth was there; but stay"—Too late; for the galleon bore away.Lost was the day they should have kept,Lost unheeded and lost unwept;Lost in a way that made search vain,Lost in the trackless and boundless main;Lost like the day of Job's awful curse,In his third chapter, third and fourth verse;Wrecked was their patron's only day,—What would the holy fathers say?Said the Fray Antonio Estavan,The galleon's chaplain,—a learned man,—"Nothing is lost that you can regain:And the way to look for a thing is plainTo go where you lost it, back again.Back with your galleon till you seeThe hundred and eightieth degree.Wait till the rolling year goes round,And there will the missing day be found;For you'll find—if computation's true—That sailing east will give to youNot only one ninth of May, but two,—One for the good saint's present cheer,And one for the day we lost last year."Back to the spot sailed the galleon;Where, for a twelve-month, off and onThe hundred and eightieth degree,She rose and fell on a tropic sea:But lo! when it came to the ninth of May,All of a sudden becalmed she layOne degree from that fatal spot,Without the power to move a knot;And of course the moment she lost her way,Gone was her chance to save that day.To cut a lengthening story short,She never saved it. Made the sportOf evil spirits and baffling wind,She was always before or just behind,One day too soon, or one day too late,And the sun, meanwhile, would never wait:She had two eighths, as she idly lay,Two tenths, but never a ninth of May;And there she rides through two hundred yearsOf dreary penance and anxious fears:Yet through the grace of the saint she served,Captain and crew are still preserved.By a computation that still holds good,Made by the Holy Brotherhood,The "San Gregorio" will cross that lineIn nineteen hundred and thirty-nine:Just three hundred years to a dayFrom the time she lost the ninth of May.And the folk in Acapulco town,Over the waters, looking down,Will see in the glow of the setting sunThe sails of the missing galleon,And the royal standard of Philip Rey;The gleaming mast and glistening spar,As she nears the surf of the outer bar.A Te Deum sung on her crowded deck,An odor of spice along the shore,A crash, a cry from a shattered wreck,—And the yearly galleon sails no more,In or out of the olden bay;For the blessed patron has found his day.* * *Such is the legend. Hear this truth:Over the trackless past, somewhere,Lie the lost days of our tropic youth,Only regained by faith and prayer,Only recalled by prayer and plaint:Each lost day has its patron saint!

A Second Review of the Grand Army

I read last night of the Grand ReviewIn Washington's chiefest avenue,—Two Hundred Thousand men in blue,  I think they said was the number,—Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet,The bugle blast and the drum's quick beat,The clatter of hoofs in the stony street,The cheers of people who came to greet,And the thousand details that to repeat  Would only my verse encumber,—Till I fell in a reverie, sad and sweet,  And then to a fitful slumber.When, lo! in a vision I seemed to standIn the lonely Capitol. On each handFar stretched the portico, dim and grandIts columns ranged like a martial bandOf sheeted spectres, whom some command  Had called to a last reviewing.And the streets of the city were white and bare;No footfall echoed across the square;But out of the misty midnight airI heard in the distance a trumpet blare,And the wandering night-winds seemed to bear  The sound of a far tattooing.Then I held my breath with fear and dread;For into the square, with a brazen tread,There rode a figure whose stately head  O'erlooked the review that morning,That never bowed from its firm-set seatWhen the living column passed its feet,Yet now rode steadily up the street  To the phantom bugle's warning:Till it reached the Capitol square, and wheeled,And there in the moonlight stood revealedA well-known form that in State and field  Had led our patriot sires;Whose face was turned to the sleeping camp,Afar through the river's fog and damp,That showed no flicker, nor waning lamp,  Nor wasted bivouac fires.And I saw a phantom army come,With never a sound of fife or drum,But keeping time to a throbbing hum  Of wailing and lamentation:The martyred heroes of Malvern Hill,Of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville,The men whose wasted figures fill      The patriot graves of the nation.And there came the nameless dead,—the menWho perished in fever swamp and fen,The slowly-starved of the prison-pen;      And, marching beside the others,Came the dusky martyrs of Pillow's fight,With limbs enfranchised and bearing bright;I thought—perhaps 'twas the pale moonlight—      They looked as white as their brothers!And so all night marched the Nation's deadWith never a banner above them spread,Nor a badge, nor a motto brandished;No mark—save the bare uncovered head  Of the silent bronze Reviewer;With never an arch save the vaulted sky;With never a flower save those that lieOn the distant graves—for love could buy  No gift that was purer or truer.So all night long swept the strange array,So all night long till the morning grayI watched for one who had passed away,  With a reverent awe and wonder,—Till a blue cap waved in the lengthening line,And I knew that one who was kin of mineHad come; and I spake—and lo! that sign  Awakened me from my slumber.

Part II

Before the Curtain

Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,A trifle shabby in the upturned blazeOf flaring gas, and curious eyes that gaze.The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride,Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.Ah, well! no passion walks its humble boards;O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords:The simplest skill is all its space affords.The song and jest, the dance and trifling play,The local hit at follies of the day,The trick to pass an idle hour away,—For these, no trumpets that announce the Moor,No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,—A single fiddle in the overture!

The Stage-Driver's Story

It was the stage-driver's story, as he stood with his back to the wheelers,Quietly flecking his whip, and turning his quid of tobacco;While on the dusty road, and blent with the rays of the moonlight,We saw the long curl of his lash and the juice of tobacco descending."Danger! Sir, I believe you,—indeed, I may say on that subject,You your existence might put to the hazard and turn of a wager.I have seen danger? Oh, no! not me, sir, indeed, I assure you:'Twas only the man with the dog that is sitting alone in yon wagon.It was the Geiger Grade, a mile and a half from the summit:Black as your hat was the night, and never a star in the heavens.Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent flyingOver the precipice side,—a thousand feet plumb to the bottom.Half-way down the grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and creaking,Then a lurch to one side, as we hung on the bank of the cañon;Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind me,The off hind wheel of the coach just loosed from its axle, and following.One glance alone I gave, then gathered together my ribbons,Shouted, and flung them, outspread, on the straining necks of my cattle;Screamed at the top of my voice, and lashed the air in my frenzy,While down the Geiger Grade, on three wheels, the vehicle thundered.Speed was our only chance, when again came the ominous rattle:Crack, and another wheel slipped away, and was lost in the darkness.Two only now were left; yet such was our fearful momentum,Upright, erect, and sustained on two wheels, the vehicle thundered.As some huge boulder, unloosed from its rocky shelf on the mountain,Drives before it the hare and the timorous squirrel, far-leaping,So down the Geiger Grade rushed the Pioneer coach, and before itLeaped the wild horses, and shrieked in advance of the danger impending.But to be brief in my tale. Again, ere we came to the level,Slipped from its axle a wheel; so that, to be plain in my statement,A matter of twelve hundred yards or more, as the distance may be,We travelled upon one wheel, until we drove up to the station.Then, sir, we sank in a heap; but, picking myself from the ruins,I heard a noise up the grade; and looking, I saw in the distanceThe three wheels following still, like moons on the horizon whirling,Till, circling, they gracefully sank on the road at the side of the station.This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I assure you.Much more, perchance, might be said; but I hold him, of all men, most lightlyWho swerves from the truth in his tale—No, thank you—Well, since you are pressing,Perhaps I don't care if I do: you may give me the same, Jim,—no sugar."

Aspiring Miss de Laine

A Chemical Narrative

Certain facts which serve to explainThe physical charms of Miss Addie De Laine,Who, as the common reports obtain,Surpassed in complexion the lily and rose;With a very sweet mouth and a retroussé nose;A figure like Hebe's, or that which revolvesIn a milliner's window, and partially solvesThat question which mentor and moralist pains,If grace may exist minus feeling or brains.Of course the young lady had beaux by the score,All that she wanted,—what girl could ask more?Lovers that sighed, and lovers that swore,Lovers that danced, and lovers that played,Men of profession, of leisure, and trade;But one, who was destined to take the high partOf holding that mythical treasure, her heart,—This lover—the wonder and envy of town—Was a practising chemist,—a fellow called Brown.I might here remark that 'twas doubted by many,In regard to the heart, if Miss Addie had any;But no one could look in that eloquent face,With its exquisite outline, and features of grace,And mark, through the transparent skin, how the tideEbbed and flowed at the impulse of passion or pride,—None could look, who believed in the blood's circulationAs argued by Harvey, but saw confirmation,That here, at least, Nature had triumphed o'er art,And, as far as complexion went, she had a heart.But this, par parenthesis. Brown was the manPreferred of all others to carry her fan,Hook her glove, drape her shawl, and do all that a belleMay demand of the lover she wants to treat well.Folks wondered and stared that a fellow called Brown—Abstracted and solemn, in manner a clown,Ill dressed, with a lingering smell of the shop—Should appear as her escort at party or hop.Some swore he had cooked up some villanous charm,Or love philter, not in the regular Pharm—Acopea, and thus, from pure malis prepense,Had bewitched and bamboozled the young lady's sense;Others thought, with more reason, the secret to lieIn a magical wash or indelible dye;While Society, with its censorious eyeAnd judgment impartial, stood ready to damnWhat wasn't improper as being a sham.For a fortnight the townfolk had all been agogWith a party, the finest the season had seen,To be given in honor of Miss Pollywog,Who was just coming out as a belle of sixteen.The guests were invited: but one night before,A carriage drew up at the modest back-doorOf Brown's lab'ratory; and, full in the glareOf a big purple bottle, some closely-veiled fairAlighted and entered: to make matters plain,Spite of veils and disguises,—'twas Addie De Laine.As a bower for true love, 'twas hardly the oneThat a lady would choose to be wooed in or won:No odor of rose or sweet jessamine's sighBreathed a fragrance to hallow their pledge of troth by,Nor the balm that exhales from the odorous thyme;But the gaseous effusions of chloride of lime,And salts, which your chemist delights to explainAs the base of the smell of the rose and the drain.Think of this, O ye lovers of sweetness! and knowWhat you smell, when you snuff up Lubin or Pinaud.I pass by the greetings, the transports and bliss,Which, of course, duly followed a meeting like this,And come down to business;—for such the intentOf the lady who now o'er the crucible leant,In the glow of a furnace of carbon and lime,Like a fairy called up in the new pantomime;—And give but her words as she coyly looked down,In reply to the questioning glances of Brown:"I am taking the drops, and am using the paste,And the little, white powders that had a sweet taste,Which you told me would brighten the glance of my eye,And the depilatory, and also the dye,And I'm charmed with the trial; and now, my dear Brown,I have one other favor,—now, ducky, don't frown,—Only one, for a chemist and genius like youBut a trifle, and one you can easily do.Now listen: tomorrow, you know, is the nightOf the birthday soiree of that Pollywog fright;And I'm to be there, and the dress I shall wearIs too lovely; but"—"But what then, ma chere?"Said Brown, as the lady came to a full stop,And glanced round the shelves of the little back shop."Well, I want—I want something to fill out the skirtTo the proper dimension, without being girtIn a stiff crinoline, or caged in a hoopThat shows through one's skirt like the bars of a coop;Something light, that a lady may waltz in, or polk,With a freedom that none but you masculine folkEver know. For, however poor woman aspires,She's always bound down to the earth by these wires.Are you listening? nonsense! don't stare like a spoon,Idiotic; some light thing, and spacious, and soon—Something like—well, in fact—something like a balloon!"Here she paused; and here Brown, overcome by surprise,Gave a doubting assent with still wondering eyes,And the lady departed. But just at the doorSomething happened,—'tis true, it had happened beforeIn this sanctum of science,—a sibilant sound,Like some element just from its trammels unbound,Or two substances that their affinities found.The night of the anxiously looked-for soiréeHad come, with its fair ones in gorgeous array;With the rattle of wheels, and the tinkle of bells,And the "How do ye dos," and the "Hope you are wells;"And the crash in the passage, and last lingering lookYou give as you hang your best hat on the hook;The rush of hot air as the door opens wide;And your entry,—that blending of self-possessed prideAnd humility shown in your perfect-bred stareAt the folk, as if wondering how they got there;With other tricks worthy of Vanity Fair.Meanwhile that safe topic, the heat of the room,Already was losing its freshness and bloom;Young people were yawning, and wondering whenThe dance would come off, and why didn't it then:When a vague expectation was thrilling the crowd,Lo, the door swung its hinges with utterance proud!And Pompey announced, with a trumpet-like strain,The entrance of Brown and Miss Addie De Laine.She entered: but oh, how imperfect the verbTo express to the senses her movement superb!To say that she "sailed in" more clearly might tellHer grace in its buoyant and billowy swell.Her robe was a vague circumambient space,With shadowy boundaries made of point-lace.The rest was but guess-work, and well might defyThe power of critical feminine eyeTo define or describe: 'twere as futile to tryThe gossamer web of the cirrus to trace,Floating far in the blue of a warm summer sky.'Midst the humming of praises and the glances of beaux,That greet our fair maiden wherever she goes,Brown slipped like a shadow, grim, silent, and black,With a look of anxiety, close in her track.Once he whispered aside in her delicate ear,A sentence of warning,—it might be of fear:"Don't stand in a draught, if you value your life."(Nothing more,—such advice might be given your wifeOr your sweetheart, in times of bronchitis and cough,Without mystery, romance, or frivolous scoff.)But hark to the music: the dance has begun.The closely-draped windows wide open are flung;The notes of the piccolo, joyous and light,Like bubbles burst forth on the warm summer night.Round about go the dancers; in circles they fly;Trip, trip, go their feet as their skirts eddy by;And swifter and lighter, but somewhat too plain,Whisks the fair circumvolving Miss Addie De Laine.Taglioni and Cerito well might have pinedFor the vigor and ease that her movements combined;E'en Rigelboche never flung higher her robeIn the naughtiest city that's known on the globe.'Twas amazing, 'twas scandalous: lost in surprise,Some opened their mouths, and a few shut their eyes.But hark! At the moment Miss Addie De Laine,Circling round at the outer edge of an ellipse,Which brought her fair form to the window again,From the arms of her partner incautiously slips!And a shriek fills the air, and the music is still,And the crowd gather round where her partner forlornStill frenziedly points from the wide window-sillInto space and the night; for Miss Addie was gone!Gone like the bubble that bursts in the sun;Gone like the grain when the reaper is done;Gone like the dew on the fresh morning grass;Gone without parting farewell; and alas!Gone with a flavor of Hydrogen Gas.When the weather is pleasant, you frequently meetA white-headed man slowly pacing the street;His trembling hand shading his lack-lustre eye,Half blind with continually scanning the sky.Rumor points him as some astronomical sage,Reperusing by day the celestial page;But the reader, sagacious, will recognize Brown,Trying vainly to conjure his lost sweetheart down,And learn the stern moral this story must teach,That Genius may lift its love out of its reach.