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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 Mrs .0 . Ci. 'iuerlac 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 1734.G195B3 
 
 Ballads of Harvard and other verses / 
 
 3 1924 021 968 163 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021968163 
 
BALLADS OF HARVARD 
 
 OTHER VERSES 
 
 LLOYD McKlM GARRISON 
 
 Ce livre est toute ma jeunesse; 
 Je Vai fait sans presgue y songer. 
 II y farait, je le confesse, 
 Bt j'aurais fu le corriger. 
 
 Mais, quand Vliomme change sans cesse, 
 Au Passe fourquoi rien changer?" 
 
 A. De Musskt. 
 
 U 
 
TO 
 
 MY FATHER, 
 
 MY SEVEREST CRITIC 
 
 AND 
 
 KINDEST PATRON. 
 
 1 
 
 Copyright, iSgi, 
 
 By Lloyd McKim Garrison. 
 
 W. H. Wlueler, Printer. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This little collection contains a perhaps over- 
 generous selection from the seven years' productions of an 
 over-active pen : but the motto of my title-page will show 
 that I regard my verses from no mistaken standpoint as to 
 their value, and I print them to be read (in the same spirit) 
 by those who were in Harvard when they were written, 
 and to whom they will suggest, I hope, some of the old 
 spirit of the time and the place. Most of them originally 
 appeared in the Lampoon and Advocate ; and my thanks 
 are due to the present editors of those papers for the 
 permission to make this reprint, as well as to the ed.itors of 
 the Century and Scribner' s Magazines for like courtesies. 
 
 L. McK. G. 
 Cambridge, April 6, i8gi. 
 
BALLADS OF HARVARD. 
 
 HOLWORTHY HALL. 
 
 "Persicos odi, puer, apparatus." 
 
 'Tis scarce, say my friends, my most notable card, 
 
 This odd little room at the top of the Yard, 
 
 With its windows so tiny, its bedrooms so cold. 
 
 Its ceilings so low and its panels so old. 
 
 "How much wiser," they argue, "to bend your stiff neck 
 
 To Fashion's gilt yoke, to be ruled by her Beck, 
 
 And to idle, at elegant leisure, her thrall. 
 
 Than to live with tradition in Holivorthy Hall. 
 
 They tell me of parlors in walnut and oak ; 
 Of deep-cushioned -divans to lie on and smoke ; 
 Silk curtains to screen both your windows and bed ; 
 Thick carpets to smother the sound of your tread ; 
 French clocks, which ring out a melodious chime 
 More to tickle your hearing than tell you the time ; 
 And liveried cockneys to come at your call : 
 "Oh 'tis long out of style, poor old Holworthy Hall." 
 
They tempt me with sideboards, where glow, as you 
 
 pass. 
 Rare golden liqueurs through Bohemian glass ; 
 With mirrors and etchings ; old missals, in Latin 
 Which one never can read ; easy chairs to get fat in ; 
 Warm baths for the winter ; in summer, cool showers 
 For your poor, giddy head ; and a garden of flowers 
 Hung outside of your window to bloom on the wall ; — 
 "And you've not even ivy on Holiuorthy Hallt" 
 
 O Vanity ! Fashion ! Not one of them knows 
 How — as a dull Elzevir clasped on a rose 
 (Hid there long ago, and forgot, by her lover, 
 For a passionless bibliophile to discover) 
 Still keeps it as fragrant as when, on the stair, 
 With a blush, Gabrielle drew it out from her hair 
 For the brave young Lauzun, at the Trianon Ball — 
 The perfume of Time clings to Holworthy Hall. 
 
 Here in secret grew many a desperate plan ; 
 
 Here the Med. Fac. conspired, the Pudding began ; 
 
 Here the windows reflected the first fire kindled 
 
 In triumph o'er Yale. {Eheul how we've dwindled. 
 
 Degenerate race !) Here, where often before 
 
 Had American Presidents entered the door. 
 
 The heir to the crown they defied, made his call, 
 
 And left us his picture for Holworthy Hall. 
 
7 
 
 Here many a "Spread" on a Class-Day has been; 
 'Neath these windows they danced Minuets on the Green ; 
 Here love has been spoken, hearts broken, troth plighted, 
 True loves kissed or fates missed, ere the lanterns]were 
 
 lighted ; 
 Here for hours have sat silent pairs, clasping fingers. 
 Till the stars and the fairy-like lamps and the singers 
 And the cool of the night and the elm-trees and all. 
 Had made Heaven out of Harvard and Holiaorthy Hall. 
 
 Here dreamed (noble dreams !) in this old window- 
 seat, 
 Harvard's poet, or paced with excitable feet 
 The bare, foot-worn floor, while the measure and rhyme 
 Kept tune witli his stride. Here, in Washington's time. 
 Lived a patriot student to give up his bed 
 To a patriot soldier. Here he, too, was bred. 
 Who died "with his niggers" on Wagner's red wall — 
 The fair student soldier — in Hol-morthy Hall. 
 
 No, my elegant friends, yours is no Hai-vard fashion — 
 This snubbing all youth and repressing all passion. 
 Go ; look at Memorial's walls ! Do you tliink 
 They lived as you live.-' — You, who daintily shrink 
 From work, like the Sybarite fretting each minute 
 That your bed's got a half-dozen rose-petals in it.' 
 Nay, believe me the day will behold Harvard's fall 
 That finds her too proud to love Hohuorthy Hall ! 
 
 [Lampoon, xvii, i. 18S9.] 
 
A BALLADE OF THE HOLLY-TREE INN. 
 
 Queer little place, with an air 
 
 Of once having been better bred : 
 Walls look a bit worse for wear; 
 
 Ceiling's cracked over your head ; 
 
 Gone are the white linen spread 
 And napkins that once must have been ; 
 
 Tables wear oil-cloth instead, 
 Now, at the Holly- Tree Inn. 
 
 But, so long as our coffee's "first-class," 
 
 Want of linen sha'n't make us rebel ; 
 And John, with his shirt-sleeves, may pass. 
 
 If he'll poach us our eggs just as well ; 
 
 We'll pardon the dirt and the smell 
 If the toast be well-buttered and thin : 
 
 For nobody cares to be "swell" 
 When he goes to the Holly- Tree Inn. 
 
 Its guests, though, are wholly genteel. 
 
 They drop in a bit after nine. 
 Read the papers (and curse them with zeal). 
 
 Declare the Assembly was "fine"; 
 
 They would settle the fate of the Nine, 
 But the ten-o'clock bell must break in. 
 
 And "The Cause of Commercial Decline" 
 Calls them forth from the Holly-Tree Inn. 
 
9 
 
 ENVOY. 
 
 As you see, Sirs, no model of grace, 
 But marvellous cosy within; 
 
 And we Harvard men, born to the place, 
 All swear by our Holly-Tree Inn. 
 
 {Lampoon, xvii, 6. 1889.] 
 
 PARK'S. 
 
 A COOL, low-ceilinged room, just out of ear 
 
 Of the street's riot, 
 Where one may sit over his mug of beer 
 
 And think, in quiet ; 
 Or read the latest Punch while dinner waits. 
 
 And (without paying) 
 Hear the new waltz, above the noise of plates, 
 
 Some street-band's playing, — 
 
 There's where I love on long, dull days to come. 
 
 If melancholy, 
 And to grow young in fond converse with some 
 
 Companion jolly : 
 To march in retrospect through devious ways 
 
 In torch-lit column ; 
 To wake again around a bonfire's blaze 
 
 The echoes solemn ; 
 
lO 
 
 Again to join the little whispering knots 
 
 Of anxious faces, 
 Debating how a freshman's fate allots 
 
 His first class-races; 
 Again to cheer the winning run — the goal 
 
 First scored on Yale ; 
 Rising new-born from this Medea's bowl 
 
 Of cool brown ale. 
 
 Here, while about us politicians roar 
 
 In angry clamor, 
 Forgetting (in the heated press of war) 
 
 Themselves and — grammar ; 
 While actors — like the envious Casca — tear 
 
 Some greater brother ; 
 Or wild musicians, with long, unkempt hair. 
 
 Rend one another. 
 
 We sit unmoved and let the world pass by. 
 
 In this, our tavern. 
 Bidding the sorrows of the Present fly 
 
 Back to their cavern. 
 Then, clad in all the bravest robes from old 
 
 Past's Argosy, 
 We know the Future's Sun floods with his gold 
 
 An unstirred sea ! 
 
 [Lampoon, xvii, 7. 1889.] 
 
II 
 
 THE TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION. 
 
 We swarmed that night up Beacon Hill by hundreds, 
 
 just as when 
 The torch was lit there long ago to call the minute-men. 
 A long, thin line of yellow light danced zigzag down 
 
 the street. 
 And drum-taps sounded left and right with jar of tramp- 
 ing feet, 
 And squads of men in soldier-step w^heeled past with 
 
 glint and shine. 
 While mounted aids with gay cockades were forming us 
 
 in line. 
 At last they ranged us, with a band behind and one 
 
 before. 
 And down the hill we went again to cannons' crash 
 
 and roar. 
 The streets were black with faces, and we passed, as in 
 
 a dream. 
 Through a furrowed human channel, in an endless 
 
 human stream. 
 The windows all were lighted and the girls were dressed 
 
 in white, 
 And their laughter sounded sweet above the tumult of 
 
 the night; 
 They waved and kissed their hands to us as we went 
 
 flashing by. 
 And we waved them back, and cheered them till our 
 throats grew hot and drj'. 
 
12 
 
 Our uniforms, fantastic robes of more fantastic hue, 
 
 Set off by opera-hats whose fashion dated back to '42, 
 
 At first seemed very bright and fresh, but torches ivill 
 keep dripping. 
 
 And cotton seams in dollar coats can not be kept from 
 ripping. 
 
 And "muckers" will throw stones, and stones will spoil 
 the sleekest hat, 
 
 (Or, if they don't, some jester with his torch will do 
 for that). 
 
 So when we reached the Back-Bay streets by endless 
 countermarching, 
 
 We looked like wilted linen very much in need of starch- 
 ing. 
 
 The Freshmen carried bottles — of "milk punch" they 
 told the curious — 
 
 And though the "punch" was doubtful, the "milk" did 
 make them furious ; 
 
 So they knocked spectators' hats in," or their own, im- 
 partially, 
 
 And with their sooty fingers smouched each face in 
 reach, with glee, 
 
 And snatched for shop-girls' handkerchiefs, and scared 
 old maids hysteric. 
 
 And thought such deeds, apparently, bold, daring, and 
 Homeric. 
 
 We Seniors were above all that and marched quite dig- 
 nified ; 
 
But marching would have been more fun had we forgot 
 our pride ; 
 
 For just to walk and stop and cheer and rest and walk 
 again, 
 
 Through miles and miles and miles of streets, and lines 
 and lines of men, 
 
 Grows tame at last, and Bengal-lights and Roman- 
 candles pall, 
 
 And one becomes too tired to dodge the rocket-sticks 
 that fall. 
 
 We marched from eight o'clock till twelve, and, as the 
 cars were packed, 
 
 We had to tramp to Cambridge (where our corps was 
 bivouacked) . 
 
 We vowed we'd had a rare old time ; but both my feet 
 were sore. 
 
 And I was daubed with soot and oil like any black- 
 amoor ; 
 
 Half-dead I crawled into my bed, and dreamed with 
 vividness 
 
 (All night and half the next fair day as near as I can 
 guess) 
 
 I was a mule who turned the tread-mill of a cider-press ! 
 
 [Lampoon, xvii, 8. 1889.] 
 
H 
 
 BANISHED. 
 
 (Addressed to a Dear Friend in Temporary Enforced Retirement 
 in a Suburban Nook : ad Kal. Mart.) 
 
 ^'' Banished from Rome f Whafs banished but set free f " — 
 
 Catiline. 
 Dear Tom: — And so the Faculty- 
 Has sentenced you by stern decree 
 To pass the springtime in duress — 
 A hermit in the wilderness. 
 Too bad ! Too bad ! Yet not all bad, 
 'Tis worse on us than you, egad ! 
 Our days will be in longing spent ; 
 Tours, in continual merriment. 
 For us, foul streets and snows and mud. 
 For you, trees bursting into bud ; 
 For us, the midnight oil and so forth, 
 For you, the boat-house, whence you row forth 
 For midnight wanderings on the lake, 
 While heads in Cambridge throb and ache ; 
 For us, the city-ruined Spring, 
 For you, the soft winds murmuring 
 Over green meadows stuck with daisies ; 
 For us, the recitation's mazes. 
 For you, the sound of hoof-beats ringing 
 Through shady lanes where birds are singing; 
 For us, a scorching sun, which burns 
 Rather than warms, for you, dark ferns. 
 And cooling brooks, and banks of moss 
 On which your wearied limbs to toss. 
 
IS 
 
 Don't mind the pretended punishment — 
 The stupid Faculty but meant 
 To show how far their power went 
 By slaughtering the innocent: 
 But all their wiles are set at naught, 
 If banished Tommy, as he ought, 
 Riot in the exile they have ordered, 
 And call it virtue well-rewarded. 
 Spite them, my Tom, and laugh ! Hang sorrow ! 
 We'd join you, if we could, to-morrow. 
 [Advocate, xliii, 8. 1887.] 
 
 LOVE AND THE LAW. 
 
 "It is of the very nature and essence of fraud to elude all laws, 
 and violate them in fact, without appearing to break them in 
 form." — II, Parsons on Contracts, ybg. 
 
 With patient eye again I trace 
 
 Back to the last-remembered place : 
 
 For thoughts have wandered, and I've read 
 
 A love-tale this half-hour, instead 
 
 Of what must some day bring me bread. 
 
 Heigho ! The more I strive to learn 
 How entry and ejectment turn. 
 The more my unwilling mind is bent 
 On messuage and tenement 
 And copyholds and tithes and rent. 
 
i6 
 
 The plainer from each page I see 
 My Lady smiling out at me — 
 A face clear-cut as one that Greece 
 Would stamp upon a silver-piece, 
 Its gray eyes mocking at my peace ! 
 
 O Love, thou Cozener ! who hast bound 
 Me to this Sisyphean round. 
 How shall I ever wring from thee 
 My bitter contract's promised fee, 
 If thus thou spoil my work for me ? 
 [^Lam^oon, xviii, 9. 1890.] 
 
 A CLASS-DAY FANTASIE. 
 
 AROUND THE YARD. 
 Tempo di Marcia: andante. 
 
 Under the leafy roof, through the solemn aisles of the 
 elm-trees, 
 Pensive and silent as they, our column circles the 
 Yard: 
 Past University's steps, with the youngsters — God bless 
 them ! — all cheering ; 
 On, past Holworthy's dear, simple, serene old walls ; 
 On, past the time-worn bricks of gabled Stoughton and 
 HoUis; 
 
Past Harvard's fateful bell, for us forevermore dumb ; 
 • • Past Massachusetts and Weld. — " Ah, brother, these 
 were our temples. 
 Where shall we find such others?" "Brother, never 
 again." 
 "Brother, we came here as boys, light-hearted, fearlessi 
 and trustful ; 
 Here we first tasted life and breathed the ether of 
 truth ; 
 Here were our best hopes born ; here grew our highest 
 ideals 
 Out of these old red walls and immemorial trees ; 
 And here was triumph or mourning, as their personified 
 spirit 
 Swept o'er victorious fields or languished with droop- 
 ing wings. 
 We are that spirit's children. Shall we ever forget her, 
 brother ? 
 Forget her dazzling helm and the word she bears on 
 her shield ? 
 Forget our Pallas Ath^nd?" — "Why dost thou ask, my 
 brother ? 
 She was the breath of our life : how should we ever 
 forget?" 
 
i8 
 
 IN THE CHAPEL. 
 Adaffio. 
 
 " ' 2e came like water and like wind ye go.' " 
 So spake the preacher. "Only yesterday 
 In the cool grass beneath blue skies ye lay : 
 To-morrow morning brings the storm and snow. 
 
 "Ye who but now chased pleasure with hot breath 
 Must forth to battle with a world uncouth, — 
 Hope's endless days are done. Lo ! in your youth 
 Ye have lived out a life and died a death. 
 
 " ' 2c came like water.' Has this meadow been 
 Impoverished by your river's bitterness ? 
 Or have ye, with a lingering, sweet caress, 
 Lifted its flowers and made its green more green? 
 
 " '■Like wind ye go.' How are ye going hence ? 
 
 Where ye have passed do the fields bake with 
 
 drouth ? 
 Or have ye blown upon them like the south, 
 And left them lovelier for your innocence ? 
 
 "If ye have killed no flower ye need not fear; 
 If ye have nourished one, go forth content 
 To the great life — ye know why ye are sent : 
 Water and wind have done their errand here." 
 
19 
 
 AT THE TREE. 
 Allegro giocondo : presto. 
 
 Round the old tree are twined 
 
 Garlands of posies. 
 Soft grows its rugged rind 
 
 'Neath its soft roses. 
 Here toil is knit and play, 
 
 Joy and sorrow, 
 Pansies for yesterday, 
 
 Laurels, to-morrow ; 
 Love and hate, good and bad, 
 
 Foul and fair weather. 
 False and true, gay and sad. 
 
 Tangled together. 
 
 Though the great struggle be 
 
 Fierce when it closes, 
 Yet I'll tear from ,the tree 
 
 Some of its roses. 
 These in thy lap I'll fling 
 
 In fragrant rain, love. 
 Bidding them only bring 
 
 Joy, without pain, love. 
 
20 
 
 IN THE GYMNASIUM. 
 Teinpo di Valse : allegro. 
 
 I KEMEMBER threading my way, 
 Like a shuttle along a loom, 
 
 Through a vast dissolving throng ; 
 I remember a dense perfume 
 Of pines, and roses in bloom ; 
 
 I remember a blaze of light, 
 I remember a lofty hall, 
 
 I remember a murmur of tongues 
 Like the tune of a water-fall — 
 But as if I had dreamed it all : 
 
 For I only knew, that night. 
 
 That my arm was holding her fast, 
 
 That my eyes were looking in hers. 
 
 And, for all the crowd that swept past, 
 That we w^ere alone at last ! 
 
 UNDER THE ELMS. 
 Nocturne: adagio. 
 
 "Say, love, if we be not in Paradise ? 
 Yon is no leafy roof above our heads. 
 But a cloud-bridge of the great infinite ; 
 Those myriad, swaying, twinkling lamps were stars 
 If seen from earth by mortals ; and these paths 
 
21 
 
 Stray endlessly to pleasure, woven around 
 Through this soul's garden, fairest spot of all ; 
 Those that flit by us, laughing soft, in white, 
 '■ Are spirits, like ourselves blest beyond hoping; 
 (Without the brazen gates the hopeless cry ;) 
 From some far sun, list to the angels singing ! 
 Answer me, love, is not this Paradise ?" 
 
 "Love, where thou art is always Paradise." 
 [^Lantfoon, xvii, lo. 1889.] 
 
OTHER VERSES. 
 
 ODE 
 
 ON THE 25OTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF 
 HARVARD COLLEGE. 
 
 (^Recited in Sanders Theatre, Nov. 6, 1886.) 
 Mother, peerless, immortal, our lips but repeat 
 
 The words so oft spoken before, 
 As we timidly, rev'rently, kneel at thy feet 
 
 And ask for thy blessing once more. 
 Our fathers rejoiced at thy dawn overcast ; 
 
 We exult in thy radiant day ; 
 So, our sons and their sons, when our glories are past 
 
 And our names as forgotten as they : 
 
 For though mountain and river should part thee for aye 
 
 From the child thou hast reared at thy knee, 
 The niche that he keeps in his heart is too high 
 
 To be filled by another than thee. 
 The centuries fade, like a mist from the glass ; 
 
 We are gone, — why we know not, nor where ; 
 Yet as ever we wearily halt as we pass. 
 
 We behold thee, still young and still fair. 
 
 \^Advocate, xlii, 4. 1886. 
 
 New Verses from the Harvard Advocate, p. 3. 1887. 
 
 Commemoration Volume of the Anniversary, p. 145. 1887.] 
 
23 
 
 CHLORIS. 
 
 (^Adapted from Beranger's "Glycire.") 
 THE OLD MAN. 
 
 You happy, smiling girl, what brings you here 
 To this remote and unfrequented place ? 
 
 THE GIRL. 
 
 I pluck the fragrant wild-flowers that uprear 
 
 Their graceful heads above the tangled grass. 
 For all the lads and lasses go to-day. 
 
 Soon after sunset, to the village green, 
 To honor all the ancient rites of May 
 
 And to elect the fairest maiden queen. 
 These wild hedge-roses must adorn my hair. 
 
 An old and dangei'ous rival to outsli ine : 
 Chloris, a shepherdess, whose beauty rare 
 
 Hath, unadorned, charms far surpassing mine. 
 
 THE OLD MAN. 
 
 Knowest thou well this dark and lonesome spot .'' 
 
 THE GIRL. 
 
 No. Everything is new and strange to me. 
 
 THE OLD MAN. 
 
 Worshipped a week ago, but now forgot, 
 
 Chloris sleeps 'neath yon spreading linden tree. 
 
 Red briar-roses climb about her head. 
 
 And at her feet the yellow cowslips bloom ; 
 
 And these, by some mysterious impulse led 
 To rival her, you pluck upon her tomb. 
 {Advocate, xxxix, 3. 1885.] 
 
24 
 
 SOUVENIRS. 
 
 Like misers, our usurious memories bring 
 Their coins each day to greedy reckoning, — 
 Grieved if they miss one as they count tlieir store 
 Or find one brass, long-loved as gold before. 
 
 ICeniury Mag-azt'ne, September, 1890. — Written, 1888.] 
 
 THE DELIGHT OF LIVING. 
 
 Prove that my mind dies when my body dies , 
 That I do not possess an immortal soul 
 Save in desire ; prove that the utmost goal 
 
 For kings or beggars is the grave ; and, lies 
 
 Of cunning priests, or poets' fantasies, 
 The future life and the divine control ; 
 Spare not one kind delusion to console 
 
 For failing senses and fast-dimming eyes : 
 Nay, even, like old Crusoe bid me spend 
 My little hour, at the world's farthest end. 
 
 Mute as my fellow-bi-utes in that sad place, — 
 And then 'twere sweet to live, so weak a thing, 
 To breathe, if nothing more, the fire of Spring, 
 
 Or feel the Winter beat against my face ! 
 
 [1889.] 
 
25 
 
 TWO ANSWERS 
 
 TO "why I READ HERRICK." 
 
 / read my Herrick first of all 
 When Nature groius tyrannical. 
 
 " 'Tis Winter," says the Almanac : — 
 The ponds are frozen ; windows crack ; 
 On iron earth deep lies the snow, 
 And rude tempestuous gales do blow. 
 Outside my pane go stumbling by 
 Chloris, Corinne and Lalage; 
 Their dainty necks are wrapped in furs, 
 Their slender hands are prisoners 
 In sable muffs, and glossy seals 
 Enwrap them close from head to heels ; 
 And yet they seem not all content 
 Even in such soft environment, 
 For Cora's face looks pinched and old. 
 And Chloris' nose is red with cold ; 
 Keen winds are howling on their track. — 
 
 " 'Tis Winter," sighs the Almanac. 
 
 But what care I if Winter rage .? 
 
 I turn the often- studied page. 
 
 And, in a moment, ice and snow, 
 
 Seem empty things of long ago ; 
 
 While mossy banks with violets growing. 
 
 Like stars through cloudlets dimly glowing, 
 
26 
 
 And harebells in the heather tangled, 
 And meadows marguerite-bespangled, 
 And rippling brooks and water-cresses. 
 May Queens and buxom shepherdesses. 
 Soft winds in fragrant forests dying. 
 And ravens through the oak-wood flying, 
 And throstles singing in the trees 
 Of the far-famed Hesperides, 
 Are mine once more ; and ice and snow 
 Seem empty things of long ago. 
 
 / read my Herrick first of all 
 When Nature groTus tyrannical. 
 
 I READ my Herrick oftenest 
 Since I love best what he loved best ; 
 And as I know that every grace 
 Adorning Julia's tender face, — 
 The witching eyes, more eloquent 
 Than e'er was Peer in Parliament, 
 The flitting color of her cheek. 
 The lips, that do not seem to speak. 
 But, like the forest breeze of even. 
 To echo harmonies of Heaven ; 
 Nay, that the very smallest things. 
 Her zone, her hand, her finger-rings, 
 The voice, the laugh that I have prized, 
 
27 
 
 By him have been immortalized, — 
 Since he sings best what I love best, 
 Of all I read him oftenest. 
 
 [^i/i>ocn/«, xlii, 8, lo. 1887.] 
 
 LAMPY. 
 
 (Written in a Volume of the Lampoon.) 
 
 Here the calm Jester's satire keen 
 Scatters the fools and stings the mean. 
 The true and manly, unalarmed 
 At his franii jesting, pass unharmed : 
 But to the blackguard crowd that laugh 
 At once is death — and epitaph ! 
 
 [1891.] 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 AcknoTaledging the gift of a brass Arab inkstand. 
 
 Dear Phyllis : I begin to use 
 Your gift by calling down the Muse, 
 Who should be so content to sing 
 Near such a Heliconian spring, 
 
28 
 
 That henceforth through my pen instead 
 Of pallid phantoms, Saxon-bred, 
 From the black pool within the brass 
 Unusual Eastern shades shall pass : 
 Egyptian s — Arabs — Bedouins — 
 Buff robes — buff skirts and leopard skins ; 
 Mad Mahdis — madder Dervishes ; 
 A Dragoman with tasselled fez ; 
 White-turbaned, silent Moors ; a Bey 
 With great tall blacks from Nubia ; 
 Pashas — Viziers — the Sultan's might, 
 Afar, veiled round from vulgar sight ; 
 Mamelukes — Muezzins — Minarets ; 
 White cities, where the slow sun sets, 
 Leaving black shadows on the sand ; 
 Thick night — and, stealing to the street 
 From Haroun's palace, strangely sweet. 
 Lutes, striking up the saraband ! 
 
 Even from no Orient if it came, 
 My inky fount would be the same : 
 For it would still contain for me 
 Rich colors — lofty imagery — 
 A taste, just, delicate and true. 
 You see it once belonged to you ! 
 
 [1890.] 
 
29 
 
 ON PHYLLIS'S TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY. 
 
 But four times live your short life o'er, 
 
 And you shall see a century gone. 
 Poor Century ! It shall count a score 
 Of its rare birthdays past, before 
 It knows another Paragon ! 
 [£.a»«/oo»,'xx, 7.] [1891.] 
 
 MONTAUK POINT. 
 
 I. JULY. 
 
 Moorlands, red and brown with the glowing heat of 
 the summer, 
 Roll with gentle declivity down to the end of the 
 land. 
 Where the high, white cliffs, their iscars all soft in the 
 sunlight, 
 Stand like the Ithacan crags — gay for Ulysses returned. 
 Purple and green is the sea, like the swelling breast of 
 a peacock. 
 Lover-like wooing the shore, scattering gifts at its 
 feet— 
 (Gems from its caverns of treasure) — flowers and shells 
 iridescent, 
 Palely gleaming like stars (half-veiled by the clouds of 
 foam) . 
 
30 
 
 Soft as the ^ea is the sky, and a hazy and tremulous 
 vapor 
 Dims the rich blue of its arch, where it dips down to 
 the brink. 
 Languid and sweet is the air — sweet with the grass of 
 the moorlands — 
 Sweet with the breath of the ocean — sweet with the 
 weeds on the shore. 
 Cattle, in troops, on the uplands, indolent stray through 
 the heather ; 
 Gulls, all white in the sun, indolent wheel through 
 the sky, 
 Like feathers of foam tossed up by the sea to be worn 
 by the heavens. 
 By day there is peace and by night : e'en when they 
 seem to be wroth 
 (The sky, the sea and the shore) why, then, 'tis only 
 as lovers 
 Quarrel awhile in jest, that kissing may taste more 
 sweet. 
 Ever the ships sail east and west ; and the shaft of the 
 light-house 
 Seems the white pillar of old, marking the halcyon 
 days. 
 
 II. DECEMBER. 
 
 Moorlands, blackened and parched with the cold, or 
 
 shrouded in snow-drifts. 
 Roll with gentle declivity down to the verge as before. 
 Where the gaunt, white cliffs now stand like crumbling 
 
 ramparts, 
 
31 
 
 While, in its fuiy, the sea hurls itself up at their 
 crests. 
 Gray is the sea like a wolf — its white fangs, cruel and 
 foam-flecked ; 
 Gray as the sea is the sky — hiding the sun from the 
 earth. 
 Gone are the herds from the uplands ; gone are the birds 
 of the summer — 
 Gone with the summer which brought them ; gone are 
 the sails from the sea. 
 No longer the sea has aught of the girl or her passion- 
 ate clamor, 
 But roars with sullen rage, like a she-wolf robbed of 
 her whelps. 
 Sending its sinuous surges forever ferociously landward — 
 Flinging the scud to the wind, freezing wherever it 
 falls. 
 Ocean and sky show mercy to naught that lives : just as 
 angels, 
 Sent with emotionless hearts on some stern errand of 
 God, 
 Slay both just and unjust, heeding nor prayer nor en- 
 treaty. 
 They, at the beck of the winter, spare neither beauty 
 nor grace — 
 Spare not even their victims. See! where they bufle 
 and spurn it, 
 The upturned face of a human (still distorted with 
 fright) 
 
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