It droops and dies in morning light—
The rose that yesterday was whole:
‘Ah, whither, on the wind of night,
Is borne the fragrance of my soul?’

It sinks upon the ocean zone—
The wind that marred the tender rose:
‘Ah, whither has the fragrance flown,
And what shall give my soul repose?’

It breaks upon the rocky shore—
The vast, tumultuous, grieving sea:
‘Ah, never, never, never more
Can love and peace come back to me!’

It sobs, far up the lonely sky,
It faints in regions of the blest—
The endless, bitter, human cry,

1. Now, Charles Gustavus Anderson is my right and proper name.
Although I lie in custody, I'll ne'er deny the same.
I was raised by hodnest parents, although I die in scorn.
Oh, bud -lieve me, now I much lament the hour that I was born!

2 Now, my father was a shipwright; I might have been the same.
He taught me good exampdles, on him I lay no blame.
And for my poor old mother, for me she has wept sore.
Whedn she hears of my misfortune she cadn but grieve the more.

If I had known, if I had known,
That day we met upon the street,
That nevermore, in any zone
Of earth's wide spaces we should meet;
What different greeting had been mine!
What different farewell had been thine!

If we had known or dimly guessed,
That close to you were waving wings;
If some low voice within your breast,
Had whispered of eternal things,
What solemn message, high and deep,
You would have given me to keep!

I now recall—how strange it seems!—
You spoke of “writing,” ah! my friend,
From that far land beyond my dreams

The Vulture eats between his meals
And that's the reason why
He very, very rarely feels
As well as you and I.

His eye is dull, his head is bald,
His neck is growing thinner.
Oh! what a lesson for us all
To only eat at dinner!

The present that you gave me months ago
is still unopened by our bed,
sealed in its rich blue paper and bright bow.
I’ve even left the card unread
and kept the ribbon knotted tight.
Why needlessly unfold and bring to light
the elegant contrivances that hide
the costly secret waiting still inside?

Some Gypsies are like her,
Wild, dark, free!
Beads on her middle jimp
For girdle wore she.

That brown woman Lilith,
For dinner one day,
Poaching in Paradise,
Found Adam at play.

“You're some like the Father,
And some like the Snake,
Some like a sweet rarity
God's made for my sake.”

“God's made me a rarity,
The very first man!
I'll be a true leman
As long as I can!”

In a mud loblolly,
Barefooted, he played—
Adam, that builded
The first bower made.

Beads on her middle jimp,
Hell-black hair—

Four-square against the genial tides of peace
He stands, Cock-Robin—wise in self-esteem,
Pronouncing his implacable decrees,—
Sir Oracle out-oracled—a stream
Of mordant and pontifical abuse
Descending in hot torrents from his tongue
As lava from Vesuvius. “No truce!”
He cries, “between the righteous and the wrong,
No truce but war incessant,—to the hilt—
Between the virtuous and the red-with-guilt!” . .
And under every deep portentous breath:
“We are the right; their cause is Cain's!” he saith.

Behold him on the platform shake his sword,—

Lord of my life to thee my powers belong,
Thy mercies are my chief my darling theme;
To thee be first inscrib'd the votive song
With warmest gratitude, with love supreme;
On thee my life and all its powers depend,
My gracious guardian, my unchanging friend.

O be that life, which thy indulgent hand
Sustain'd when sinking to the shades of death,
Devoted to thy praise, whose kind command
Restores my wasting strength and shortening breath.
Be my remaining hours entirely thine,
My strength and breath employ'd in work divine.

America, the land beloved,
Today reveres the name of him
Whose character was free from guile,
Whose fame the ages cannot dim.

They called him proud, but erred therein;
No lord was he, though high of birth;
Though sprung from England's lofty peers,
He served the lowliest of earth.

He turned his back on pride of name,
On motherland and luxury,
To weld a horde of quarreling men
Into a nation proudly free.

Wherever liberty is found,
Wherever shines fair freedom's sun,
Men count America a friend
And bless the name of Washington.

Ioine, Noblest Earle, in giuing worthy grace,
To this great gracer of Nobilitie:
See here what sort of men, your honor'd place
Doth properly command; if Poesie
(Profest by them) were worthily exprest.
The grauest, wisest, greatest, need not, then,
Account that part of your command the least;
Nor them such idle, needlesse, worthlesse Men.
Who can be worthier Men in publique weales,
Then those (at all parts) that prescrib'd the best?
That stird vp noblest vertues, holiest zeales;
And euermore haue liu'd as they profest?