In a costly palace Youth goes clad in gold;
In a wretched workhouse Age's limbs are cold:
There they sit, the old men by a shivering fire,
Still close and closer cowering, warmth is their desire.

In a costly palace, when the brave gallants dine,
They have store of good venison, with old canary wine,
With singing and music to heighten the cheer;
Coarse bits, with grudging, are the pauper's best fare.

In a costly palace Youth is still carest
By a train of attendants which laugh at my young Lord's jest;
In a wretched workhouse the contrary prevails:

There was a devil and his name was I;
From out Profundus he did cry:
He changed his note as he changed his coat,
And his coat was of a varying dye.
It had many a hue: in hell 'twas blue,
'Twas green i' the sea, and white i' the sky.
O, do not ask me, ask me why
'Twas green i' the sea, and white i' the sky;
Why from Profundus he did cry:
Suffice that he wailed with a chirruping note,
And quaintly cut was his motley coat.—

I have forgot the rest. Would I could sleep;
Would I could sleep away an age or so,
And let Saul work out his own weal or woe:

Into her chamber went a little child one day,
And by a chair she knelt, and thus began to pray:
“Dear Jesus, now my eyes I close, thy form I cannot see, …
If thou art near me, blessed Lord,
I pray thee, speak to me.”
A still small voice she heard within her soul,
“What is it, child?
I hear thee, tell me all.”
“I pray thee Lord,” she said, “that thou wouldst condescend
To tarry in my heart, and ever be my friend;
The path of life is dark, so dark,
I would not go astray,
Oh, let me have thy loving hand to lead me in thy way”

Are the roses fallen, dear my child?
Has the winter left us only thorns,
Sharp and shuddering stalks in tangles wild,
Set with cruel teeth and iron horns?

Wait a little, fret not, and at last
Beauty will the barren boughs again
Tenderly re-clothe, when snows are past,
And the earth grows glad in sun and rain.

Never vex your heart nor tear your hands,
Searching 'mid the thorns for vanished bliss;
For the soul that patience understands
Needs no wisdom more divine than this:

Wait! The sweet flowers of the coming spring

If ever you should go by chance
To jungles in the East;
And if there should to you advance
A large and tawny beast,
If he roars at you as you're dyin'
You'll know it is the Asian Lion.

Or if sometime when roaming round,
A noble wild beast greets you,
With black stripes on a yellow ground,
Just notice if he eats you.
This simple rule may help you learn
The Bengal Tiger to discern.

If strolling forth, a beast you view,
Whose hide with spots is peppered,
As soon as he has lept on you,
You'll know it is the Leopard.

The grave of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street.

The grave of Robert Fulton likewise is in Trinity yard where Wall Street stops.

And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on the grass of graves, speaking of war and weather, of babies, wages and love.

An iron picket fence . . . and streaming thousands along Broadway sidewalks . . . straw hats, faces, legs . . . a singing, talking, hustling river . . . down the great street that ends with a Sea.

. . . easy is the sleep of Alexander Hamilton.

The buffaloes are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.

Nothing else in this song—only your face.
Nothing else here—only your drinking, night-gray eyes.

The pier runs into the lake straight as a rifle barrel.
I stand on the pier and sing how I know you mornings.
It is not your eyes, your face, I remember.
It is not your dancing, race-horse feet.
It is something else I remember you for on the pier mornings.

Your hands are sweeter than nut-brown bread when you touch me.
Your shoulder brushes my arm—a south-west wind crosses the pier.
I forget your hands and your shoulder and I say again:

Under a prairie fog moon
in a circle of pearl mist horizons,
a few lonesome dogs scraping thongs,
midnight is lonely; the fog moon midnight
takes up again its even smooth November.
Memories: you can flick me and sting me.
Memories, you can hold me even and smooth.

A circle of pearl mist horizons
is not a woman to be walked up to and kissed,
nor a child to be taken and held for a good night,
nor any old coffee-drinking pal to be smiled at in the eyes and left with a grip and a handshake.

Pearl memories in the mist circling the horizon,

I SAW a mouth jeering. A smile of melted red iron ran over it. Its laugh was full of nails rattling. It was a child's dream of a mouth.
A fist hit the mouth: knuckles of gun-metal driven by an electric wrist and shoulder. It was a child's dream of an arm.
The fist hit the mouth over and over, again and again. The mouth bled melted iron, and laughed its laughter of nails rattling.
And I saw the more the fist pounded the more the mouth laughed. The fist is pounding and pounding, and the mouth answering.