Libro Primo.

Argomento.

Casting the times with their strong signes,
Death's Master his owne death divines.
Strugling for helpe, his best hope is
Herod's suspition may heale his .
Therefore he sends a fiend to wake
The sleeping Tyrant's fond mistake;
Who feares (in vaine) that he whose Birth
Meanes Heav'n, should meddle with his Earth.

1.

Muse, now the servant of soft Loves no more,
Hate is thy Theame, and Herod , whose unblest

What is the moral? Who rides may read.
When the night is thick and the tracks are blind
A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed,
But a fool to wait for the laggard behind.
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.

White hands cling to the tightened rein,
Slipping the spur from the booted heel,
Tenderest voices cry " Turn again! "
Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel.
High hopes faint on a warm hearth stone —
He travels the fastest who travels alone.

One may fall but he falls by himself —

TO MR CHRISTOPHER BROOKE
Thou which art I, ('tis nothing to be so)
Thou which art still thyself, by these shalt know
Part of our passage; and, a hand, or eye
By Hilliard drawn, is worth an history,
By a worse painter made; and (without pride)
When by thy judgement they are dignified,
My lines are such: 'tis the pre-eminence
Of friendship only to impute excellence.
England to whom we owe, what we be, and have,
Sad that her sons did seek a foreign grave
(For, Fate's, or Fortune's drifts none can soothsay,

There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do our townsmen tell.

Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the East
Asked, " Who rides by with the royal air?"

The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased;
She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased —

They felt by its beats her heart expand —
As one at each ear and both in a breath
Whispered, " The Great-Duke Ferdinand."

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

1
The graves the rain makes wet and sleek,
Not men who turned the other cheek,
Cerwyd, and Cywryd, and Caw.
2

The graves beneath the thicket's pall,
Not unavenged were seen to fall
Gwrien, Morien, Morial.
3

Long past, long hid, the strife he bred,
Machawy's soil now roofs his head;
Long, white, the fingers of Beidawg the Red.
4

Siawn's grave is on Hirerw Mound,
Between the earth and his oaken shroud,
A treacherous smiler, bitter, proud.
5

After wounds and bloody fields,

To-morowe ye shall on hunting fare,
And ride, my doughter, in a chare;
It shall be covered with velvet red,
And clothes of fine gold al about your hed,
With damask white and asure-blewe,
Wel diapred with lillies newe;
Your pomelles shall be ended with gold,
Your chaines enameled many a fold;
Your mantel of riche degree,
Purpil palle and ermine free;
Jennettes of Spaine, that been so wight,
Trapped to the ground with velvet bright.
Ye shall have harpe, sautry, and song,
And other mirthes you among.
Ye shall have rumney and malmesine,

The Squire her hent in arms two
And kissed her an hundred times and more.
There was mirth and melody,
With harp, gytron and sawtry,
With rote, ribible and clokard,
With pipes, organs and bombard,
With other minstrels them among,
With sytolph and with sawtry song,
With fiddle, record, and dulcimer,
With trumpet and with clarion clear,
With dulcet pipes of many cords
In chamber revelying all the lords
Unto morn that it was day.

WEBSTER FORD

Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,
The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M'Grew
Cried, " There's a ghost, " and I, " It's Delphic Apollo; "
And the son of the banker derided us, saying, " It's light
By the flags at the water's edge, you half-witted fools. "
And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long after
Poor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his death,
Down, down, through bellowing darkness, I carried
The vision which perished with him like a rocket which falls

ARCHIBALD HIGBIE

I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you,
I was ashamed of you. I despised you
As the place of my nativity.
And there in Rome, among the artists,
Speaking Italian, speaking French,
I seemed to myself at times to be free
Of every trace of my origin.
I seemed to be reaching the heights of art
And to breathe the air that the masters breathed,
And to see the world with their eyes.
But still they'd pass my work and say:
" What are you driving at, my friend?