Pardon me, lady, but I wanta ast you,
For God's sake, stop that tappin'! I'll go nuts,
Plain bug-house if I hear that tap-tap-tap
Much longer!
Now I went and used such language,
I got to tell you why. . . . Well, in the first place,
My business is all shot. Now drugs theirselves
Don't pay much, and the extra stuff, like candy,
Cigars and stationery and et cetery,
Don't make their keep. And that damn soda-fountain —
Excuse me, lady, but I just can't help it! . . .

Some day I'm gointa catch the guy I bought it off —

Pan loved his neighbour Echo--but that child
Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping;
The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild
The bright nymph Lyda,--and so three went weeping.
As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr,
The Satyr, Lyda; and so love consumed them.--
And thus to each--which was a woful matter--
To bear what they inflicted Justice doomed them;
For, inasmuch as each might hate the lover,
Each, loving, so was hated.--Ye that love not
Be warned--in thought turn this example over,
That when ye love, the like return ye prove not.

Pan , blow your pipes and I will be
Your fern, your pool, your dream, your tree!

I heard you play, caught your swift eye,
" A pretty melody! " called I,
" Hail, Pan! " — and sought to pass you by.

Now blow your pipes and I will sing
To your sure lips' accompanying!

Wild god, who lifted me from earth,
Who taught me freedom, wisdom, mirth,
Immortalized my body's worth,

Blow, blow your pipes! And from afar
I'll come — I'll be your bird, your star,
Your wood, your nymph, your kiss, your rhyme,

Destruction of the Ram Albemarle by the Torpedo-launch.

Palely intent, he urged his keel
Full on the guns, and touched the spring;
Himself involved in the bolt he drove
Timed with the armed hull's shot that stove
His shallop — die or do!
Into the flood his life he threw,
Yet lives — unscathed — a breathing thing
To marvel at.

He has his fame;
But that mad dash at death, how name?

Had Earth no charm to stay the Boy

The pale road winds faintly upward into the dark skies,
And beside it on the rough grass that the wind invisibly stirs,
Sheltered by sharp-speared gorse and the berried junipers,
Shining steadily with a green light, the glow-worm lies.

We regard it; and this hill and all the other hills
That fall in folds to the river, very smooth and steep,
And the hangers and brakes that the darkness thickly fills
Fade like phantoms round the light and night is deep, so deep, —

That all the world is emptiness about the still flame

Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight,
But Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.

Out of blue nowhere came guns,
Came, horses—dogs—men
Clothed in blue steel.

Slow disintegrating fingers
Touched the trees,
Touched mountains—plains—buffaloes—
Touched men. . . .

The Indians did not know
They were dead men, walking;

Columbus did not know
He brought that time to an end.

Think deep of that world,
And remember
That world's end—
Ticked off by an accidental stop-watch,
Not now—but then. . . .

A Pair of soft, black eyes,
A velvet, dusky, cheek,
A flash of dazzling pearls,
An Eden for me speak.

And next a soft embrace;
My eyes drink to their fill,
The tender, liquid, depth,
Of orbs that ever thrill.

A long, ecstatic, kiss,
That drowns all earthly strife:
What gift can e'er exceed,
A pure, confiding, wife?

(Wilkes Booth — April 26th, 1865)

Pains the sharp sentence the heart in whose wrath it was uttered,
Now thou art cold;
Vengeance, the headlong, and Justice, with purpose close muttered,
Loosen their hold.

Death brings atonement; he did that whereof ye accuse him, —
Murder accurst;
But from that crisis of crime in which Satan did lose him,
Suffered the worst.

Harshly the red dawn arose on a deed of his doing,
Never to mend;

The pain we have to suffer seems so broad,
Set side by side with this life's narrow span,
We need no greater evidence that God
Has some diviner destiny for man.

He would not deem it worth His while to send
Such crushing sorrows as pursue us here,
Unless beyond this fleeting journey's end
Our chastened spirits found another sphere.

So small this world! So vast its agonies!
A future life is needed to adjust
These ill-proportioned, wide discrepancies
Between the spirit and its frame of dust.