One day I observed a grey hair in my head;
I plucked it right out, when it thus to me said:
'You may smile, if you wish, at your treatment of me,
But a score of my friends soon will make a mockery of you.'
'NOT ours,' say some, 'the thought of death to dread;
Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled hell:
Life is a feast, and we have banqueted--
Shall not the worms as well?
'The after-silence, when the feast is o'er,
And void the places where the minstrels stood,
Differs in nought from what hath been before,
And is nor ill nor good.'
Ah, but the Apparition--the dumb sign--
The beckoning finger bidding me forgo
The fellowship, the converse, and the wine,
The songs, the festal glow!
The great Chicago Fire, friends,
Will never be forgot;
In the history of Chicago
It will remain a darken spot.
It was a dreadful horrid sight
To see that City in flames;
But no human aid could save it,
For all skill was tried in vain.
II
In the year of 1871,
In October on the 8th,
The people in that City, then
Was full of life, and great.
Less than four days it lay in ruins,
That garden City, so great
Lay smouldering in ashes,
In a sad and pitiful state.
III
With heart disposed to memory, let me stand
Near this monarch and this minstrel of the land,
Now that Dian leans so lovely from her car.
Illusively brought near by seeming falsely far,
In yon illustrious summit sways the tangled evening star.
From trembling towers of greenery there heaves
In glorious curves a precipice of leaves.
Superbly rolls thy passionate voice along,
Withstander of the tempest, grim and strong,
When at the wind's imperative thou burstest into song.
To My Noble Friend, Mr Charles Cotton
O thou that swing'st upon the waving ear
Of some well-filled oaten beard,
Drunk ev'ry night with a delicious tear
Dropped thee from heav'n, where now th' art reared,
The joys of earth and air are thine entire,
That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;
And, when the poppy works, thou dost retire
To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.
Up with the day, the sun thou welcom'st then,
Sport'st in the gilt plats of his beams,
And all these merry days mak'st merry men,
"Ambubaiarum Collegia Pharmacopeiæ."
--Horace.
If the health and the strength, and the pure vital breath
Of old England, at last must be doctor'd to death,
Oh! why must we die of one doctor alone?
And why must that doctor be just such a one
As Doctor Henry Addington?
Oh! where is the great Doctor Dominicetti,
With his stews and his flues, and his vapours to sweat ye?
O! where is that Prince of all Mountebank fame,
With his baths of hot earth, and his beds of hot name.
Spring rides no horses down the hill,
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still.
And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so, it seems to me.
If ever I said, in grief or pride,
I tired of honest things, I lied:
And should be cursed forevermore
With Love in laces, like a whore,
And neighbours cold, and friends unsteady,
And Spring on horseback, like a lady!
This job’s the best I’ve done.’ He bent his head
Over the golden vessel that he’d wrought.
A bird was singing. But the craftsman’s thought
Is a forgotten language, lost and dead.
He sighed and stretch’d brown arms. His friend came in
And stood beside him in the morning sun.
The goldwork glitter’d.... ‘That’s the best I’ve done.
‘And now I’ve got a necklace to begin.’
This was at Gnossos, in the isle of Crete...
A girl was selling flowers along the street.
The golden gift that Nature did thee give
To fasten friends and feed them at thy will
With form and favour, taught me to believe
How thou art made to show her greatest skill,
Whose hidden virtues are not so unknown
But lively dooms might gather at the first:
Where beauty so her perfect seed hath sown
Of other graces follow needs there must.
Now certes, lady, since all this is true,
That from above thy gifts are thus elect,
Do not deface them then with fancies new,
Nor change of minds let not thy mind infect,
Once I held a well-carved brimming goblet,--
In my two hands tightly clasp'd I held it,
Eagerly the sweet wine sipp'd I from it,
Seeking there to drown all care and sorrow.
Amor enter'd in, and found me sitting,
And he gently smiled in modest fashion,
Smiled as though the foolish one he pitied.
"Friend, I know a far more beauteous vessel,
One wherein to sink thy spirit wholly;
Say, what wilt thou give me, if I grant it,
And with other nectar fill it for thee?"
Oh, how kindly hath he kept his promise!
