3

"Sic transit gloria mundi,"
"How doth the busy bee,"
"Dum vivimus vivamus,"
I stay mine enemy!

Oh "veni, vidi, vici!"
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh "memento mori"
When I am far from thee!

Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!

Peter, put up the sunshine;
Patti, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!

Put down the apple, Adam,
And come away with me,

Lo, find we here when the ripe day is o'er
A kingdom of enchantment by the shore!

Behold the sky with early stars ashine,
A jewelled flagon brimmed with purple wine.

Like a dumb poet's soul the troubled sea
Moans of its joy and sorrow wordlessly;

But the glad winds that utter naught of grief
Make silver speech by headland and by reef.

Saving for such there is no voice or call
To mar the gracious silence over all­

Silence so tender 'tis a sweet caress,
A most beguiling and dear loneliness.

There is a hawk that is picking the birds out of our sky,
She killed the pigeons of peace and security,
She has taken honesty and confidence from nations and men,
She is hunting the lonely heron of liberty.
She loads the arts with nonsense, she is very cunning
Science with dreams and the state with powers to catch them at last.
Nothing will escape her at last, flying nor running.
This is the hawk that picks out the star's eyes.
This is the only hunter that will ever catch the wild swan;

When you shall see me lined by tool of Time,
My lauded beauties carried off from me,
My eyes no longer stars as in their prime,
My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free;

When in your being heart concedes to mind,
And judgment, though you scarce its process know,
Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined,
And you are irked that they have withered so:

Remembering that with me lies not the blame,
That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill,
Knowing me in my soul the very same—
One who would die to spare you touch of ill!—

149

She went as quiet as the Dew
From an Accustomed flower.
Not like the Dew, did she return
At the Accustomed hour!

She dropt as softly as a star
From out my summer's Eve—
Less skillful than Le Verriere
It's sorer to believe!

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon a nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;

My young love said to me: My mother won't mind,
And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind.
She put her arms 'round me; these words she did say:
It will not be long, love, 'til our wedding day!
Then she stepped away from me, and she moved thru the Faire,
And so fondly I watched her move here and move there;
At last she turned homeward, with one star awake,
As the Swan in the evening moves over the lake.
Last night she came to me, my dead love came in,
And so soft did she move that her feet made no din;

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
---Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave
To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes?
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave
Where the first -- where the last of her Patriots lies?

No -- faint though the death-song may fall from his lips,
Though his Harp, like his soul, may with shadows be crost,
Yet, yet shall it sound, 'mid a nation's eclipse,
And proclaim to the world what a star hath been lost; --

What a union of all the affections and powers
By which life is exalted, embellish'd, refined,

Within the sand of what far river lies
The gold that gleams in tresses of my Love?
What highest circle of the Heavens above
Is jewelled with such stars as are her eyes?
And where is the rich sea whose coral vies
With her red lips, that cannot kiss enough?
What dawn-lit garden knew the rose, whereof
The fled soul lives in her cheeks’ rosy guise?

What Parian marble that is loveliest,
Can match the whiteness of her brow and breast?
When drew she breath from the Sabaean glade?
Oh happy rock and river, sky and sea,