Shapes of Clay

  Meanwhile my beard, like Barbarossa's growing,
  Loaded my lap and o'er my knees was flowing.
  The generations came with dance and song,
  And each observed me curiously there.
  Some asked: 'Who was he?' Others in the throng
  Replied: 'A wicked monk who slept at prayer.'
  Some said I was a saint, and some a bear—
  These all were women. So the young and gay,
  Visibly wrinkling as they fared along,
  Doddered at last on failing limbs away;
  Though some, their footing in my beard entangled,
  Fell into its abysses and were strangled.
  At last a generation came that walked
  More slowly forward to the common tomb,
  Then altogether stopped. The women talked
  Excitedly; the men, with eyes agloom
  Looked darkly on them with a look of doom;
  And one cried out: 'We are immortal now—
  How need we these?' And a dread figure stalked,
  Silent, with gleaming axe and shrouded brow,
  And all men cried: 'Decapitate the women,
  Or soon there'll be no room to stand or swim in!'
  So (in my dream) each lovely head was chopped
  From its fair shoulders, and but men alone
  Were left in all the world. Birth being stopped,
  Enough of room remained in every zone,
  And Peace ascended Woman's vacant throne.
  Thus, life's elixir being found (the quacks
  Their bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped)
  'Twas made worth having by the headsman's axe.
  Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking,
  And crumbled all to powder in the waking.

CONVALESCENT.

  What! 'Out of danger?' Can the slighted Dame
  Or canting Pharisee no more defame?
  Will Treachery caress my hand no more,
  Nor Hatred He alurk about my door?—
  Ingratitude, with benefits dismissed,
  Not close the loaded palm to make a fist?
  Will Envy henceforth not retaliate
  For virtues it were vain to emulate?
  Will Ignorance my knowledge fail to scout,
  Not understanding what 'tis all about,
  Yet feeling in its light so mean and small
  That all his little soul is turned to gall?
  What! 'Out of danger?' Jealousy disarmed?
  Greed from exaction magically charmed?
  Ambition stayed from trampling whom it meets,
  Like horses fugitive in crowded streets?
  The Bigot, with his candle, book and bell,
  Tongue-tied, unlunged and paralyzed as well?
  The Critic righteously to justice haled,
  His own ear to the post securely nailed—
  What most he dreads unable to inflict,
  And powerless to hawk the faults he's picked?
  The liar choked upon his choicest lie,
  And impotent alike to villify
  Or flatter for the gold of thrifty men
  Who hate his person but employ his pen—
  Who love and loathe, respectively, the dirt
  Belonging to his character and shirt?
  What! 'Out of danger?'—Nature's minions all,
  Like hounds returning to the huntsman's call,
  Obedient to the unwelcome note
  That stays them from the quarry's bursting throat?—
  Famine and Pestilence and Earthquake dire,
  Torrent and Tempest, Lightning, Frost and Fire,
  The soulless Tiger and the mindless Snake,
  The noxious Insect from the stagnant lake
  (Automaton malevolences wrought
  Out of the substance of Creative Thought)—
  These from their immemorial prey restrained,
  Their fury baffled and their power chained?
  I'm safe? Is that what the physician said?
  What! 'Out of danger?' Then, by Heaven, I'm dead!

AT THE CLOSE OF THE CANVASS.

  'Twas a Venerable Person, whom I met one Sunday morning,
  All appareled as a prophet of a melancholy sect;
  And in a jeremaid of objurgatory warning
  He lifted up his jodel to the following effect:
  O ye sanguinary statesmen, intermit your verbal tussles
  O ye editors and orators, consent to hear my lay!
  And a little while the digital and maxillary muscles