dreamed that I was dead. The years went by:
The world forgot that such a man as I
Had lived and written, although other names
Were hailed with homage, in their turn to die.
Out of my grave a giant beech upgrew.
Its roots transpierced my body, through and through,
My substance fed its growth. From many lands
Men came in troops that noble tree to view.
’Twas sacred to my memory and fame—
But Julian Hawthorne’s wittol daughter came
And with untidy finger daubed upon
Its bark a reeking record of her name.
The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth,
And man’s in danger.
O that my mother at my birth
Had borne a stranger!
The flooded ground is all around.
The depth uncommon.
How blest I’d be if only she
Had borne a salmon!
If still denied the solar glow
’Twere bliss ecstatic
To be amphibious—but O,
To be aquatic!
We’re worms, men say, o’ the dust, and they
That faith are firm of.
O, then, be just: show me some dust
To be a worm of.
The pines are chanting overhead
A psalm uncheering.
It’s O, to have been for ages dead
And hard of hearing!
Restore, ye Pow’rs, the last bright hours
The dial reckoned;
’Twas in the time of Egypt’s prime—
Rameses II.
The Confederate Flags
Tut-tut! give back the flags—how can you care,
You veterans and heroes?
Why should you at a kind intention swear
Like twenty Neros?
Suppose the act was not so overwise—
Suppose it was illegal;
Is’t well on such a question to arise
And pinch the Eagle?
Nay, let’s economize his breath to scold
And terrify the alien
Who tackles him, as Hercules of old
The bird Stymphalian.
Among the rebels when we made a breach
Was it to get their banners?
That was but incidental—’twas to teach
Them better manners.
They know the lesson well enough to-day;
Now, let us try to show them
That we’re not only stronger far than they,
(How we did mow them!)
But more magnanimous. My lads, ’tis plain
’Twas an uncommon riot;
The warlike tribes of Europe fight for gain;
We fought for quiet.
If we were victors, then we all must live
With the same flag above us;
’Twas all in vain unless we now forgive
And make them love us.
Let kings keep trophies to display above
Their doors like any savage;
The freeman’s trophy is the foeman’s love,
Despite war’s ravage.
“Make treason odious?” My friends, you’ll find
You can’t, in right and reason,
While “Washington” and “treason” are combined—
“Hugo” and “treason.”
All human governments must take the chance
And hazard of sedition.
O, wretch! to pledge your manhood in advance
To blind submission.
It may be wrong, it may be right, to rise
In warlike insurrection:
The loyalty that fools so dearly prize
May mean subjection.
Be loyal to your country, yes—but how
If tyrants hold dominion?
The South believed they did; can’t you allow
For that opinion?
He who will never rise though rulers plot,
His liberties despising—
How is he manlier than the sans-culottes
Who’s always rising?
Give back the foolish flags whose bearers fell,
Too valiant to forsake them.
Is it presumptuous, this counsel? Well,
I helped to take them.
Haec Fabula Docet
A rat who’d gorged a box of bane
And suffered an internal pain
Came from his hole to die (the label
Required it if the rat were able)
And found outside his habitat
A limpid stream. Of bane and rat
’Twas all unconscious; in the sun
It ran and prattled just for fun.
Keen to allay his inward throes,
The beast immersed his filthy nose
And drank—then, bloated by the stream,
And filled with superheated steam,
Exploded with a rascal smell,
Remarking, as his fragments fell
Astonished in the brook: “I’m thinking
This water’s damned unwholesome drinking!”
Again
Well, I’ve met her again—at the Mission.
She’d told me to see her no more;
It was not a command—a petition;
I’d granted it once before.
Yes, granted it, hoping she’d write me,
Repenting her virtuous freak—
Subdued myself daily and nightly
For the better part of a week.
And then (’twas my duty to spare her
The shame of recalling me) I
Just sought her again to prepare her
For an everlasting good-bye.
O, that evening of bliss—shall I ever
Cease living it over?—although
She said, when ’twas ended: “You’re never
To see me again. And now go.”
As we parted with kisses ’twas human
And natural for me to smile
As I thought, “She’s in love, and a woman:
She’ll send for me after a while.”
But she didn’t; and so—well, the old Mission
Is fine, picturesque and gray;
’Tis an excellent place for contrition—
And sometimes she passes that way.
That’s how it occurred that I met her,
And that’s all there is to tell—
Except that I’d like to forget her
Calm way of remarking: “I’m well.”
It was hardly worth while, all this keying
My soul to such tensions and stirs
To learn that her food was agreeing
With that little stomach of hers.
Homo Podunkensis
As the poor ass that from his paddock strays
Might sound abroad his field-companions’ praise,
Recounting volubly their well-bred leer,
Their port impressive and their wealth of ear,
Mistaking for the world’s assent the clang
Of echoes mocking his accurst harangue;
So the dull clown, untraveled though at large,
Visits the city on the ocean’s marge,
Expands his eyes and marvels to remark
Each coastwise schooner and each alien bark;
Prates of “all nations,” wonders as he stares
That native merchants sell imported wares,
Nor comprehends how in his very view
A foreign vessel has a foreign crew;
Yet, faithful to the hamlet of his birth,
Swears it superior to aught on earth,
Sighs for the temples locally renowned—
The village school-house and the village pound—
And chalks upon the palaces of Rome
The peasant sentiments of “Home, Sweet Home!”
A Social Call
Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you,
With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue?
Less redness in the nose—nay, even some blue,
Would not, I think, particularly hurt you.
When seen close to, not mounted in your car,
You look the drunkard and the pig you are.
No matter, sit you down, for I am not
In a gray study, as you sometimes find me.
Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot,
