The Home Book of Verse Volume Iv Part 8

Some Melpomene woo, some hold Clio the nearest; You, sweet Comedy--you were ever sweetest and dearest!

Nay, it is time to go.

When writing your tragic sister Say to that child of woe how sorry I was I missed her.

Really, I cannot stay, though "parting is such sweet sorrow"...

Perhaps I will, on my way down-town, look in to-morrow!

Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907]

PAN IN WALL STREET A. D. 1867

Just where the Treasury's marble front Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations; Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont To throng for trade and last quotations; Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold Outrival, in the ears of people, The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled From Trinity's undaunted steeple,--

Even there I heard a strange, wild strain Sound high above the modern clamor, Above the cries of greed and gain, The curbstone war, the auction's hammer; And swift, on Music's misty ways, It led, from all this strife for millions, To ancient, sweet-to-nothing days Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.

And as it stilled the mult.i.tude, And yet more joyous rose, and shriller, I saw the minstrel, where he stood At ease against a Doric pillar: One hand a droning organ played, The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned Like those of old) to lips that made The reeds give out that strain impa.s.sioned.

'Twas Pan himself had wandered here A-strolling through this sordid city, And piping to the civic ear The prelude of some pastoral ditty!

The demiG.o.d had crossed the seas,-- From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr, And Syracusan times,--to these Far sh.o.r.es and twenty centuries later.

A ragged cap was on his head; But--hidden thus--there was no doubting That, all with crispy locks o'erspread, His gnarled horns were somewhere sprouting; His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes, Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them, And trousers, patched of divers hues, Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

He filled the quivering reeds with sound, And o'er his mouth their changes shifted, And with his goat's-eyes looked around Where'er the pa.s.sing current drifted; And soon, as on Trinacrian hills The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him, Even now the tradesmen from their tills, With clerks and porters, crowded near him.

The bulls and bears together drew From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, As erst, if pastorals be true, Came beasts from every wooded valley; The random pa.s.sers stayed to list,-- A boxer Aegon, rough and merry, A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long In tattered cloak of army pattern, And Galatea joined the throng,-- A blowsy, apple-vending slattern; While old Silenus staggered out From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, And bade the piper, with a shout, To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!

A newsboy and a peanut-girl Like little Fauns began to caper: His hair was all in tangled curl, Her tawny legs were bare and taper; And still the gathering larger grew, And gave its pence and crowded nigher, While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating still With throbs her vernal pa.s.sion taught her,-- Even here, as on the vine-clad hill, Or by the Arethusan water!

New forms may fold the speech, new lands Arise within these ocean-portals, But Music waves eternal wands,-- Enchantress of the souls of mortals!

So thought I,--but among us trod A man in blue, with legal baton, And scoffed the vagrant demiG.o.d, And pushed him from the step I sat on.

Doubting I mused upon the cry, "Great Pan is dead!"--and all the people Went on their ways:--and clear and high The quarter sounded from the steeple.

Edmund Clarence Stedman [1833-1908]

UPON LESBIA--ARGUING

My Lesbia, I will not deny, Bewitches me completely; She has the usual beaming eye, And smiles upon me sweetly: But she has an unseemly way Of contradicting what I say.

And, though I am her closest friend, And find her fascinating, I cannot cordially commend Her method of debating: Her logic, though she is divine, Is singularly feminine.

Her reasoning is full of tricks, And b.u.t.terfly suggestions, I know no point to which she sticks, She begs the simplest questions; And, when her premises are strong, She always draws her inference wrong.

Broad, liberal views on men and things She will not hear a word of; To prove herself correct she brings Some instance she has heard of; The argument ad hominem Appears her favorite strategem.

Old Socrates, with sage replies To questions put to suit him, Would not, I think, have looked so wise With Lesbia to confute him; He would more probably have bade Xantippe hasten to his aid.

Ah! well, my fair philosopher, With clear brown eyes that glisten So sweetly, that I much prefer To look at them than listen, Preach me your sermon: have your way, The voice is yours, whate'er you say.

Alfred Cochrane [1865-

TO ANTHEA, WHO MAY COMMAND HIM ANYTHING (New Style)

Am I sincere? I say I dote On everything that Browning wrote; I know some bits by heart to quote: But then She reads him.

I say--and is it strictly true?-- How I admire her c.o.c.katoo; Well! in a way of course I do: But then She feeds him.

And I become, at her command, The sternest Tory in the land; The Grand Old Man is far from grand; But then She states it.

Nay! worse than that, I am so tame, I once admitted--to my shame-- That football was a brutal game: Because She hates it.

My taste in Art she hailed with groans, And I, once charmed with bolder tones, Now love the yellows of Burne-Jones: But then She likes them.

My tuneful soul no longer h.o.a.rds Stray jewels from the Empire boards; I revel now in Dvorak's chords: But then She strikes them.

Our age distinctly cramps a knight; Yet, though debarred from tilt and fight, I can admit that black is white, If She a.s.serts it.

Heroes of old were luckier men Than I--I venture now and then To hint--retracting meekly when She controverts it.

Alfred Cochrane [1865-

THE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK

The days of Bute and Grafton's fame, Of Chatham's waning prime, First heard your sounding gong proclaim Its chronicle of Time; Old days when Dodd confessed his guilt, When Goldsmith drave his quill, And genial gossip Horace built His house on Strawberry Hill.

Now with a grave unmeaning face You still repeat the tale, High-towering in your somber case, Designed by Chippendale; Without regret for what is gone, You bid old customs change, As year by year you travel on To scenes and voices strange.

We might have mingled with the crowd Of courtiers in this hall, The fans that swayed, the wigs that bowed, But you have spoiled it all; We might have lingered in the train Of nymphs that Reynolds drew, Or stared spell-bound in Drury Lane At Garrick--but for you.

We might in Leicester Fields have swelled The throng of beaux and cits, Or listened to the concourse held Among the Kitcat wits; Have strolled with Selwyn in Pall Mall, Arrayed in gorgeous silks, Or in Great George Street raised a yell For Liberty and Wilkes.

This is the life which you have known, Which you have ticked away, In one unmoved unfaltering tone That ceased not day by day, While ever round your dial moved Your hands from span to span, Through drowsy hours and hours that proved Big with the fate of man.

A steady tick for fatal creeds, For youth on folly bent, A steady tick for worthy deeds, And moments wisely spent; No warning note of emphasis, No whisper of advice, To ruined rake or flippant miss, For coquetry or dice.

You might, I think, have hammered out With meaning doubly dear, The midnight of a Vauxhall rout In Evelina's ear; Or when the night was almost gone, You might, the deals between, Have startled those who looked upon The cloth when it was green.

But no, in all the vanished years Down which your wheels have run, Your message borne to heedless ears Is one and only one-- No wit of men, no power of kings, Can stem the overthrow Wrought by this pendulum that swings Sedately to and fro.