A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET A little while (my life is almost set!) I fain would pause along the downward way, While, Sweet! our eyes with tender tears are wet : A little while I fain would linger yet, All for love's sake, for love that cannot tire; A little while I fain would linger here: Behold! who knows what strange, mysterious bars 'Twixt souls that love may rise in other stars? Nor can love deem the face of death is fair: A little while I still would linger here. A little while I yearn to hold thee fast, Hand locked in hand, and loyal heart to heart; (O pitying Christ! those woeful words, "We part!") So ere the darkness fall, the light be past, A little while I fain would hold thee fast. A little while, when light and twilight meet, — A little while I fain would linger here; Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars A STORM IN THE DISTANCE I see the cloud-born squadrons of the gale, In flashing charge on earth's half-shielded breast. Sounds like the rush of trampling columns float From that fierce conflict; volleyed thunders peal, Blent with the maddened wind's wild bugle-note; The lightnings flash, the solid woodlands reel ! Ha! many a foliaged guardian of the height, Led by the Prince of all the Powers of air! Vast boughs like shattered banners hurtling fly Still, still, the levelled lances of the rain. At earth's half-shielded breast take glittering aim; All space is rife with fury, racked with pain, Earth bathed in vapor, and heaven rent by flame! At last the cloud-battalions through long rifts FRANCIS BRET HARTE [Born at Albany, New York, August 25, 1839; died at Camberley, England, May 5, 1902] Here, where Nature makes thy bed, Point to hidden Indian springs, Fit for thee, and better than In thy fat-jowled deviltry Friar Tuck shall live in thee; Thou mayest levy tithe and dole; Thou shalt spread the woodland cheer, From the pilgrim taking toll; Match thy cunning with his fear; Eat, and drink, and have thy fill; Yet remain an outlaw still! THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH [Born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 11, 1836; died at Boston, March 19, 1907] WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN When the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan, Even before he gets so far As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, At the last of the thirty palace-gates, The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, Orders a feast in his favorite room Glittering squares of colored ice, Sweetened with syrup, tinctured with spice, Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, Limes, and citrons, and apricots, And wines that are known to Eastern princes; Of spiced meats and costliest fish. And all that curious palate could wish, Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, Then at a wave of her sunny hand Making a sudden mist in air Of fleecy veils and floating hair And white arms lifted. Orient blood Now, when I see an extra light, CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER [Born at Plainfield, Massachusetts, September 12, 1829; died in Hartford, Connecticut, October 20, 1900] CAMPING OUT It seems to be agreed that civilization is kept up only by a constant effort. Nature claims its own speedily when the effort is relaxed. If you clear a patch of fertile ground in the forest, uproot the stumps and plant it, year after year, in potatoes and maize, you say you have subdued it. But if you leave it for a season or two, a kind of barbarism seems to steal out upon it from the circling woods; coarse grass and brambles cover it; bushes spring up in a wild tangle; the raspberry and the blackberry flower and fruit, and the humorous bear feeds upon them. The last state of the ground is worse than the first. |