I hate these roses' feverish blood!
Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud,
A long-stemmed lily from the lake,
Cold as a coiling water-snake.

Rain me sweet odours on the air,
And wheel me up my Indian chair,
And spread some book not overwise
Flat out before my sleepy eyes.

-Who knows it not,- this dead recoil
Of weary fibres stretched with toil,-
The pulse that flutters faint and low
When Summer's seething breezes blow!
O Nature! bare thy loving breast,
And give thy child one hour of rest,—
One little hour to lie unseen
Beneath thy scarf of leafy green !

So, curtained by a singing pine,

Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine
Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay

In sweeter music dies away.

TELL me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal!
Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you,
Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder,
Holding talk with nations?

Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus,
Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in nightcap,
Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature
Three times daily patent?

Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal ?
Or is he a mythus,―ancient word for "humbug,"
Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed
Romulus and Remus?

Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty?
Or a living product of galvanic action,

Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution?
Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal!

BLUE-NOSE.

Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger,
Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster!
Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me,
Thou shalt hear them answered.

When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable,
At the polar focus of the wire electric
Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us :
Called himself "DE SAUTY."

As the small opossum held in pouch maternal
Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia,
So the unknown stranger held the wire electric,

Sucking in the current.

When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger,

Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy,—
And from time to time, in sharp articulation,

Said, "All right! DE SAUTY."

From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, Till the land was filled with loud reverberations

Of "All right! DE SAUTY."

When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger,→
Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker,—
Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odour

Of disintegration.

Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead,
Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence,
Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended,
There was no De Sauty.

Nothing but a cloud of elements organic,

C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chlor. Flu. Sil. Potassa,

Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang. (?) Alumin. (?) Cuprum, (?)

Such as man is made of.

Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished!
There is no De Sauty now there is no current!
Give us a new cable, then again we'll hear him
Cry, "All right! DE SAUTY."

POEMS

FROM THE

POET AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE.

1871-1872.

homesick in heaven.

THE DIVINE VOICE.

Go seek thine earth-born sisters,-thus the Voice
That all obey,—the sad and silent three;
These only, while the hosts of Heaven rejoice,
Smile never: ask them what their sorrows be:

And when the secret of their griefs they tell,
Look on them with thy mild, half-human eyes;
Say what thou wast on earth; thou knowest well;
So shall they cease from unavailing sighs.

THE ANGEL.

-Why thus, apart, the swift-winged herald spake,—
Sit ye with silent lips and unstrung lyres

While the trisagion's blending chords awake
In shouts of joy from all the heavenly choirs?

THE FIRST SPIRIT.

-Chide not thy sisters,-thus the answer came ;-
Children of earth, our half-weaned nature clings
To earth's fond memories, and her whispered name
Untunes our quivering lips, our saddened strings ;
For there we loved, and where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts,
Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome :—

The chain may lengthen, but it never parts!
Sometimes a sunlit sphere comes rolling by,
And then we softly whisper,-can it be?
And leaning toward the silvery orb, we try
To hear the music of its murmuring sea;

To catch, perchance, some flashing glimpse of green,
Or breathe some wild-wood fragrance, wafted through

The opening gates of pearl, that fold between

The blinding splendours and the changeless blue.

THE ANGEL.

-Nay, sister, nay! a single healing leaf

Plucked from the bough of yon twelve-rooted tree, Would soothe such anguish,-deeper stabbing grief Has pierced thy throbbing heart

THE FIRST SPIRIT.

Ah! woe is me !

I from my clinging babe was rudely torn;
His tender lips a loveless bosom pressed;
Can I forget him in my life new born?
O that my darling lay upon my breast!

-And thou?

THE ANGEL.

THE SECOND SPIRIT.

I was a fair and youthful bride,
The kiss of love still burns upon my cheek,
He whom I worshipped, ever at my side,-
Him through the spirit realm in vain I seek.
Sweet faces turn their beaming eyes on mine;
Ah! not in these the wished-for look I read ;
Still for that one dear human smile I pine;
Thou and none other!-is the lover's creed.

THE ANGEL.

-And whence thy sadness in a world of bliss Where never parting comes, nor mourner's tear? Art thou, too, dreaming of a mortal's kiss Amid the seraphs of the heavenly sphere?

THE THIRD SPIRIT.

-Nay, tax not me with passion's wasting fire;
When the swift message set my spirit free,
Blind, helpless, lone, I left my gray-haired sire;
My friends were many, he had none save me.
I left him, orphaned, in the starless night;
Alas, for him no cheerful morning's dawn!
I wear the ransomed spirit's robe of white,
Yet still I hear him moaning, She is gone!

THE ANGEL.

-Ye know me not, sweet sisters ?-All in vain
Ye seek your lost ones in the shapes they wore ;

The flower once opened may not bud again,

The fruit once fallen finds the stem no more.

Child, lover, sire,-yea, all things loved below,-
Fair pictures damasked on a vapour's fold,—
Fade like the roseate flush, the golden glow,
When the bright curtain of the day is rolled.

I was the babe that slumbered on thy breast.

-And, sister, mine the lips that called thee bride.
-Mine were the silvered locks thy hand caressed,
That faithful hand, my faltering footsteps' guide!
Each changing form, frail vesture of decay,

The soul unclad forgets it once hath worn,
Stained with the travel of the weary day,

And shamed with rents from every wayside thorn.
To lie, an infant, in thy fond embrace,-

To come with love's warm kisses back to thee,-
To show thine eyes thy gray-haired father's face,
Not Heaven itself could grant; this may not be !
Then spread your folded wings, and leave to earth
The dust once breathing ye have mourned so long,
Till Love, new risen, owns his heavenly birth,

And sorrow's discords sweeten into song!

Fantasia.

THE YOUNG GIRL'S POEM.

KISS mine eyelids, beauteous | Turn its pallid lilies brown,

Till its darkening shades reveal
Where his passion pressed its

seal!

Kiss my lips, thou Lord of light,
Kiss my lips a soft good-night!
Westward sinks thy golden

car;

Leave me but the evening star,
And my solace that shall be,
Borrowing all its light from
thee !

Aunt Tabitha.

THE YOUNG GIRL'S POEM.

WHATEVER I do, and whatever I say,
Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn't the way;
When she was a girl (forty summers ago)
Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.
Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice!
But I like my own way, and I find it so nice!
And besides, I forget half the things I am told;
But they all will come back to me-when I am old.
If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt,
He may chance to look in as I chance to look out;
She would never endure an impertinent stare,-
It is horrid, she says, and I mustn't sit there.