25

'T was Pan himself had wandered here,

A-strolling through this sordid city,

And piping to the civic ear

The prelude of some pastoral ditty!

The demigod had crossed the seas,

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,

And Syracusan times, to these

Far shores and twenty centuries later.

Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,

And trousers, patched of divers hues,

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

40

330

15

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 passing 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 passers stayed to list:

A boxer Ægon, rough and merry; A Broadway Daphnis on his tryst With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry;

And one-eyed Cyclops halted long

In tattered cloak of army pattern; And Galatea joined the throng—

A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;

60

While old Silenus staggered out

From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,

1866.

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 demigod,

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.

1867.

ALICE CARY

SOMETIMES

Sometimes for days

Along the fields that I of time have leased

I

I go, nor find a single leaf increased;
And, hopeless, graze

With forehead stooping downward like a beast.

What strength I have, though only to a cry,

5

ΙΟ

I gain an utterance that men know me by;

15

Create, and fetch

A something out of chaos-that is I.

Good comes to pass

We know not when nor how, for, looking to

What seemed a barren waste, there starts to view

Some bunch of grass,

Or snarl of violets, shining with the dew.

I do believe

The very impotence to pray is prayer;

20

The hope that all will end is in despair,
And while we grieve

Comfort abideth with us unaware.

25

1866.

JOAQUIN MILLER

IN YOSEMITE VALLEY

[Copyrighted, 1897, by Whitaker & Ray-Wiggin Co. San Francisco, and here printed

by permission]

Sound! sound! sound!

O colossal walls, and crown'd

In one eternal thunder!

Sound! sound! sound!

O ye oceans overhead,

While we walk, subdued in wonder,
In the ferns and grasses under
And beside the swift Merced!

Fret! fret! fret!
Streaming, sounding banners, set
On the giant granite castles

In the clouds and in the snow!
But the foe he comes not yet-
We are loyal, valiant vassals,
And we touch the trailing tassels
Of the banners far below.

Surge! surge! surge!

From the white Sierra's verge
To the very valley blossom.
Surge! surge! surge!

5

ΙΟ

15

20

[Copyrighted, 1897, by Whitaker & Ray-Wiggin Co., San Francisco, and here printed

by permission]

What great yoked brutes with briskets low,

With wrinkled necks like buffalo,

With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes,
That turned so slow and sad to you,
That shone like love's eyes soft with tears,
That seemed to plead and make replies,
The while they bowed their necks and drew

5

The creaking load, and looked at you.
Their sable briskets swept the ground,

Their cloven feet kept solemn sound.
Two sullen bullocks led the line,

Their great eyes shining bright like wine:
Two sullen captive kings were they,
That had in time held herds at bay;

And even now they crushed the sod
With stolid sense of majesty,

And stately stepped and stately trod,
As if 't were something still to be
Kings even in captivity.

SIDNEY LANIER

ΙΟ

151

[The selections from Lanier are reprinted, by permission, from the 1884 edition of his poems, copyrighted by Mary D. Lanier, published by Charles Scribner's Sons]

NIGHT AND DAY

The innocent, sweet Day is dead:

Dark Night hath slain her in her bed.
O, Moors are as fierce to kill as to wed!
"Put out the light," said he.