Not less thy love, sweet maiden,
Nor less thy bravery,
For when I came, o’erladen
With poisoned hopes, to thee,
With smiles and shy caresses
The venom thou didst drain,
And, healing my distresses,
Didst give new life again.
MUMMY THOUGHTS.
Once those who sought for relics of the past
Stumbled by chance on an Etrurian tomb,
And saw a monarch sitting in the gloom,
Sceptred and crowned. Their eager hearts beat fast,
And on the masonry themselves they cast,
To seize the wonder. As, throughout the room,
The axe stroke rang, it knelled the monarch’s doom.
He fell to dust, and left them all aghast.
So, oft while searching through the realms of mind,
I have discovered many a kingly thought,
In solitary grandeur throned and crowned,
And striven to bear it forth, only to find
That, when the first stroke of my pen did sound,
It fell to dust, and lo! I had it not.
TO CERTAIN NATURE POETS.
Friends,—such I call ye, for it is not meet
To hail ye brethren in the tuneful art,
Since I but falter, though of earnest heart,—
Friends, I have thought, reading your measures sweet,
Your verses, though with many a charm replete,
Were bettered did they some high thought impart,
Or in man’s conscience plant a sudden dart.
Why proffer roses when the world craves wheat?
Who paints a picture hath ill done his task,
If he show not the soul in that he paints.
Why give to mere description all your lays
While what the eye beholds is but a mask
To some grand truth the poet’s hand should raise,
Revealing that for which man’s spirit faints.