This hast thou done, and I—can I be base?
I must arise, O father, and to port
Some lost, complaining seaman pilot home.
XXIX—IN THE STATES
With half a heart I wander here
As from an age gone by
A brother—yet though young in years.
An elder brother, I.
You speak another tongue than mine,
Though both were English born.
I towards the night of time decline,
You mount into the morn.
Youth shall grow great and strong and free,
But age must still decay:
To-morrow for the States—for me,
England and Yesterday.
San Francisco.
XXX—A PORTRAIT
I am a kind of farthing dip,
Unfriendly to the nose and eyes;
A blue-behinded ape, I skip
Upon the trees of Paradise.
At mankind’s feast, I take my place
In solemn, sanctimonious state,
And have the air of saying grace
While I defile the dinner plate.
I am “the smiler with the knife,”
The battener upon garbage, I—
Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life,
Were it not better far to die?