O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,
Till Death pours out his cordial wine,
Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,—
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

EPILOGUE.

'Tis pleasant business making books,
When other people furnish brains;
Like finding them in running brooks,—
The pleasure, minus all the pains!
They tell us Wordsworth once declared
That he could, if he had the mind,
Write plays like those of Avon's bard;
Whereat the stammering Lamb rejoined,
"S-s-s-s-s-so you see,
That all he wanted was the mind!"
O gentle Wordsworth, to deride
Thy simple speech I'm not inclined;
For these good friends, and thou beside,
Have freely lent me of their mind.
I've Shakespeare's point, and Burns's fire,
And Bulwer's own gentility,
And Elia's meekness, yet aspire
To Pope's infallibility.
I've made myself at home with Holmes;
I'm in two Taylors' garments dressed;
Campbell has told his rhymes for me,
And Shelley shelled out like the rest,
And Hood put on his thinking-cap,
And Goldsmith beaten out his best.
I've pilfered Alfred's laureate strains,
And boldly counted Henry's chickens,
And drained Harte's blood from his best veins,
And stol'n from Dickens like the dickens;
Of Hogg I have not gone the whole,
But of three Proctors tithes demanded,
And from a Miller taken toll,
And plucked a Reade, to do as Pan did.
I've beaten Beattie like a tree
That sheds its fruit for every knocker,
Nor let Sir Walter go Scott free,
And filched a shot from Frederick's Locker.
The ladies, too—God bless them all!—
What pieces of their minds I've taken!
It would Achilles' self appall,
If hiding here to save his bacon.
By Hawthorne's genius hedged about,
And deep in Browning's brownest study,
This is the sure retreat, no doubt,
From critics' favors, fair or muddy.
Ah, How it Reads, How well it looks!—
What one May call a death to pains!—
This pleasant way of making books,
With clever folks to furnish brains!

New York, July, 1875.

INDEX OF FIRST LINES.

[A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun]213
[Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!]52
[Ah! Jeane, my maid, I stood to you]20
[Ah! my heart is weary waiting]91
[All houses wherein men have lived and died]73
[As an unperfect actor on the stage]50
[As ships becalmed at eve, that lay]69
[A steed! a steed of matchlesse speed]132
[As upland fields were sunburnt brown]43
[At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still]175
[Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead]161
[Before I trust my fate to thee]46
[Behold this ruin! 'Twas a skull]201
[Between the dark and the daylight]152
[Bird of the wilderness]104
[Break, break, break]53
[By the waters of Life we sat together]84
[Close his eyes; his work is done!]134
[Come, all ye jolly shepherds]30
[Come in the evening, or come in the morning]35
[Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer]46
[Could we but know]220
[Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas]167
[Deep on the convent-roof the snows]215
[Drawn by horses with decorous feet]185
[Eyes which can but ill define]88
[Farewell! since nevermore for thee]173
[Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea]112
[From Stirling castle we had seen]93
["Give us a song!" the soldiers cried]130
[God makes sech nights, all white an' still]26
[Go, Soul, the body's guest]204
[Green be the turf above thee]169
[Hail to thee, blithe spirit!]106
[He clasps the crag with hookéd hands]105
[He is gone on the mountain]133
[Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling]168
[He wiled me through the furzy croft]59
[Ho! pretty page with the dimpled chin]115
[Ho, sailor of the sea!]150
[How sleep the brave who sink to rest]139
[I arise from dreams of thee]42
[I cannot make him dead!]154
[I fill this cup to one made up]21
[I have had playmates, I have had companions]66
[I heard the trailing garments of the night]103
[I mourn no more my vanished years]221
[I'm sittin' on the stile, Mary]158
[I'm wearin' awa', John]156
[In Xanadu did Kubla Khan]16
[I remember, I remember]72
[I saw her once,—so freshly fair]67
[I saw him once before]117
[It was the calm and silent night]217
[I wandered by the brookside]36
[I was thy neighbor once, thou rugged pile!]209
[Just for a handful of silver he left us]119
[Life! I know not what thou art]193
[Like as the damask rose you see]189
[Like to the falling of a star]192
[Look at me with thy large brown eyes]149
[Love not, love not! ye hapless sons of clay!]51
[Maid of Athens, ere we part]45
[Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning]32
[My boat is on the shore]110
[My fairest child, I have no song to give you]199
[My glass shall not persuade me I am old]49
[My heid is like to rend, Willie]56
[My life is like the summer rose]113
[My mother bore me in the southern wild]181
[Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew]104
[No bird-song floated down the hill]82
[O, a dainty plant is the ivy green]90
[Oft in the stilly night]64
[O little feet! that such long years]227
[O Mary, go and call the cattle home]102
[O, sing unto my roundelay!]171
[Our bugles sang truce; for the night-cloud had lowered]127
[Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass]140
[Over the river they beckon to me]78
[O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?]177
[O Woman of Three Cows, agragh! don't let your tongue thus rattle!]196
[O World! O Life! O Time!]192
[Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin]228
[September strews the woodland o'er]63
[Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?]50
[She died in beauty,—like a rose]164
[She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps]170
[She walks in beauty like the night]84
[She was a phantom of delight]18
[She was not fair, nor full of grace]165
[Slave of the dark and dirty mine]183
[Sleep sweetly in your humble graves]136
[So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn]123
[Stars of the summer night!]41
[Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright]203
[Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean]65
[Tell me not, sweet, I am unkinde]125
[That which her slender waist confined]23
[The glories of our birth and state]182
[The glow and the glory are plighted]24
[The heath this night must be my bed]124
[The maid who binds her warrior's sash]142
[The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year]100
[There sat an old man on a rock]120
[These years! these years! these naughty years!]114
[The shadows lay along Broadway]207
[The splendor falls on castle walls]40
[The sunlight fills the trembling air]86
[The winds that once the Argo bore]144
[The woods decay, the woods decay and fall]193
[They are all gone into the world of light]80
[They grew in beauty, side by side]174
[They sleep so calm and stately]137
[This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling]146
[This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign]214
[This sweet child which hath climbed upon my knee]219
[Thou lingering star, with lessening ray]61
[Thou still unravished bride of quietness!]199
[Three fishers went sailing out into the west]143
[Tiger! Tiger! burning bright]96
['Tis a fearful night in the winter time]97
['Tis pleasant business making books]231
['Tis the last rose of summer]111
[To him who in the love of nature holds]75
[Touch us gently, Time!]122
[Tread softly,—bow the head]208
[Weave no more the marriage-chain!]163
[We count the broken lyres that rest]229
[We left behind the painted buoy]13
[We watched her breathing through the night]160
[We were not many,—we who stood]128
[What constitutes a state?]148
[What hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells?]212
[What was he doing, the great god Pan?]11
[When forty winters shall besiege thy brow]48
[When I consider how my light is spent]143
[When I do count the clock that tells the time]49
[When Liberty lives loud on every lip]179
[When the latest strife is lost, and all is done with]54
[Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?]133
[Whom first we love, you know, we seldom wed]71
[With blackest moss the flower-pots]37
[With what clear guile of gracious love enticed]224
[Ye banks, and braes, and streams around]166
[You ask me, why, though ill at ease]126