THE DEATH OF POETRY. They tell us that the poet's day is past, That Song no more shall gush from human heart; What babbling folly! Frailest dreams outlast When Spring comes not in triumph as of yore, IN AN OLD LIBRARY. In this old farmhouse garret where I stray, On dingy panes a hornet fumes and frets, A beetle thumps the wall with sudden thud; A wasp hangs captive in a spider's nets A dirt-daub, singing, moulds his house of mud. A mantel holds two antiquated clocks, Where scampering mice go playing hide-and-seek; A wren, snug-nested in an empty box, Sits calm and quiet while her fledglings squeak. Here, like a vein of purest virgin gold Brought by the Great and Good from every land. Here all the friends of youth (for youth alone IN AN OLD LIBRARY. Here, like a pirate at his secret cave, I dig my buried ingots from the junk; And, like a diver, from an ocean grave I raise the Spanish galleons that I sunk. Here all the wise sit in serene array, Where Plato's words flow forth in honeyed sweets; I see the face of Goldsmith and of Gray, I walk with Shelley and I talk with Keats. O magic Past, you woo me from To-day; The frenzied world outside is lost to view. Old friends are best! I tread this quiet way, Forsaking not the old to win the new. Like mellow wine in cobwebbed cellars stored, Of love and laughter, gladness, grief and tears. DROUGHT. The pale white skies hang in an ashen haze, Hour after hour the heat grows more intense; Peeps at the skies as though he prayed for rain. An old ox dozes in a weary dream; Long lines of sheep in patient silence pass; Two horses tread a muddy half-dried stream, Dust-powdered cattle browse on withered grass. The passion-vine is withered at the gate, The splitted husk flips out its floating down, The pasture is a desert burned to brown, DROUGHT. O let dark clouds like ocean billows roll, Let mellow thunders throb like muffled drums! Let lightnings rouse the west wind's sleeping soul, To rush with shouting as the rainstorm comes! And yet this sickly, sweltering August day Marks but the place we all must travel soon; This is the end of all the mirth of May, And this the ending of the joys of June! When all the zest of youth is on the wane, Above my desert bosom, as of yore, Once more let lightnings glitter, thunders roll! Drown dusty memories; let there be no more Drought in the heart, or famine in the soul! |