第67章

There are times, though, he says, when it is a pleasure, before going to some agreeable meeting, to rush out into one's garden and clutch up a handful of what grows there, - weeds and violets together, - not cutting them off, but pulling them up by the roots with the brown earth they grow in sticking to them.That's his idea of a post-prandial performance.Look here, now.These verses I am going to read you, he tells me, were pulled up by the roots just in that way, the other day.- Beautiful entertainment, - names there on the plates that flow from all English-speaking tongues as familiarly as AND or THE; entertainers known wherever good poetry and fair title-pages are held in esteem; guest a kind-hearted, modest, genial, hopeful poet, who sings to the hearts of his countrymen, the British people, the songs of good cheer which the better days to come, as all honest souls trust and believe, will turn into the prose of common life.My friend, the Poet, says you must not read such a string of verses too literally.If he trimmed it nicely below, you wouldn't see the roots, he says, and he likes to keep them, and a little of the soil clinging to them.

This is the farewell my friend, the Poet, read to his and our friend, the Poet:-A GOOD TIME GOING!

BRAVE singer of the coming time, Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, Good-bye! Good-bye! - Our hearts and hands, Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, Cry, God be with him, till he stands His feet among the English daisies!

'Tis here we part; - for other eyes The busy deck, the flattering streamer, The dripping arms that plunge and rise, The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, The kerchiefs waving from the pier, The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him, The deep blue desert, lone and drear, With heaven above and home before him!

His home! - the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it; -This little speck the British Isles?

'Tis but a freckle, - never mind it! -

He laughs, and all his prairies roll, Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, And ridges stretched from pole to pole Heave till they crack their iron knuckles!

But memory blushes at the sneer, And Honor turns with frown defiant, And Freedom, leaning on her spear, Laughs louder than the laughing giant:-"An islet is a world," she said, "When glory with its dust has blended, And Britain kept her noble dead Till earth and seas and skies are rended!"Beneath each swinging forest-bough Some arm as stout in death reposes, -From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow Her valor's life-blood runs in roses;Nay, let our brothers of the West Write smiling in their florid pages, One-half her soil has walked the rest In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!

Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, The British oak with rooted grasp Her slender handful holds together; -With cliffs of white and bowers of green, And Ocean narrowing to caress her, And hills and threaded streams between, -Our little mother isle, God bless her!

In earth's broad temple where we stand, Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us, We hold the missal in our hand, Bright with the lines our Mother taught us;Where'er its blazoned page betrays The glistening links of gilded fetters, Behold, the half-turned leaf displays Her rubric stained in crimson letters!

Enough! To speed a parting friend 'Tis vain alike to speak and listen; -Yet stay, - these feeble accents blend With rays of light from eyes that glisten.

Good-bye! once more, - and kindly tell In words of peace the young world's story, -And say, besides, - we love too well Our mother's soil, our father's glory!

When my friend, the Professor, found that my friend, the Poet, had been coming out in this full-blown style, he got a little excited, as you may have seen a canary, sometimes, when another strikes up.

The Professor says he knows he can lecture, and thinks he can write verses.At any rate, he has often tried, and now he was determined to try again.So when some professional friends of his called him up, one day, after a feast of reason and a regular "freshet" of soul which had lasted two or three hours, he read them these verses.He introduced them with a few remarks, he told me, of which the only one he remembered was this: that he had rather write a single line which one among them should think worth remembering than set them all laughing with a string of epigrams.

It was all right, I don't doubt; at any rate, that was his fancy then, and perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious;however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so long as clocks and watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a kitten always, as the old gentleman opposite said the other day.

You must listen to this seriously, for I think the Professor was very much in earnest when he wrote it.

THE TWO ARMIES.

As Life's unending column pours, Two marshalled hosts are seen,-Two armies on the trampled shores That Death flows black between.

One marches to the drum-beat's roll, The wide-mouthed clarion's bray, And bears upon a crimson scroll, "Our glory is to slay."One moves in silence by the stream, With sad, yet watchful eyes, Calm as the patient planet's gleam That walks the clouded skies.

Along its front no sabres shine, No blood-red pennons wave;Its banner bears the single line, "Our duty is to save."For those no death-bed's lingering shade;At Honor's trumpet-call, With knitted brow and lifted blade In Glory's arms they fall.

For these no clashing falchions bright, No stirring battle-cry;The bloodless stabber calls by night, -

Each answers, "Here am I!"

For those the sculptor's laurelled bust, The builder's marble piles, The anthems pealing o'er their dust Through long cathedral aisles.

For these the blossom-sprinkled turf That floods the lonely graves, When Spring rolls in her sea-green surf In flowery-foaming waves.

Two paths lead upward from below, And angels wait above, Who count each burning life-drop's flow, Each falling tear of Love.

Though from the Hero's bleeding breast Her pulses Freedom drew, Though the white lilies in her crest Sprang from that scarlet dew, -While Valor's haughty champions wait Till all their scars are shown, Love walks unchallenged through the gate, To sit beside the Throne!