Works

if only for ten minutes

after the mass feeding of schoolchildren
after the careful inanity of the staff

at low tide
this was the place
for calm, for order of a kind
...

Great Alexander was wise Philips son,
He to Amyntas, Kings of Macedon;
The cruel proud Olympias was his Mother,
She to Epirus warlike King was daughter.
This Prince (his father by Pausanias slain)...

One man in a thousand, Solomon says,
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it's worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other.
Nine nundred and ninety-nine depend...

Spirit of Earth! thy hand is chill:
I've felt its icy clasp;
And, shuddering, I remember still
That stony-hearted grasp.
Thine eye bids love and joy depart:
Oh, turn its gaze from me!...

(December 9th, 1908.)

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John."

Three hundred years have left their telltale rings
Upon the tree of Time since he appeared -...

They hold their public meetings where
Our most renowned patriots stand,
One among the birds of the air,
A stumpier on either hand;
And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State...

TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

Three Silences there are: the first of speech,
The second of desire, the third of thought;
This is the lore a Spanish monk, distraught...

The tree of deepest root is bound
With most tenacity to earth;
'Twas therefore thought by ancient sages,
That with the ills of life's last stages
The love of life increased, with dearth...

The Three Wise Men Of Gotham.

Three wise men of Gotham
Went to sea in a bowl:



If the bowl had been stronger,
My song would have been longer.

Quite a proud and happy man is Finn the Packer
Since he built his crazy mill upon the rise,
And he stands there in the gully, chewing 'backer,'
With a sleepy sort of comfort in his eyes,...

To a Highland Air.


I.

The tither morn,
When I forlorn,
Aneath an oak sat moaning,
I did na trow
I'd see my Jo,
Beside me, gain the gloaming.
But he sae trig,...

He primmed his loose red mouth, and leaned his head
Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said:
"You'd think so much bereavement would have made
Unusual big demands upon my trade....

They were like dreams that in a drowsy hour
A sad old God had dreamed in loneliness of power.
They were like dreams that in his drowsy mind
Rose slowly and then, darkening, made him wise and blind--...

The: Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal
When the saloons were voted out,
Because when I was a drinking man,
Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede
At the saw-mill near Maple Grove....

'sop, Babrius, Horace, Prior, and Pope.


Our friend Dan Prior had, you know,
A tale exactly ' propos;
Name a town life - and, in a trice,
He had a story of two mice.
...

There lies afar behind a western hill
The Town without a Market, white and still;
For six feet long and not a third as high
Are those small habitations. There stood I,
Waiting to hear the citizens beneath...

THE PERSONS

D'ANIRA, wife of Heracles.
An Attendant.
HYLLUS, son of Heracles and D'anira.
CHORUS of Trachinian Maidens.
A Messenger.
LICHAS, the Herald.
A Nurse.
An Old Man....

At Union Station

'Ll where in the world my eyes has bin -
Ef I hain't missed that train ag'in!
Chuff! And whistle! And toot! And ring!
But blast and blister the dasted train!...

Sometimes I wish the railroads all were torn out,
The ships all sunk among the coral strands.
I am so very weary, yea so worn out,
With tales of those who visit foreign lands.
...

I

Could I pour out the nectar the gods only can,
I would fill up my glass to the brim
And drink the success of the Traveling Man,
And the house represented by him;...