Works

Brief words, when actions wait, are well:
The prompter's hand is on his bell;
The coming heroes, lovers, kings,
Are idly lounging at the wings;
Behind the curtain's mystic fold...

What I want is my husband, sir,
And if you're a man, sir,
You'll give me an answer,
Where is my Joe?

Penrhyn, sir, Joe,
Caernarvonshire.
Six months ago
Since we came here...

I have found out a gift for my fair;
I know where the fossils abound,
Where the footprints of Aves declare
The birds that once walked on the ground.
Oh, come, and in technical speech...

They ran through the streets of the seaport town,
They peered from the decks of the ships that lay;
The cold sea-fog that came whitening down
Was never as cold or white as they....

Above the bones
St. Ursula owns,
And those of the virgins she chaperons;
Above the boats,
And the bridge that floats,
And the Rhine and the steamers' smoky throats;...

Here's yer toy balloons! All sizes!
Twenty cents for that. It rises
Jest as quick as that 'ere, Miss,
Twice as big. Ye see it is
Some more fancy. Make it square
Fifty for 'em both. That's fair.
...

If Mr. Jones, Lycurgus B.,
Had one peculiar quality,
'Twas his severe advocacy
Of conjugal fidelity.

His views of heaven were very free;
His views of life were painfully...

Where the short-legged Esquimaux
Waddle in the ice and snow,
And the playful Polar bear
Nips the hunter unaware;
Where by day they track the ermine,
And by night another vermin,...

They say that she died of a broken heart
(I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);
But her spirit lives, and her soul is part
Of this sad old house by the sea.

Her lover was fickle and fine and French:...

Dramatis Person'

First Tourist
Second Tourist
Yuba Bill, Driver
A Stranger



First Tourist

Look how the upland plunges into cover,...

It was Andrew Jackson Sutter who, despising Mr. Cutter for remarks he heard him utter in debate upon the floor,...

Dramatis Person'

Poet. Philosopher. Jones of Mariposa.



Poet
Halt! Here we are. Now wheel your mare a trifle
Just where you stand; then doff your hat and swear...

Last night, above the whistling wind,
I heard the welcome rain,
A fusillade upon the roof,
A tattoo on the pane:
The keyhole piped; the chimney-top
A warlike trumpet blew;...

I read last night of the grand review
In Washington's chiefest avenue,
Two hundred thousand men in blue,
I think they said was the number,
Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet,...

Certain facts which serve to explain
The physical charms of Miss Addie De Laine,
Who, as the common reports obtain,
Surpassed in complexion the lily and rose;
With a very sweet mouth and a retrousse nose;...

Know I not whom thou mayst be
Carved upon this olive-tree,
'Manuela of La Torre,'
For around on broken walls
Summer sun and spring rain falls,
And in vain the low wind calls
'Manuela of La Torre.'...

What was it filled my youthful dreams,
In place of Greek or Latin themes,
Or beauty's wild, bewildering beams?
Avitor!

What visions and celestial scenes
I filled with aerial machines,...

(Malvern Hill, 1864)

...

Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,
A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze
Of flaring gas and curious eyes that gaze.

The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,...

Canto I

I

Act first, scene first. A study. Of a kind
Half cell, half salon, opulent yet grave;
Rare books, low-shelved, yet far above the mind
Of common man to compass or to crave;...