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...

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,...

Here's the spot. Look around you. Above on the height
Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right
Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall,
You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball....

We know him well: no need of praise
Or bonfire from the windy hill
To light to softer paths and ways
The world-worn man we honor still.

No need to quote the truths he spoke...

Good! said the Padre, believe me still,
'Don Giovanni,' or what you will,
The type's eternal! We knew him here
As Don Diego del Sud. I fear
The story's no new one! Will you hear?
...

Dow's flat. That's its name;
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,
For thar isn't a man on the river as can't spot the place at first view.
...

It was the morning season of the year;
It was the morning era of the land;
The watercourses rang full loud and clear;
Portala's cross stood where Portala's hand
Had planted it when Faith was taught by Fear,...

Two low whistles, quaint and clear:
That was the signal the engineer
That was the signal that Guild, 'tis said
Gave to his wife at Providence,
As through the sleeping town, and thence,
Out in the night,...

'So she's here, your unknown Dulcinea, the lady you met on the train,
And you really believe she would know you if you were to meet her again?'
...

Down the picket-guarded lane
Rolled the comfort-laden wain,
Cheered by shouts that shook the plain,
Soldier-like and merry:
Phrases such as camps may teach,
Sabre-cuts of Saxon speech,...

When I bought you for a song,
Years ago Lord knows how long!
I was struck I may be wrong
By your features,
And a something in your air
That I couldn't quite compare
To my other plain or fair...

It was spring the first time that I saw her, for her papa and mamma moved in
Next door, just as skating was over, and marbles about to begin;...

And you are the poet, and so you want
Something what is it? a theme, a fancy?
Something or other the Muse won't grant
To your old poetical necromancy;
Why, one half you poets you can't deny...

My papa knows you, and he says you're a man who makes reading for books;
But I never read nothing you wrote, nor did Papa, I know by his looks....

I

'Have a care!' the bailiffs cried
From their cockleshell that lay
Off the frigate's yellow side,
Tossing on Scarborough Bay,
While the forty sail it convoyed on a bowline stretched away....

This is the reed the dead musician dropped,
With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
The prompt allegro of its music stopped,
Its melodies unbidden.

But who shall finish the unfinished strain,...

Serene, indifferent of Fate,
Thou sittest at the Western Gate;

Upon thy height, so lately won,
Still slant the banners of the sun;

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,...

It was very hot. Not a breath of air was stirring throughout the western wing of the Greyport Hotel, and the usual feverish life of its four hundred inmates had succumbed to the weather. The great veranda was deserted; the corr...