Poems From The Breakfast Table | Page 5

Age embrace,?As April violets fill with snow.
Tranced in her lord's Olympian smile?His lotus-loving Memphian lies,--?The musky daughter of the Nile,?With plaited hair and almond eyes.
Might we but share one wild caress?Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall,?And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress?The long cold kiss that waits us all!
My bosom heaves, remembering yet?The morning of that blissful day,?When Rose, the flower of spring, I met,?And gave my raptured soul away.
Flung from her eyes of purest blue,?A lasso, with its leaping chain,?Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew?O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain.
Thou com'st to cheer my waning age,?Sweet vision, waited for so long!?Dove that would seek the poet's cage?Lured by the magic breath of song!
She blushes! Ah, reluctant maid,?Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told!?O' er girlhood's yielding barricade?Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold!
Come to my arms!--love heeds not years;?No frost the bud of passion knows.?Ha! what is this my frenzy hears??A voice behind me uttered,--Rose!
Sweet was her smile,--but not for me;?Alas! when woman looks too kind,?Just turn your foolish head and see,--?Some youth is walking close behind!
CONTENTMENT
"Man wants but little here below "
LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;?I only wish a hut of stone,?(A very plain brown stone will do,)?That I may call my own;--?And close at hand is such a one,?In yonder street that fronts the sun.
Plain food is quite enough for me;?Three courses are as good as ten;--?If Nature can subsist on three,?Thank Heaven for three. Amen?I always thought cold victual nice;--?My choice would be vanilla-ice.
I care not much for gold or land;--?Give me a mortgage here and there,--?Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,?Or trifling railroad share,--?I only ask that Fortune send?A little more than I shall spend.
Honors are silly toys, I know,?And titles are but empty names;?I would, perhaps, be Plenipo,--?But only near St. James;?I'm very sure I should not care?To fill our Gubernator's chair.
Jewels are baubles; 't is a sin?To care for such unfruitful things;--?One good-sized diamond in a pin,--?Some, not so large, in rings,--?A ruby, and a pearl, or so,?Will do for me;--I laugh at show.
My dame should dress in cheap attire;?(Good, heavy silks are never dear;)--?I own perhaps I might desire?Some shawls of true Cashmere,--?Some marrowy crapes of China silk,?Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.
I would not have the horse I drive?So fast that folks must stop and stare;?An easy gait--two, forty-five--?Suits me; I do not care;--?Perhaps, for just a single spurt,?Some seconds less would do no hurt.
Of pictures, I should like to own?Titians and Raphaels three or four,--?I love so much their style and tone,?One Turner, and no more,?(A landscape,--foreground golden dirt,--?The sunshine painted with a squirt.)
Of books but few,--some fifty score?For daily use, and bound for wear;?The rest upon an upper floor;--?Some little_ luxury _there?Of red morocco's gilded gleam?And vellum rich as country cream
Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these,?Which others often show for pride,?I value for their power to please,?And selfish churls deride;--?One Stradivarius, I confess,?-Two_ Meerschaums, I would fain possess.
Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn,?Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;--?Shall not carved tables serve my turn,?But all must be of buhl??Give grasping pomp its double share,--?I ask but one recumbent chair.
Thus humble let me live and die,?Nor long for Midas' golden touch;?If Heaven more generous gifts deny,?I shall not miss them much,--?Too grateful for the blessing lent?Of simple tastes and mind content!
AESTIVATION
AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR
IN candent ire the solar splendor flames;?The foles, langueseent, pend from arid rames;?His humid front the Give, anheling, wipes,?And dreams of erring on ventiferous riper.
How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,?Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,?Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,?And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!
To me, alas! no verdurous visions come,?Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum,--?No concave vast repeats the tender hue?That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue!
Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!?Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!?Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,--?Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump!
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE
OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY "
A LOGICAL STORY
HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,?That was built in such a logical way?It ran a hundred years to a day,?And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stay,?I 'll tell you what happened without delay,?Searing the parson into fits,?Frightening people out of their wits,--?Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.?/Georgius Secundus/ was then alive,--?Snuffy old drone from the German hive.?That was the year when Lisbon-town?Saw the earth open and gulp her down,?And Braddock's army was done so brown,?Left without a scalp to its crown.?It was on the terrible Earthquake-day?That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,?There is always somewhere a weakest spot,--?In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,?In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,?In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still,?Find it somewhere you must and will,--?Above