Poems from The Teacups | Page 9

must woo,?Whom, one dark night, a masked sicarius slew;?The same black Crassus over roughly pressed?To hear his suit,--the Tiber knows the rest.?(Crassus was missed next morning by his set;?Next week the fishers found him in their net.)?She with the others paced the ample hall,?Fairest, alas! and saddest of them all.
At length the Greek declared, with puzzled face,?Some strange enchantment mingled in the case,?And naught would serve to act as counter-charm?Save a warm bracelet from a maiden's arm.?Not every maiden's,--many might be tried;?Which not in vain, experience must decide.?Were there no damsels willing to attend?And do such service for a suffering friend??The message passed among the waiting crowd,?First in a whisper, then proclaimed aloud.?Some wore no jewels; some were disinclined,?For reasons better guessed at than defined;?Though all were saints,--at least professed to be,--?The list all counted, there were named but three.?The leech, still seated by the patient's side,?Held his thin wrist, and watched him, eagle-eyed.?Aurelia first, a fair-haired Tuscan girl,?Slipped off her golden asp, with eyes of pearl.?His solemn head the grave physician shook;?The waxen features thanked her with a look.?Olympia next, a creature half divine,?Sprung from the blood of old Evander's line,?Held her white arm, that wore a twisted chain?Clasped with an opal-sheeny cymophane.?In vain, O daughter I said the baffled Greek.?The patient sighed the thanks he could not speak.
Last, Hermia entered; look, that sudden start!?The pallium heaves above his leaping heart;?The beating pulse, the cheek's rekindled flame,?Those quivering lips, the secret all proclaim.?The deep disease long throbbing in the breast,?The dread enchantment, all at once confessed!?The case was plain; the treatment was begun;?And Love soon cured the mischief he had done.
Young Love, too oft thy treacherous bandage slips?Down from the eyes it blinded to the lips!?Ask not the Gods, O youth, for clearer sight,?But the bold heart to plead thy cause aright.?And thou, fair maiden, when thy lovers sigh,?Suspect thy flattering ear, but trust thine eye;?And learn this secret from the tale of old?No love so true as love that dies untold.
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"Bravo, Annex!" they shouted, every one,--?"Not Mrs. Kemble's self had better done."?"Quite so," she stammered in her awkward way,--?Not just the thing, but something she must say.
The teaspoon chorus tinkled to its close?When from his chair the MAN OF LAW arose,?Called by her voice whose mandate all obeyed,?And took the open volume she displayed.?Tall, stately, strong, his form begins to own?Some slight exuberance in its central zone,--?That comely fulness of the growing girth?Which fifty summers lend the sons of earth.?A smooth, round disk about whose margin stray,?Above the temples, glistening threads of gray;?Strong, deep-cut grooves by toilsome decades wrought?On brow and mouth, the battle-fields of thought;?A voice that lingers in the listener's ear,?Grave, calm, far-reaching, every accent clear,--?(Those tones resistless many a foreman knew?That shaped their verdict ere the twelve withdrew;)?A statesman's forehead, athlete's throat and jaw,?Such the proud semblance of the Man of Law.?His eye just lighted on the printed leaf,?Held as a practised pleader holds his brief.?One whispered softly from behind his cup,?"He does not read,--his book is wrong side up!?He knows the story that it holds by heart,--?So like his own! How well he'll act his part!"?Then all were silent; not a rustling fan?Stirred the deep stillness as the voice began.
THE STATESMAN'S SECRET
WHO of all statesmen is his country's pride,?Her councils' prompter and her leaders' guide??He speaks; the nation holds its breath to hear;?He nods, and shakes the sunset hemisphere.?Born where the primal fount of Nature springs?By the rude cradles of her throneless kings,?In his proud eye her royal signet flames,?By his own lips her Monarch she proclaims.?Why name his countless triumphs, whom to meet?Is to be famous, envied in defeat??The keen debaters, trained to brawls and strife,?Who fire one shot, and finish with the knife,?Tried him but once, and, cowering in their shame,?Ground their hacked blades to strike at meaner game.?The lordly chief, his party's central stay,?Whose lightest word a hundred votes obey,?Found a new listener seated at his side,?Looked in his eye, and felt himself defied,?Flung his rash gauntlet on the startled floor,?Met the all-conquering, fought,--and ruled no more.?See where he moves, what eager crowds attend!?What shouts of thronging multitudes ascend!?If this is life,--to mark with every hour?The purple deepening in his robes of power,?To see the painted fruits of honor fall?Thick at his feet, and choose among them all,?To hear the sounds that shape his spreading name?Peal through the myriad organ-stops of fame,?Stamp the lone isle that spots the seaman's chart,?And crown the pillared glory of the mart,?To count as peers the few supremely wise?Who mark their planet in the angels' eyes,--?If this is life--?What savage man is he?Who strides alone beside the sounding sea??Alone he wanders by the murmuring shore,?His thoughts as restless as the waves that roar;?Looks on the sullen sky