Point Lace and Diamonds | Page 3

form of
dissipation--
And vilest, Oh! confess my pen,
That I, prosaic, rather hate your

"Ode to a Sky-lark" sort of men;
I really am not fond of Nature.

Mad longing for a decent meal
And decent clothing overcame me;

There came a blister on my heel--
I gave it up; and who can blame
me?
Then wrote my "Pulse of Nature's Heart,"
Which I procured some
little cash on,
And quickly packed me to depart
In search of "gilded
haunts" of fashion,
Which I might puff at column rates,
To please
my host and meet my reckoning;
"Base is the slave who"--hesitates

When wealth, and pleasure both are beckoning.

I sought; I found. Among the swells
I had my share of small
successes,
Made languid love to languid belles
And penn'd
descriptions of their dresses.
Ah! Millionairess Millicent,
How fair
you were! How you adored me!
How many tender hours we spent--

And, oh, beloved, how you bored me!
APRIL, 1871.
Is not that fragmentary bit
Of my young verse a perfect prism,

Where worldly knowledge, pleasant wit,
True humor, kindly
cynicism,
Refracted by the frolic glass
Of Fancy, play with change
incessant?
JUNE, 1874.
Great Cæsar! What a sweet young ass
I must have been, when
adolescent!
AUGUST, 1886.
A ROSEBUD IN LENT.
You saw her last, the ball-room's belle,
A _soufflé_, lace and roses
blent;
Your worldly worship moved her then;
She does not know
you now, in Lent.
See her at prayer! Her pleading hands
Bear not one gem of all her
store.
Her face is saint-like. Be rebuked
By those pure eyes, and
gaze no more
Turn, turn away! But carry hence
The lesson she has dumbly taught--

That bright young creature kneeling there
With every feeling,
every thought
Absorbed in high and holy dreams
Of--new Spring dresses truth to
say,
To them the time is sanctified
From Shrove-tide until Easter
day.
A REFORMER.
You call me trifler, fainéant,
And bid me give my life an aim!--

You're most unjust, dear. Hear me out,
And own your hastiness to

blame.
I live with but a single thought;
My inmost heart and soul
are set
On one sole task--a mighty one--
To simplify our alphabet.
Five vowel sounds we use in speech;
They're A, and E, I, O, and U:

I mean to cut them down to four.
You "wonder what good that will
do."
Why, this cold earth will bloom again,
Eden itself be half
re-won,
When breaks the dawn of my success
And U and I at last
are one.
IN THE RECORD ROOM, SURROGATE'S OFFICE.
A tomb where legal ghouls grow fat;
Where buried papers, fold on
fold,
Crumble to dust, that 'thwart the sun
Floats dim, a pallid ghost
of gold.
The day is dying. All about,
Dark, threat'ning shadows lurk;
but still
I ponder o'er a dead girl's name
Fast fading from a dead
man's will.
Katrina Harland, fair and sweet,
Sole heiress of your father's land,

Full many a gallant wooer rode
To snare your heart, to win your hand.

And one, perchance--who loved you best,
Feared men might
sneer--"he sought her gold"--
And never spoke, but turned away

Stubborn and proud, to call you cold.
Cold? Would I knew! Perhaps you loved,
And mourned him all a
virgin life.
Perhaps forgot his very name
As happy mother, happy
wife.
Unanswered, sad, I turn away--
"You loved her_ first, then?"
_First--well--no--
You little goose, the Harland will
Was proved
full sixty years ago.
But Katrine's lands to-day are known
To lawyers as the Glass House
tract;
Who were her heirs, no record shows;
The title's bad, in point
of fact,
If she left children, at her death,
I've been retained to clear
the title;
And all the questions, raised above,
Are, you'll perceive,
extremely vital.

DE LUNATICO.
The squadrons of the sun still hold
The western hills, their armor
glances,
Their crimson banners wide unfold,
Low-levelled lie their
golden lances.
The shadows lurk along the shore,
Where, as our
row-boat lightly passes,
The ripples startled by our oar,
Hide
murmuring 'neath the hanging grasses.
Your eyes are downcast, for the light
Is lingering on your
lids--forgetting
How late it is--for one last sight
Of you the sun
delays his setting.
One hand droops idly from the boat,
And round
the white and swaying fingers,
Like half-blown lilies gone afloat,

The amorous water, toying, lingers.
I see you smile behind your book,
Your gentle eyes concealing, under

Their drooping lids a laughing look
That's partly fun, and partly
wonder
That I, a man of presence grave,
Who fight for bread 'neath
Themis' banner
Should all at once begin to rave
In this--I
trust--Aldrichian manner.
They say our lake is--sad, but true--
The mill-pond of a Yankee
village,
Its swelling shores devoted to
The various forms of kitchen
tillage;
That you're no more a maiden fair,
And I no lover, young
and glowing;
Just an old, sober, married pair,
Who, after tea, have
gone out rowing
Ah, dear, when memories, old and sweet,
Have fooled my reason thus,
believe me,
Your eyes can only help the cheat,
Your smile more
thoroughly deceive me.
I think it well that men, dear wife,
Are
sometimes with such madness smitten,
Else little joy would be in life,

And little poetry be written.
PRO PATRIA ET GLORIA.
The lights blaze high in our brilliant rooms;
Fair are the maidens who

throng our halls;
Soft, through the warm and perfumed air,
The
languid music swells and falls.
The "Seventh" dances and flirts
to-night--
All we