Songs In Many Keys | Page 8

the fountain where the cobra stings.?In that lean phantom, whose extended glove?Points to the text of universal love,?Behold the master that can tame thee down?To crouch, the vassal of his Sunday frown;?His velvet throat against thy corded wrist,?His loosened tongue against thy doubled fist
The MORAL BULLY, though he never swears,?Nor kicks intruders down his entry stairs,?Though meekness plants his backward-sloping hat,?And non-resistance ties his white cravat,?Though his black broadcloth glories to be seen?In the same plight with Shylock's gaberdine,?Hugs the same passion to his narrow breast?That heaves the cuirass on the trooper's chest,?Hears the same hell-hounds yelling in his rear?That chase from port the maddened buccaneer,?Feels the same comfort while his acrid words?Turn the sweet milk of kindness into curds,?Or with grim logic prove, beyond debate,?That all we love is worthiest of our hate,?As the scarred ruffian of the pirate's deck,?When his long swivel rakes the staggering wreck!
Heaven keep us all! Is every rascal clown?Whose arm is stronger free to knock us down??Has every scarecrow, whose cachectic soul?Seems fresh from Bedlam, airing on parole,?Who, though he carries but a doubtful trace?Of angel visits on his hungry face,?From lack of marrow or the coins to pay,?Has dodged some vices in a shabby way,?The right to stick us with his cutthroat terms,?And bait his homilies with his brother worms?
THE MIND'S DIET
No life worth naming ever comes to good?If always nourished on the selfsame food;?The creeping mite may live so if he please,?And feed on Stilton till he turns to cheese,?But cool Magendie proves beyond a doubt,?If mammals try it, that their eyes drop out.
No reasoning natures find it safe to feed,?For their sole diet, on a single creed;?It spoils their eyeballs while it spares their tongues,?And starves the heart to feed the noisy lungs.
When the first larvae on the elm are seen,?The crawling wretches, like its leaves, are green;?Ere chill October shakes the latest down,?They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown;?On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy,?You stretch to pluck it--'tis a butterfly;?The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark,?They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark;?The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud,?Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood;?So by long living on a single lie,?Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye;?Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,--?Except when squabbling turns them black and blue!
OUR LIMITATIONS
WE trust and fear, we question and believe,?From life's dark threads a trembling faith to weave,?Frail as the web that misty night has spun,?Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun.?While the calm centuries spell their lessons out,?Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt;?When Sinai's summit was Jehovah's throne,?The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone;?When Pilate's hall that awful question heard,?The Heavenly Captive answered not a word.
Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears?Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres!?From age to age, while History carves sublime?On her waste rock the flaming curves of time,?How the wild swayings of our planet show?That worlds unseen surround the world we know.
THE OLD PLAYER
THE curtain rose; in thunders long and loud?The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed.?In flaming line the telltales of the stage?Showed on his brow the autograph of age;?Pale, hueless waves amid his clustered hair,?And umbered shadows, prints of toil and care;?Round the wide circle glanced his vacant eye,--?He strove to speak,--his voice was but a sigh.
Year after year had seen its short-lived race?Flit past the scenes and others take their place;?Yet the old prompter watched his accents still,?His name still flaunted on the evening's bill.?Heroes, the monarchs of the scenic floor,?Had died in earnest and were heard no more;?Beauties, whose cheeks such roseate bloom o'er-spread?They faced the footlights in unborrowed red,?Had faded slowly through successive shades?To gray duennas, foils of younger maids;?Sweet voices lost the melting tones that start?With Southern throbs the sturdy Saxon heart,?While fresh sopranos shook the painted sky?With their long, breathless, quivering locust-cry.?Yet there he stood,--the man of other days,?In the clear present's full, unsparing blaze,?As on the oak a faded leaf that clings?While a new April spreads its burnished wings.
How bright yon rows that soared in triple tier,?Their central sun the flashing chandelier!?How dim the eye that sought with doubtful aim?Some friendly smile it still might dare to claim?How fresh these hearts! his own how worn and cold!?Such the sad thoughts that long-drawn sigh had told.?No word yet faltered on his trembling tongue;?Again, again, the crashing galleries rung.?As the old guardsman at the bugle's blast?Hears in its strain the echoes of the past,?So, as the plaudits rolled and thundered round,?A life of memories startled at the sound.?He lived again,--the page of earliest days,--?Days of small fee and parsimonious praise;?Then lithe young Romeo--hark that silvered tone,?From those smooth lips--alas! they were his own.?Then the bronzed Moor, with all his love and woe,?Told his strange tale of midnight