Songs In Many Keys | Page 7

the round table its expected ring,
And while
the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,--
Its silver cherubs
smiling as they heard,--
Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour

The close-sealed primrose frees its hidden flower.
Such the warm life this dim retreat has known,
Not quite deserted
when its guests were flown;
Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive
set,
Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette,
Ready to answer,
never known to ask,
Claiming no service, prompt for every task.

On
those dark shelves no housewife hand profanes,
O'er his mute files

the monarch folio reigns;
A mingled race, the wreck of chance and
time,
That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime,
Each knows
his place, and each may claim his part
In some quaint corner of his
master's heart.
This old Decretal, won from Moss's hoards,

Thick-leaved, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards,
Stands the
gray patriarch of the graver rows,
Its fourth ripe century narrowing to
its close;
Not daily conned, but glorious still to view,
With
glistening letters wrought in red and blue.
There towers Stagira's
all-embracing sage,
The Aldine anchor on his opening page;
There
sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind,
In yon dark tomb by jealous
clasps confused,
"Olim e libris" (dare I call it mine?)
Of Yale's
grave Head and Killingworth's divine!
In those square sheets the
songs of Maro fill
The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville;

High over all, in close, compact array,
Their classic wealth the
Elzevirs display.
In lower regions of the sacred space
Range the
dense volumes of a humbler race;
There grim chirurgeons all their
mysteries teach,
In spectral pictures, or in crabbed speech;
Harvey
and Haller, fresh from Nature's page,
Shoulder the dreamers of an
earlier age,
Lully and Geber, and the learned crew
That loved to
talk of all they could not do.
Why count the rest,--those names of later days
That many love, and
all agree to praise,--
Or point the titles, where a glance may read

The dangerous lines of party or of creed?
Too well, perchance, the
chosen list would show
What few may care and none can claim to
know.
Each has his features, whose exterior seal
A brush may copy,
or a sunbeam steal;
Go to his study,--on the nearest shelf
Stands the
mosaic portrait of himself.
What though for months the tranquil dust descends,
Whitening the
heads of these mine ancient friends,
While the damp offspring of the
modern press
Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress;
Not less I
love each dull familiar face,
Nor less should miss it from the

appointed place;
I snatch the book, along whose burning leaves
His
scarlet web our wild romancer weaves,
Yet, while proud Hester's
fiery pangs I share,
My old MAGNALIA must be standing there!
THE BELLS
WHEN o'er the street the morning peal is flung
From yon tall belfry
with the brazen tongue,
Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale,
To
each far listener tell a different tale.
The sexton, stooping to the
quivering floor
Till the great caldron spills its brassy roar,
Whirls
the hot axle, counting, one by one,
Each dull concussion, till his task
is done.
Toil's patient daughter, when the welcome note
Clangs
through the silence from the steeple's throat,
Streams, a white unit, to
the checkered street,
Demure, but guessing whom she soon shall meet;

The bell, responsive to her secret flame,
With every note repeats
her lover's name.
The lover, tenant of the neighboring lane,
Sighing,
and fearing lest he sigh in vain,
Hears the stern accents, as they come
and go,
Their only burden one despairing No!
Ocean's rough child,
whom many a shore has known
Ere homeward breezes swept him to
his own,
Starts at the echo as it circles round,
A thousand memories
kindling with the sound;
The early favorite's unforgotten charms,

Whose blue initials stain his tawny arms;
His first farewell, the
flapping canvas spread,
The seaward streamers crackling overhead,

His kind, pale mother, not ashamed to weep
Her first-born's bridal
with the haggard deep,
While the brave father stood with tearless eye,

Smiling and choking with his last good-by.
'T is but a wave, whose spreading circle beats,
With the same impulse,
every nerve it meets,
Yet who shall count the varied shapes that ride

On the round surge of that aerial tide!
O child of earth! If floating sounds like these
Steal from thyself their
power to wound or please,

If here or there thy changing will inclines,

As the bright zodiac shifts its rolling signs,
Look at thy heart, and

when its depths are known,
Then try thy brother's, judging by thine
own,
But keep thy wisdom to the narrower range,
While its own
standards are the sport of change,
Nor count us rebels when we
disobey
The passing breath that holds thy passion's sway.
NON-RESISTANCE
PERHAPS too far in these considerate days
Has patience carried her
submissive ways;
Wisdom has taught us to be calm and meek,
To
take one blow, and turn the other cheek;
It is not written what a man
shall do,
If the rude caitiff smite the other too!
Land of our fathers, in thine hour of need
God help thee, guarded by
the passive creed!
As the lone pilgrim trusts to beads and cowl,

When through the forest rings the gray wolf's howl;
As the deep
galleon trusts her gilded prow
When the black corsair slants athwart
her bow;
As