Songs In Many Keys | Page 8

the poor pheasant, with his peaceful mien,
Trusts to his
feathers, shining golden-green,
When the dark plumage with the
crimson beak
Has rustled shadowy from its splintered peak,--
So
trust thy friends, whose babbling tongues would charm
The lifted
sabre from thy foeman's arm,
Thy torches ready for the answering
peal
From bellowing fort and thunder-freighted keel!
THE MORAL BULLY
YON whey-faced brother, who delights to wear
A weedy flux of
ill-conditioned hair,
Seems of the sort that in a crowded place
One
elbows freely into smallest space;
A timid creature, lax of knee and
hip,
Whom small disturbance whitens round the lip;
One of those
harmless spectacled machines,
The Holy-Week of Protestants
convenes;
Whom school-boys question if their walk transcends
The
last advices of maternal friends;
Whom John, obedient to his master's
sign,
Conducts, laborious, up to ninety-nine,
While Peter, glistening
with luxurious scorn,

Husks his white ivories like an ear of corn;


Dark in the brow and bilious in the cheek,
Whose yellowish linen
flowers but once a week,
Conspicuous, annual, in their threadbare
suits,
And the laced high-lows which they call their boots,
Well
mayst thou shun that dingy front severe,
But him, O stranger, him
thou canst not fear.
Be slow to judge, and slower to despise,
Man of broad shoulders and
heroic size
The tiger, writhing from the boa's rings,
Drops at 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