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He turned, and could no more be To him Philemon: 'I'll not balk

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And scratch your toes to blis- How tell to what heaven-hallowed

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But living breath, the essence Rightly? That's simply: 't is to

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The yolk and white, conceive who Charis still rises from the sea:

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'Bless Zeus!' she cried,' I'm safe below!'

First pale, then red as coral; And I, still drowsy, pondered slow, And seemed to find, but hardly know,

Something like this for moral.

Each day the world is born anew

For him who takes it rightly; Not fresher that which Adam knew,

Not sweeter that whose moonlit dew

If you can't find her, might it be
Because you seek within you?

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A

FRIEND

ALIKE I hate to be your debtor,
Or write a mere perfunctory let-
ter;

For letters, so it seems to me,
Our careless quintessence should
be,

Our real nature's truant play
When Consciousness looks t' other

way;

Not drop by drop, with watchful
skill,

Gathered in Art's deliberate still,
But life's insensible completeness
Got as the ripe grape gets its
sweetness,

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As if it had a way to fuse
The golden sunlight into juice.
Hopeless my mental pump I try,
The boxes hiss, the tube is dry;
As those petroleum wells that
spout

Awhile like M. C.'s, then give out, Entranced Arcadia nightly. 150 My spring, once full as Arethusa,

Is a mere bore as dry 's Creusa; And yet you ask me why I'm glum,

My dear old Friend, you 're very wise;

We always are with others' eyes,

And why my graver Muse is And see so clear! (our neighbor's

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When life, once past its fortieth Are fain to make a shift with Wis

dom,

year, Wheels up its evening hemi- And, finding she nor breaks nor

sphere,

bends,

The mind's own shadow, which Give her a letter to their friends. Draw passion's torrent whoso

the boy

Saw onward point to hope and joy,
Shifts round, irrevocably set
Tow'rd morning's loss and vain
regret,

And, argue with it as we will,
The clock is unconverted still.

30

will

Through sluices smooth to turn a
mill,

And, taking solid toll of grist,
Forget the rainbow in the mist, 60
The exulting leap, the aimless
haste

'But count the gains,' I hear you Scattered in iridescent waste;

say, Prefer who likes the sure esteem 'Which far the seeming loss out- To cheated youth's midsummer

dream,

weigh; Friendships built firm 'gainst flood When every friend was more than

and wind

On rock-foundations of the mind;
Knowledge instead of scheming

hope;

For wild adventure, settled scope;
Talents, from surface-ore profuse,
Tempered and edged to tools for
use;

Judgment, for passion's headlong
whirls;

Damon,

Each quicksand safe to build a fame on;

Believe that prudence snug excels

Youth's gross of verdant spectacles,

Through which earth's withered stubble seen

Looks autumn-proof as painted

green,

70

Old sorrows crystalled into pearls;
Losses by patience turned to I side with Moses 'gainst the

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What's Knowledge, with her At his approach cast down thy

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Time's crucible, turns lead to My fancy sad to tricks like these. I could not cheat you if I

gold;

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'T was an old couple, says the Nor Nature fails my walks to poet, bless

know it;

That lodged the gods and did not With all her golden inwardness; And as blind nestlings, unafraid, Stretch up wide-mouthed to every shade

Youth sees and knows them as

they were

Before Olympus' top was bare; From Swampscot's flats his eye divine

Sees Venus rocking on the brine, With lucent limbs, that somehow

scatter a

130

By which their downy dream is stirred,

Taking it for the mother-bird, So, when God's shadow, which is light,

Unheralded, by day or night,

Charm that turns Doll to Cleo- My wakening instincts falls across,

patra ;

100

Bacchus (that now is scarce induced

To give Eld's lagging blood a boost),

With cymbals' clang and pards to draw him,

Divine as Ariadne saw him,

Silent as sunbeams over moss, In my heart's nest half-conscious things

Stir with a helpless sense of wings, Lift themselves up, and tremble long

With premonitions sweet of song.

Storms through Youth's pulse Be patient, and perhaps (who

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Pierced through with June's deli- Since Noah's keel, a subject seeks,

cious sting;

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And lies upon the watch for weeks; That once harpooned and helpless lying,

What follows is but weary trying.

181

Now I've a notion, if a poet Beat up for themes, his verse will show it;

I wait for subjects that hunt me, By day or night won't let me be, And hang about me like a curse,

But let me end with a compari- Till they have made me into verse,

son

Never yet hit upon by e'er a son Of our American Apollo,

From line to line my fingers tease Beyond my knowledge, as the bees Build no new cell till those before

(And there's where I shall beat With limpid summer sweet run

them hollow,

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And all is tedium, smoke, and Of the weather, for it was raining,

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