He turned, and could no more be To him Philemon: 'I'll not balk And scratch your toes to blis- How tell to what heaven-hallowed But living breath, the essence Rightly? That's simply: 't is to The yolk and white, conceive who Charis still rises from the sea: '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 A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND ALIKE I hate to be your debtor, For letters, so it seems to me, Our real nature's truant play way; Not drop by drop, with watchful Gathered in Art's deliberate still, As if it had a way to fuse 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 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, And, argue with it as we will, 30 will Through sluices smooth to turn a And, taking solid toll of grist, '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; hope; For wild adventure, settled scope; Judgment, for passion's headlong 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; What's Knowledge, with her At his approach cast down thy Time's crucible, turns lead to My fancy sad to tricks like these. I could not cheat you if I gold; '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 Pierced through with June's deli- Since Noah's keel, a subject seeks, cious sting; 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, And all is tedium, smoke, and Of the weather, for it was raining, |