HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY. I ONLY knew one poet in my life: And this, or something like it, was his way. You saw go up and down Valladolid, Was courtly once and conscientious still, And many might have worn it, though none did: The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. He walked, and tapped the pavement with his cane, An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels. They turned up, now, the alley by the church, That leads no whither; now, they breathed themselves On the main promenade just at the wrong time. You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat, Making a peaked shade blacker than itself Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. That volunteer to help him turn its winch. As a recording chief-inquisitor, The town's true master if the town but knew! We merely kept a governor for form, While this man walked about and took account ... As back into your mind the man's look came. His eyes had to live under !-clear as flint Curved, cut and coloured like an eagle's claw. Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate? And young C. got his mistress,-was 't our friend, What paid the bloodless man for so much pains? Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord, Exhorting when none heard-" Beseech me not! "Too far above my people,-beneath me! "I set the watch,-how should the people know? Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!" Was some such understanding 'twixt the two? I found no truth in one report at least― That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, You found he ate his supper in a room Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall, And twenty naked girls to change his plate! Poor man, he lived another kind of life In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge, Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise! The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat, Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back, Playing a decent cribbage with his maid (Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheese And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears, Or treat of radishes in April. Nine, Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he. My father, like the man of sense he was, Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news, He had a great observance from us boys; I'd like now, yet had haply been afraid, Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death, In his old coat and up to knees in mud, Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust,— And, now the day was won, relieved at once! No further show or need of that old coat, You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I! A second, and the angels alter that. Well, I could never write a verse,-could you? PROTUS. AMONG these latter busts we count by scores, Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest, As those were all the little locks could bear. Now read here. "Protus ends a period "Of empery beginning with a god; "Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant, Queens by his cradle, proud and ministrant : "And if he quickened breath there, 't would like fire "Pantingly through the dim vast realm transpire. "A fame that he was missing, spread afar : "The world, from its four corners, rose in war, "Till he was borne out on a balcony "To pacify the world when it should see. "The captains ranged before him, one, his hand "Made baby points at, gained the chief command. "And day by day more beautiful he grew "In shape, all said, in feature and in hue, |