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That whole day long the Taylor pup
This way and that did hie
Upon his mad, erratic course,
Intent on getting dry.

That night when Mr. Taylor came
His vesper meal to eat,
He uttered things my pious pen
Would liefer not repeat.

Yet still that noble Taylor pup
Survives to romp and bark
And stumble over folks and things
In fair Buena Park.

Good sooth, I wot he should be called

Buena's favorite son

Who's sired of such a noble sire
And dammed by every one!

AFTER READING TROLLOPE'S HISTORY OF FLORENCE

My books are on their shelves again
And clouds lie low with mist and rain.

Afar the Arno murmurs low

The tale of fields of melting snow.
List to the bells of times agone

The while I wait me for the dawn.

Beneath great Giotto's Campanile

The gray ghosts throng; their whispers steal
From poets' bosoms long since dust;
They ask me now to go. I trust
Their fleeter footsteps where again
They come at night and live as men.

The rain falls on Ghiberti's gates;
The big drops hang on purple dates;

AFTER READING TROLLOPE'S HISTORY OF FLORENCE

And yet beneath the ilex-shades

Dear trysting-place for boys and maids-
There comes a form from days of old,
With Beatrice's hair of gold.

The breath of lands or lilied streams
Floats through the fabric of my dreams;
And yonder from the hills of song,
Where psalmists brood and prophets throng
The lone, majestic Dante leads
His love across the blooming meads.

Along the almond walks I tread
And greet the figures of the dead.
Mirandula walks here with him
Who lived with gods and seraphim;
Yet where Colonna's fair feet go
There passes Michael Angelo.

In Rome or Florence, still with her
Stands lone and grand her worshipper.
In Leonardo's brain there move
Christ and the children of His love;
And Raphael is touching now,
For the last time, an angel's brow.

Angelico is praying yet

Where lives no pang of man's regret,
And, mixing tears and prayers within
His palette's wealth, absolved from sin,
He dips his brush in hues divine;
San Marco's angel faces shine.

Within Lorenzo's garden green,
Where olives hide their boughs between,
The lovers, as they read betimes
Their love within Petrarca's lines,
Stand near the marbles found at Rome,

Lost shades that search in vain for home.

197

They pace the paths along the stream,
Dark Vallombrosa in their dream.
They sing, amidst the rain-drenched pines,
Of Tuscan gold that ruddier shines
Behind a saint's auroral face

That shows e'en yet the master's trace.

But lo, within the walls of gray,
Ere yet there falls a glint of day,
And far without, from hill to vale,
Where honey-hearted nightingale
Or meads of pale anemones

Make sweet the coming morning breeze

I hear a voice, of prophet tone,
A voice of doom, like his alone
That once in Gadara was heard;
The old walls trembled-lo, the bird
Has ceased to sing, and yonder waits
Lorenzo at his palace gates.

Some Romola in passing by
Turns toward the ruler, and his sigh
Wanders amidst the myrtle bowers
Or o'er the city's mantled towers,
For she is Florence! "Wilt thou hear
San Marco's prophet? Doom is near."

"Her liberties," he cries, "restore!
This much for Florence-yea, and more
To men and God!" The days are gone;
And in an hour of perfect dawn

I stand beneath the cypress trees
That shiver still with words like these.

"C THE OLD HOMESTEAD"

199

"THE OLD HOMESTEAD"

JEST as atween the awk'ard lines a hand we love has penn'd
Appears a meanin' hid from other eyes,

So, in your simple, homespun art, old honest Yankee friend,
A power o' tearful, sweet seggestion lies.

We see it all-the pictur' that our mem'ries hold so dear—
The homestead in New England far away,

An' the vision is so nat'ral-like we almost seem to hear
The voices that were heshed but yesterday.

Ah, who'd ha' thought the music of that distant childhood time Would sleep through all the changeful, bitter years

To waken into melodies like Chris'mas bells a-chime

An' to claim the ready tribute of our tears!

Why, the robins in the maples an' the blackbirds round the pond, The crickets an' the locusts in the leaves,

The brook that chased the trout adown the hillside just beyond, An' the swallers in their nests beneath the eaves—

They all come troopin' back with you, dear Uncle Josh, to-day, An' they seem to sing with all the joyous zest

Of the days when we were Yankee boys an' Yankee girls at play, With nary thought of "livin' way out West"!

God bless ye, Denman Thomps'n, for the good y' do our hearts
With this music an' these memories o' youth-
God bless ye for the faculty that tops all human arts,
The good ol' Yankee faculty of Truth!

THE CONVALESCENT GRIPSTER

THE gods let slip that fiendish grip
Upon me last week Sunday-

No fiercer storm than racked my form
E'er swept the Bay of Fundy:

But now, good-by

To drugs, say I

Good-by to gnawing sorrow;

I am up to-day,

And, whoop, hooray!

I'm going out to-morrow!

What aches and pain in bones and brain
I had I need not mention;

It seemed to me such pangs must be
Old Satan's own invention;

Albeit I

Was sure I'd die,

The doctor reassured me

And, true enough,

With his vile stuff,

He ultimately cured me.

As there I lay in bed all day,

How fair outside looked to me!

A smile so mild old Nature smiled

It seemed to warm clean through me. In chastened mood

The scene I viewed,

Inventing, sadly solus,

Fantastic rhymes

Between the times

I had to take a bolus.

Of quinine slugs and other drugs

I guess I took a million-
Such drugs as serve to set each nerve

To dancing a cotillon;

The doctors say

The only way

To rout the grip instanter

Is to pour

in

All kinds of sin

Similibus curantur!

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