Complete Poetical Works

HER LAST LETTER

BEING A REPLY TO "HIS ANSWER"     June 4th!  Do you know what that date means?       June 4th!  By this air and these pines!     Well,—only you know how I hate scenes,—       These might be my very last lines!     For perhaps, sir, you'll kindly remember—       If some OTHER things you've forgot—     That you last wrote the 4th of DECEMBER,—       Just six months ago I—from this spot;     From this spot, that you said was "the fairest       For once being held in my thought."     Now, really I call that the barest       Of—well, I won't say what I ought!     For here I am back from my "riches,"       My "triumphs," my "tours," and all that;     And YOU'RE not to be found in the ditches       Or temples of Poverty Flat!     From Paris we went for the season       To London, when pa wired, "Stop."     Mama says "his HEALTH" was the reason.       (I've heard that some things took a "drop.")     But she said if my patience I'd summon       I could go back with him to the Flat—     Perhaps I was thinking of some one       Who of me—well—was not thinking THAT!     Of course you will SAY that I "never       Replied to the letter you wrote."     That is just like a man!  But, however,       I read it—or how could I quote?     And as to the stories you've heard (No,       Don't tell me you haven't—I know!),     You'll not believe one blessed word, Joe;       But just whence they came, let them go!     And they came from Sade Lotski of Yolo,       Whose father sold clothes on the Bar—     You called him Job-lotski, you know, Joe,       And the boys said HER value was par.     Well, we met her in Paris—just flaring       With diamonds, and lost in a hat     And she asked me "how Joseph was faring       In his love-suit on Poverty Flat!"     She thought it would shame me!  I met her       With a look, Joe, that made her eyes drop;     And I said that your "love-suit fared better       Than any suit out of THEIR shop!"     And I didn't blush THEN—as I'm doing       To find myself here, all alone,     And left, Joe, to do all the "sueing"       To a lover that's certainly flown.     In this brand-new hotel, called "The Lily"       (I wonder who gave it that name?)     I really am feeling quite silly,       To think I was once called the same;     And I stare from its windows, and fancy       I'm labeled to each passer-by.     Ah! gone is the old necromancy,       For nothing seems right to my eye.     On that hill there are stores that I knew not;       There's a street—where I once lost my way;     And the copse where you once tied my shoe-knot       Is shamelessly open as day!     And that bank by the spring—I once drank there,       And you called the place Eden, you know;     Now I'm banished like Eve—though the bank there       Is belonging to "Adams and Co."     There's the rustle of silk on the sidewalk;       Just now there passed by a tall hat;     But there's gloom in this "boom" and this wild talk       Of the "future" of Poverty Flat.     There's a decorous chill in the air, Joe,       Where once we were simple and free;     And I hear they've been making a mayor, Joe,       Of the man who shot Sandy McGee.     But there's still the "lap, lap" of the river;       There's the song of the pines, deep and low.     (How my longing for them made me quiver       In the park that they call Fontainebleau!)     There's the snow-peak that looked on our dances,       And blushed when the morning said, "Go!"     There's a lot that remains which one fancies—       But somehow there's never a Joe!     Perhaps, on the whole, it is better,       For you might have been changed like the rest;     Though it's strange that I'm trusting this letter       To papa, just to have it addressed.     He thinks he may find you, and really       Seems kinder now I'm all alone.     You might have been here, Joe, if merely       To LOOK what I'm willing to OWN.     Well, well! that's all past; so good-night, Joe;       Good-night to the river and Flat;     Good-night to what's wrong and what's right, Joe;       Good-night to the past, and all that—     To Harrison's barn, and its dancers;       To the moon, and the white peak of snow;     And good-night to the canyon that answers       My "Joe!" with its echo of "No!"P. S     I've just got your note.  You deceiver!       How dared you—how COULD you?  Oh, Joe!     To think I've been kept a believer       In things that were six months ago!     And it's YOU'VE built this house, and the bank, too,       And the mills, and the stores, and all that!     And for everything changed I must thank YOU,       Who have "struck it" on Poverty Flat!     How dared you get rich—you great stupid!—       Like papa, and some men that I know,     Instead of just trusting to Cupid       And to me for your money?  Ah, Joe!     Just to think you sent never a word, dear,       Till you wrote to papa for consent!     Now I know why they had me transferred here,       And "the health of papa"—what THAT meant!     Now I know why they call this "The Lily;"       Why the man who shot Sandy McGee     You made mayor!  'Twas because—oh, you silly!—       He once "went down the middle" with me!     I've been fooled to the top of my bent here,       So come, and ask pardon—you know     That you've still got to get MY consent, dear!       And just think what that echo said—Joe!

V. PARODIES

BEFORE THE CURTAIN

     Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,     A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze     Of flaring gas and curious eyes that gaze.     The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,     And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride,     Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.     Ah, well! no passion walks its humble boards;     O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords:     The simplest skill is all its space affords.     The song and jest, the dance and trifling play,     The local hit at follies of the day,     The trick to pass an idle hour away,—     For these no trumpets that announce the Moor,     No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,—     A single fiddle in the overture!

TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL2

(A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS)     "Speak, O man, less recent!  Fragmentary fossil!     Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,     Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum         Of volcanic tufa!     "Older than the beasts, the oldest Palaeotherium;     Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami;     Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions         Of earth's epidermis!     "Eo—Mio—Plio—whatsoe'er the 'cene' was     That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder,—     Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches,—         Tell us thy strange story!     "Or has the professor slightly antedated     By some thousand years thy advent on this planet,     Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted         For cold-blooded creatures?     "Wert thou true spectator of that mighty forest     When above thy head the stately Sigillaria     Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant         Carboniferous epoch?     "Tell us of that scene,—the dim and watery woodland,     Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect,     Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club mosses,         Lycopodiacea,—     "When beside thee walked the solemn Plesiosaurus,     And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus,     While from time to time above thee flew and circled         Cheerful Pterodactyls.     "Tell us of thy food,—those half-marine refections,     Crinoids on the shell and Brachipods au naturel,—     Cuttlefish to which the pieuvre of Victor Hugo         Seems a periwinkle.     "Speak, thou awful vestige of the earth's creation,     Solitary fragment of remains organic!     Tell the wondrous secret of thy past existence,—         Speak! thou oldest primate!"     Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla,     And a lateral movement of the condyloid process,     With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication,         Ground the teeth together.     And from that imperfect dental exhibition,     Stained with express juices of the weed nicotian,     Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs         Of expectoration:     "Which my name is Bowers, and my crust was busted     Falling down a shaft in Calaveras County;     But I'd take it kindly if you'd send the pieces         Home to old Missouri!"

THE BALLAD OF MR. COOKE

(LEGEND OF THE CLIFF HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO)     Where the sturdy ocean breeze     Drives the spray of roaring seas,     That the Cliff House balconies          Overlook:     There, in spite of rain that balked,     With his sandals duly chalked,     Once upon a tight-rope walked          Mr. Cooke.     But the jester's lightsome mien,     And his spangles and his sheen,     All had vanished when the scene          He forsook.     Yet in some delusive hope,     In some vague desire to cope,     ONE still came to view the rope          Walked by Cooke.     Amid Beauty's bright array,     On that strange eventful day,     Partly hidden from the spray,          In a nook,     Stood Florinda Vere de Vere;     Who, with wind-disheveled hair,     And a rapt, distracted air,          Gazed on Cooke.     Then she turned, and quickly cried     To her lover at her side,     While her form with love and pride         Wildly shook:     "Clifford Snook! oh, hear me now!     Here I break each plighted vow;     There's but one to whom I bow,          And that's Cooke!"     Haughtily that young man spoke:     "I descend from noble folk;     'Seven Oaks,' and then 'Se'nnoak,'          Lastly 'Snook,'     Is the way my name I trace.     Shall a youth of noble race     In affairs of love give place          To a Cooke?"     "Clifford Snook, I know thy claim     To that lineage and name,     And I think I've read the same          In Horne Tooke;     But I swear, by all divine,     Never, never, to be thine,     Till thou canst upon yon line          Walk like Cooke."     Though to that gymnastic feat     He no closer might compete     Than to strike a BALANCE-sheet          In a book;     Yet thenceforward from that day     He his figure would display     In some wild athletic way,          After Cooke.     On some household eminence,     On a clothes-line or a fence,     Over ditches, drains, and thence          O'er a brook,     He, by high ambition led,     Ever walked and balanced,     Till the people, wondering, said,          "How like Cooke!"     Step by step did he proceed,     Nerved by valor, not by greed,     And at last the crowning deed          Undertook.     Misty was the midnight air,     And the cliff was bleak and bare,     When he came to do and dare,          Just like Cooke.     Through the darkness, o'er the flow,     Stretched the line where he should go,     Straight across as flies the crow          Or the rook.     One wild glance around he cast;     Then he faced the ocean blast,     And he strode the cable last          Touched by Cooke.     Vainly roared the angry seas,     Vainly blew the ocean breeze;     But, alas! the walker's knees          Had a crook;     And before he reached the rock     Did they both together knock,     And he stumbled with a shock—          Unlike Cooke!     Downward dropping in the dark,     Like an arrow to its mark,     Or a fish-pole when a shark          Bites the hook,     Dropped the pole he could not save,     Dropped the walker, and the wave     Swift engulfed the rival brave          Of J. Cooke!     Came a roar across the sea     Of sea-lions in their glee,     In a tongue remarkably          Like Chinook;     And the maddened sea-gull seemed     Still to utter, as he screamed,     "Perish thus the wretch who deemed          Himself Cooke!"     But on misty moonlit nights     Comes a skeleton in tights,     Walks once more the giddy heights          He mistook;     And unseen to mortal eyes,     Purged of grosser earthly ties,     Now at last in spirit guise          Outdoes Cooke.     Still the sturdy ocean breeze     Sweeps the spray of roaring seas,     Where the Cliff House balconies          Overlook;     And the maidens in their prime,     Reading of this mournful rhyme,     Weep where, in the olden time,          Walked J. Cooke.

THE BALLAD OF THE EMEU

     Oh, say, have you seen at the Willows so green—       So charming and rurally true—     A singular bird, with a manner absurd,       Which they call the Australian Emeu?           Have you       Ever seen this Australian Emeu?     It trots all around with its head on the ground,       Or erects it quite out of your view;     And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy,       "Oh! what a sweet pretty Emeu!           Oh! do       Just look at that lovely Emeu!"     One day to this spot, when the weather was hot,       Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue;     And beside her there came a youth of high name,—       Augustus Florell Montague:           The two       Both loved that wild, foreign Emeu.     With two loaves of bread then they fed it, instead       Of the flesh of the white Cockatoo,     Which once was its food in that wild neighborhood       Where ranges the sweet Kangaroo,           That too       Is game for the famous Emeu!     Old saws and gimlets but its appetite whets,       Like the world-famous bark of Peru;     There's nothing so hard that the bird will discard,       And nothing its taste will eschew           That you       Can give that long-legged Emeu!     The time slipped away in this innocent play,       When up jumped the bold Montague:     "Where's that specimen pin that I gayly did win       In raffle, and gave unto you,           Fortescue?"       No word spoke the guilty Emeu!     "Quick! tell me his name whom thou gavest that same,       Ere these hands in thy blood I imbrue!"     "Nay, dearest," she cried, as she clung to his side,       "I'm innocent as that Emeu!"           "Adieu!"       He replied, "Miss M. H. Fortescue!"     Down she dropped at his feet, all as white as a sheet,       As wildly he fled from her view;     He thought 'twas her sin,—for he knew not the pin       Had been gobbled up by the Emeu;          All through       The voracity of that Emeu!

MRS. JUDGE JENKINS

(BEING THE ONLY GENUINE SEQUEL TO "MAUD MULLER")     Maud Muller all that summer day     Raked the meadow sweet with hay;     Yet, looking down the distant lane,     She hoped the Judge would come again.     But when he came, with smile and bow,     Maud only blushed, and stammered, "Ha-ow?"     And spoke of her "pa," and wondered whether     He'd give consent they should wed together.     Old Muller burst in tears, and then     Begged that the Judge would lend him "ten;"     For trade was dull, and wages low,     And the "craps," this year, were somewhat slow.     And ere the languid summer died,     Sweet Maud became the Judge's bride.     But on the day that they were mated,     Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated;     And Maud's relations, twelve in all,     Were very drunk at the Judge's hall.     And when the summer came again,     The young bride bore him babies twain;     And the Judge was blest, but thought it strange     That bearing children made such a change;     For Maud grew broad and red and stout,     And the waist that his arm once clasped about     Was more than he now could span; and he     Sighed as he pondered, ruefully,     How that which in Maud was native grace     In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;     And thought of the twins, and wished that they     Looked less like the men who raked the hay     On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain     Of the day he wandered down the lane.     And looking down that dreary track,     He half regretted that he came back;     For, had he waited, he might have wed     Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;     For there be women fair as she,     Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.     Alas for maiden! alas for judge!     And the sentimental,—that's one-half "fudge;"     For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore,     With all his learning and all his lore;     And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face     For more refinement and social grace.     If, of all words of tongue and pen,     The saddest are, "It might have been,"     More sad are these we daily see:     "It is, but hadn't ought to be."

A GEOLOGICAL MADRIGAL

     I have found out a gift for my fair;       I know where the fossils abound,     Where the footprints of Aves declare       The birds that once walked on the ground.     Oh, come, and—in technical speech—       We'll walk this Devonian shore,     Or on some Silurian beach       We'll wander, my love, evermore.     I will show thee the sinuous track       By the slow-moving Annelid made,     Or the Trilobite that, farther back,       In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid;     Thou shalt see, in his Jurassic tomb,       The Plesiosaurus embalmed;     In his Oolitic prime and his bloom,       Iguanodon safe and unharmed.     You wished—I remember it well,       And I loved you the more for that wish—     For a perfect cystedian shell       And a WHOLE holocephalic fish.     And oh, if Earth's strata contains       In its lowest Silurian drift,     Or palaeozoic remains       The same, 'tis your lover's free gift!     Then come, love, and never say nay,       But calm all your maidenly fears;     We'll note, love, in one summer's day       The record of millions of years;     And though the Darwinian plan       Your sensitive feelings may shock,     We'll find the beginning of man,       Our fossil ancestors, in rock!

AVITOR

(AN AERIAL RETROSPECT)     What was it filled my youthful dreams,     In place of Greek or Latin themes,     Or beauty's wild, bewildering beams?          Avitor!     What visions and celestial scenes     I filled with aerial machines,     Montgolfier's and Mr. Green's!          Avitor!     What fairy tales seemed things of course!     The roc that brought Sindbad across,     The Calendar's own winged horse!          Avitor!     How many things I took for facts,—     Icarus and his conduct lax,     And how he sealed his fate with wax!          Avitor!     The first balloons I sought to sail,     Soap-bubbles fair, but all too frail,     Or kites,—but thereby hangs a tail.          Avitor!     What made me launch from attic tall     A kitten and a parasol,     And watch their bitter, frightful fall?          Avitor!     What youthful dreams of high renown     Bade me inflate the parson's gown,     That went not up, nor yet came down?          Avitor!     My first ascent I may not tell;     Enough to know that in that well     My first high aspirations fell.          Avitor!     My other failures let me pass:     The dire explosions, and, alas!     The friends I choked with noxious gas.          Avitor!     For lo! I see perfected rise     The vision of my boyish eyes,     The messenger of upper skies.          Avitor!

THE WILLOWS

(AFTER EDGAR ALLAN POE)     The skies they were ashen and sober,       The streets they were dirty and drear;     It was night in the month of October,       Of my most immemorial year.     Like the skies, I was perfectly sober,       As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,—     At the Nightingale,—perfectly sober,       And the willowy woodland down here.     Here, once in an alley Titanic       Of Ten-pins, I roamed with my soul,—       Of Ten-pins, with Mary, my soul;     They were days when my heart was volcanic,       And impelled me to frequently roll,       And made me resistlessly roll,     Till my ten-strikes created a panic       In the realms of the Boreal pole,—     Till my ten-strikes created a panic       With the monkey atop of his pole.     I repeat, I was perfectly sober,       But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,—       My thoughts were decidedly queer;     For I knew not the month was October,       And I marked not the night of the year;     I forgot that sweet morceau of Auber       That the band oft performed down here,     And I mixed the sweet music of Auber       With the Nightingale's music by Shear.     And now as the night was senescent,       And star-dials pointed to morn,       And car-drivers hinted of morn,     At the end of the path a liquescent       And bibulous lustre was born;     'Twas made by the bar-keeper present,       Who mixed a duplicate horn,—     His two hands describing a crescent       Distinct with a duplicate horn.     And I said: "This looks perfectly regal,       For it's warm, and I know I feel dry,—       I am confident that I feel dry.     We have come past the emeu and eagle,       And watched the gay monkey on high;     Let us drink to the emeu and eagle,       To the swan and the monkey on high,—       To the eagle and monkey on high;     For this bar-keeper will not inveigle,       Bully boy with the vitreous eye,—     He surely would never inveigle,       Sweet youth with the crystalline eye."     But Mary, uplifting her finger,       Said: "Sadly this bar I mistrust,—       I fear that this bar does not trust.     Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!       Oh, fly,—let us fly,—are we must!"     In terror she cried, letting sink her       Parasol till it trailed in the dust;     In agony sobbed, letting sink her       Parasol till it trailed in the dust,—       Till it sorrowfully trailed in the dust.     Then I pacified Mary and kissed her,       And tempted her into the room,       And conquered her scruples and gloom;     And we passed to the end of the vista,       But were stopped by the warning of doom,—       By some words that were warning of doom.     And I said, "What is written, sweet sister,       At the opposite end of the room?"     She sobbed, as she answered, "All liquors       Must be paid for ere leaving the room."     Then my heart it grew ashen and sober,       As the streets were deserted and drear,       For my pockets were empty and drear;     And I cried: "It was surely October,       On this very night of last year,       That I journeyed, I journeyed down here,—       That I brought a fair maiden down here,       On this night of all nights in the year!       Ah! to me that inscription is clear;     Well I know now, I'm perfectly sober,       Why no longer they credit me here,—     Well I know now that music of Auber,       And this Nightingale, kept by one Shear."

NORTH BEACH

(AFTER SPENSER)     Lo! where the castle of bold Pfeiffer throws     Its sullen shadow on the rolling tide,—     No more the home where joy and wealth repose,     But now where wassailers in cells abide;     See yon long quay that stretches far and wide,     Well known to citizens as wharf of Meiggs:     There each sweet Sabbath walks in maiden pride     The pensive Margaret, and brave Pat, whose legs     Encased in broadcloth oft keep time with Peg's.     Here cometh oft the tender nursery-maid,     While in her ear her love his tale doth pour;     Meantime her infant doth her charge evade,     And rambleth sagely on the sandy shore,     Till the sly sea-crab, low in ambush laid,     Seizeth his leg and biteth him full sore.     Ah me! what sounds the shuddering echoes bore     When his small treble mixed with Ocean's roar!     Hard by there stands an ancient hostelrie,     And at its side a garden, where the bear,     The stealthy catamount, and coon agree     To work deceit on all who gather there;     And when Augusta—that unconscious fair—     With nuts and apples plieth Bruin free,     Lo! the green parrot claweth her back hair,     And the gray monkey grabbeth fruits that she     On her gay bonnet wears, and laugheth loud in glee!

THE LOST TAILS OF MILETUS

     High on the Thracian hills, half hid in the billows of clover,     Thyme, and the asphodel blooms, and lulled by Pactolian streamlet,     She of Miletus lay, and beside her an aged satyr     Scratched his ear with his hoof, and playfully mumbled his chestnuts.     Vainly the Maenid and the Bassarid gamboled about her,     The free-eyed Bacchante sang, and Pan—the renowned, the     accomplished—Executed his difficult solo.  In vain were their        gambols and dances;     High o'er the Thracian hills rose the voice of the shepherdess,        wailing:     "Ai! for the fleecy flocks, the meek-nosed, the passionless faces;     Ai! for the tallow-scented, the straight-tailed, the high-stepping;     Ai! for the timid glance, which is that which the rustic, sagacious,     Applies to him who loves but may not declare his passion!"     Her then Zeus answered slow: "O daughter of song and sorrow,     Hapless tender of sheep, arise from thy long lamentation!     Since thou canst not trust fate, nor behave as becomes a Greek maiden,     Look and behold thy sheep."  And lo! they returned to her tailless!