     Coward,—of heroic size,
     In whose lazy muscles lies
     Strength we fear and yet despise;
     Savage,—whose relentless tusks
     Are content with acorn husks;
     Robber,—whose exploits ne'er soared
     O'er the bee's or squirrel's hoard;
     Whiskered chin and feeble nose,
     Claws of steel on baby toes,—
     Here, in solitude and shade,
     Shambling, shuffling plantigrade,
     Be thy courses undismayed!

     Here, where Nature makes thy bed,
     Let thy rude, half-human tread
       Point to hidden Indian springs,
     Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses,
       Hovered o'er by timid wings,
     Where the wood-duck lightly passes,
     Where the wild bee holds her sweets,—
     Epicurean retreats,
     Fit for thee, and better than
     Fearful spoils of dangerous man.
     In thy fat-jowled deviltry
     Friar Tuck shall live in thee;
     Thou mayst levy tithe and dole;
       Thou shalt spread the woodland cheer,
     From the pilgrim taking toll;
       Match thy cunning with his fear;
     Eat, and drink, and have thy fill;
     Yet remain an outlaw still!

MADRONO

     Captain of the Western wood,
     Thou that apest Robin Hood!
     Green above thy scarlet hose,
     How thy velvet mantle shows!
     Never tree like thee arrayed,
     O thou gallant of the glade!

     When the fervid August sun
     Scorches all it looks upon,
     And the balsam of the pine
     Drips from stem to needle fine,
     Round thy compact shade arranged,
     Not a leaf of thee is changed!

     When the yellow autumn sun
     Saddens all it looks upon,
     Spreads its sackcloth on the hills,
     Strews its ashes in the rills,
     Thou thy scarlet hose dost doff,
     And in limbs of purest buff
     Challengest the sombre glade
     For a sylvan masquerade.

     Where, oh, where, shall he begin
     Who would paint thee, Harlequin?
     With thy waxen burnished leaf,
     With thy branches' red relief,
     With thy polytinted fruit,—
     In thy spring or autumn suit,—
     Where begin, and oh, where end,
     Thou whose charms all art transcend?

COYOTE

     Blown out of the prairie in twilight and dew,
     Half bold and half timid, yet lazy all through;
     Loath ever to leave, and yet fearful to stay,
     He limps in the clearing, an outcast in gray.

     A shade on the stubble, a ghost by the wall,
     Now leaping, now limping, now risking a fall,
     Lop-eared and large-jointed, but ever alway
     A thoroughly vagabond outcast in gray.

     Here, Carlo, old fellow,—he's one of your kind,—
     Go, seek him, and bring him in out of the wind.
     What! snarling, my Carlo! So even dogs may
     Deny their own kin in the outcast in gray.

     Well, take what you will,—though it be on the sly,
     Marauding or begging,—I shall not ask why,
     But will call it a dole, just to help on his way
     A four-footed friar in orders of gray!

TO A SEA-BIRD

(SANTA CRUZ, 1869)

     Sauntering hither on listless wings,
       Careless vagabond of the sea,
     Little thou heedest the surf that sings,
     The bar that thunders, the shale that rings,—
       Give me to keep thy company.

     Little thou hast, old friend, that's new;
       Storms and wrecks are old things to thee;
     Sick am I of these changes, too;
     Little to care for, little to rue,—
       I on the shore, and thou on the sea.

     All of thy wanderings, far and near,
       Bring thee at last to shore and me;
     All of my journeyings end them here:
     This our tether must be our cheer,—
       I on the shore, and thou on the sea.

     Lazily rocking on ocean's breast,
       Something in common, old friend, have we:
     Thou on the shingle seek'st thy nest,
     I to the waters look for rest,—
       I on the shore, and thou on the sea.

WHAT THE CHIMNEY SANG

     Over the chimney the night-wind sang
       And chanted a melody no one knew;
     And the Woman stopped, as her babe she tossed,
       And thought of the one she had long since lost,
     And said, as her teardrops back she forced,
       "I hate the wind in the chimney."

     Over the chimney the night-wind sang
       And chanted a melody no one knew;
     And the Children said, as they closer drew,
       "'Tis some witch that is cleaving the black night through,
     'Tis a fairy trumpet that just then blew,
       And we fear the wind in the chimney."

     Over the chimney the night-wind sang
       And chanted a melody no one knew;
     And the Man, as he sat on his hearth below,
       Said to himself, "It will surely snow,
     And fuel is dear and wages low,
       And I'll stop the leak in the chimney."

     Over the chimney the night-wind sang
       And chanted a melody no one knew;
     But the Poet listened and smiled, for he
       Was Man and Woman and Child, all three,
     And said, "It is God's own harmony,
       This wind we hear in the chimney."

DICKENS IN CAMP

     Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
         The river sang below;
     The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
         Their minarets of snow.

     The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
         The ruddy tints of health
     On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
         In the fierce race for wealth;

     Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure
         A hoarded volume drew,
     And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure
         To hear the tale anew.

     And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,
         And as the firelight fell,
     He read aloud the book wherein the Master
         Had writ of "Little Nell."

     Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,—for the reader
         Was youngest of them all,—
     But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
         A silence seemed to fall;

     The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
         Listened in every spray,
     While the whole camp with "Nell" on English meadows
         Wandered and lost their way.

     And so in mountain solitudes—o'ertaken
         As by some spell divine—
     Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
         From out the gusty pine.

     Lost is that camp and wasted all its fire;
         And he who wrought that spell?
     Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
         Ye have one tale to tell!

     Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story
         Blend with the breath that thrills
     With hop-vine's incense all the pensive glory
         That fills the Kentish hills.

     And on that grave where English oak and holly
         And laurel wreaths entwine,
     Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,
         This spray of Western pine!

     July, 1870.

"TWENTY YEARS"

     Beg your pardon, old fellow! I think
     I was dreaming just now when you spoke.
     The fact is, the musical clink
     Of the ice on your wine-goblet's brink
     A chord of my memory woke.

     And I stood in the pasture-field where
     Twenty summers ago I had stood;
     And I heard in that sound, I declare,
     The clinking of bells in the air,
     Of the cows coming home from the wood.

     Then the apple-bloom shook on the hill;
     And the mullein-stalks tilted each lance;
     And the sun behind Rapalye's mill
     Was my uttermost West, and could thrill
     Like some fanciful land of romance.

     Then my friend was a hero, and then
     My girl was an angel. In fine,
     I drank buttermilk; for at ten
     Faith asks less to aid her than when
     At thirty we doubt over wine.

     Ah, well, it DOES seem that I must
     Have been dreaming just now when you spoke,
     Or lost, very like, in the dust
     Of the years that slow fashioned the crust
     On that bottle whose seal you last broke.

     Twenty years was its age, did you say?
     Twenty years? Ah, my friend, it is true!
     All the dreams that have flown since that day,
     All the hopes in that time passed away,
     Old friend, I've been drinking with you!

FATE

     "The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare,
     The spray of the tempest is white in air;
     The winds are out with the waves at play,
     And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.

     "The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,
     The panther clings to the arching limb;
     And the lion's whelps are abroad at play,
     And I shall not join in the chase to-day."

     But the ship sailed safely over the sea,
     And the hunters came from the chase in glee;
     And the town that was builded upon a rock
     Was swallowed up in the earthquake shock.

GRANDMOTHER TENTERDEN

(MASSACHUSETTS SHORE, 1800)

       I mind it was but yesterday:
     The sun was dim, the air was chill;
     Below the town, below the hill,
     The sails of my son's ship did fill,—
       My Jacob, who was cast away.

       He said, "God keep you, mother dear,"
     But did not turn to kiss his wife;
     They had some foolish, idle strife;
     Her tongue was like a two-edged knife,
       And he was proud as any peer.

       Howbeit that night I took no note
     Of sea nor sky, for all was drear;
     I marked not that the hills looked near,
     Nor that the moon, though curved and clear,
       Through curd-like scud did drive and float.

       For with my darling went the joy
     Of autumn woods and meadows brown;
     I came to hate the little town;
     It seemed as if the sun went down
       With him, my only darling boy.

       It was the middle of the night:
     The wind, it shifted west-by-south,—
     It piled high up the harbor mouth;
     The marshes, black with summer drouth,
       Were all abroad with sea-foam white.

       It was the middle of the night:
     The sea upon the garden leapt,
     And my son's wife in quiet slept,
     And I, his mother, waked and wept,
       When lo! there came a sudden light.

       And there he stood! His seaman's dress
     All wet and dripping seemed to be;
     The pale blue fires of the sea
     Dripped from his garments constantly,—
       I could not speak through cowardness.

       "I come through night and storm," he said.
     "Through storm and night and death," said he,
     "To kiss my wife, if it so be
     That strife still holds 'twixt her and me,
       For all beyond is peace," he said.

       "The sea is His, and He who sent
     The wind and wave can soothe their strife
     And brief and foolish is our life."
     He stooped and kissed his sleeping wife,
       Then sighed, and like a dream he went.

       Now, when my darling kissed not me,
     But her—his wife—who did not wake,
     My heart within me seemed to break;
     I swore a vow, nor thenceforth spake
       Of what my clearer eyes did see.

       And when the slow weeks brought him not,
     Somehow we spake of aught beside:
     For she—her hope upheld her pride;
     And I—in me all hope had died,
       And my son passed as if forgot.

       It was about the next springtide:
     She pined and faded where she stood,
     Yet spake no word of ill or good;
     She had the hard, cold Edwards' blood
       In all her veins—and so she died.

       One time I thought, before she passed,
     To give her peace; but ere I spake
     Methought, "HE will be first to break
     The news in heaven," and for his sake
       I held mine back until the last.

       And here I sit, nor care to roam;
     I only wait to hear his call.
     I doubt not that this day next fall
     Shall see me safe in port, where all
       And every ship at last comes home.

       And you have sailed the Spanish Main,
     And knew my Jacob?… Eh! Mercy!
     Ah! God of wisdom! hath the sea
     Yielded its dead to humble me?
       My boy!… My Jacob!… Turn again!

GUILD'S SIGNAL

[William Guild was engineer of the train which on the 19th of April, 1813, plunged into Meadow Brook, on the line of the Stonington and Providence Railroad. It was his custom, as often as he passed his home, to whistle an "All's well" to his wife. He was found, after the disaster, dead, with his hand on the throttle-valve of his engine.]

     Two low whistles, quaint and clear:
       That was the signal the engineer—
     That was the signal that Guild, 'tis said—
     Gave to his wife at Providence,
     As through the sleeping town, and thence,
             Out in the night,
             On to the light,
       Down past the farms, lying white, he sped!

     As a husband's greeting, scant, no doubt,
     Yet to the woman looking out,
       Watching and waiting, no serenade,
     Love-song, or midnight roundelay
     Said what that whistle seemed to say:
             "To my trust true,
             So, love, to you!
       Working or waiting, good-night!" it said.

     Brisk young bagmen, tourists fine,
     Old commuters along the line,
       Brakemen and porters glanced ahead,
     Smiled as the signal, sharp, intense,
     Pierced through the shadows of Providence:
             "Nothing amiss—
             Nothing!—it is
       Only Guild calling his wife," they said.

     Summer and winter the old refrain
     Rang o'er the billows of ripening grain,
       Pierced through the budding boughs o'erhead,
     Flew down the track when the red leaves burned
     Like living coals from the engine spurned;
             Sang as it flew,
             "To our trust true,
       First of all, duty. Good-night!" it said.

     And then, one night, it was heard no more
     From Stonington over Rhode Island shore,
       And the folk in Providence smiled and said
     As they turned in their beds, "The engineer
     Has once forgotten his midnight cheer."
             ONE only knew,
             To his trust true,
       Guild lay under his engine, dead.

ASPIRING MISS DE LAINE

(A CHEMICAL NARRATIVE)

     Certain facts which serve to explain
     The physical charms of Miss Addie De Laine,
     Who, as the common reports obtain,
     Surpassed in complexion the lily and rose;
     With a very sweet mouth and a retrousse nose;
     A figure like Hebe's, or that which revolves
     In a milliner's window, and partially solves
     That question which mentor and moralist pains,
     If grace may exist minus feeling or brains.

     Of course the young lady had beaux by the score,
     All that she wanted,—what girl could ask more?
     Lovers that sighed and lovers that swore,
     Lovers that danced and lovers that played,
     Men of profession, of leisure, and trade;
     But one, who was destined to take the high part
     Of holding that mythical treasure, her heart,—
     This lover, the wonder and envy of town,
     Was a practicing chemist, a fellow called Brown.

     I might here remark that 'twas doubted by many,
     In regard to the heart, if Miss Addie had any;
     But no one could look in that eloquent face,
     With its exquisite outline and features of grace,
     And mark, through the transparent skin, how the tide
     Ebbed and flowed at the impulse of passion or pride,—
     None could look, who believed in the blood's circulation
     As argued by Harvey, but saw confirmation
     That here, at least, Nature had triumphed o'er art,
     And as far as complexion went she had a heart.

     But this par parenthesis. Brown was the man
     Preferred of all others to carry her fan,
     Hook her glove, drape her shawl, and do all that a belle
     May demand of the lover she wants to treat well.
     Folks wondered and stared that a fellow called Brown—
     Abstracted and solemn, in manner a clown,
     Ill dressed, with a lingering smell of the shop—
     Should appear as her escort at party or hop.
     Some swore he had cooked up some villainous charm,
     Or love philter, not in the regular Pharm-
     Acopoeia, and thus, from pure malice prepense,
     Had bewitched and bamboozled the young lady's sense;
     Others thought, with more reason, the secret to lie
     In a magical wash or indelible dye;
     While Society, with its censorious eye
     And judgment impartial, stood ready to damn
     What wasn't improper as being a sham.

     For a fortnight the townfolk had all been agog
     With a party, the finest the season had seen,
     To be given in honor of Miss Pollywog,
     Who was just coming out as a belle of sixteen.
     The guests were invited; but one night before
     A carriage drew up at the modest back door
     Of Brown's lab'ratory, and, full in the glare
     Of a big purple bottle, some closely veiled fair
     Alighted and entered: to make matters plain,
     Spite of veils and disguises, 'twas Addie De Laine.

     As a bower for true love, 'twas hardly the one
     That a lady would choose to be wooed in or won:
     No odor of rose or sweet jessamine's sigh
     Breathed a fragrance to hallow their pledge of troth by,
     Nor the balm that exhales from the odorous thyme;
     But the gaseous effusions of chloride of lime,
     And salts, which your chemist delights to explain
     As the base of the smell of the rose and the drain.
     Think of this, O ye lovers of sweetness! and know
     What you smell when you snuff up Lubin or Pinaud.

     I pass by the greetings, the transports and bliss,
     Which of course duly followed a meeting like this,
     And come down to business,—for such the intent
     Of the lady who now o'er the crucible leant,
     In the glow of a furnace of carbon and lime,
     Like a fairy called up in the new pantomime,—
     And give but her words, as she coyly looked down
     In reply to the questioning glances of Brown:
     "I am taking the drops, and am using the paste,
     And the little white powders that had a sweet taste,
     Which you told me would brighten the glance of my eye,
     And the depilatory, and also the dye,
     And I'm charmed with the trial; and now, my dear Brown,
     I have one other favor,—now, ducky, don't frown,—
     Only one, for a chemist and genius like you
     But a trifle, and one you can easily do.
     Now listen: to-morrow, you know, is the night
     Of the birthday soiree of that Pollywog fright;
     And I'm to be there, and the dress I shall wear
     Is TOO lovely; but"– "But what then, ma chere?"
     Said Brown, as the lady came to a full stop,
     And glanced round the shelves of the little back shop.
     "Well, I want—I want something to fill out the skirt
     To the proper dimensions, without being girt
     In a stiff crinoline, or caged in a hoop
     That shows through one's skirt like the bars of a coop;
     Something light, that a lady may waltz in, or polk,
     With a freedom that none but you masculine folk
     Ever know. For, however poor woman aspires,
     She's always bound down to the earth by these wires.
     Are you listening? Nonsense! don't stare like a spoon,
     Idiotic; some light thing, and spacious, and soon—
     Something like—well, in fact—something like a balloon!"

     Here she paused; and here Brown, overcome by surprise,
     Gave a doubting assent with still wondering eyes,
     And the lady departed. But just at the door
     Something happened,—'tis true, it had happened before
     In this sanctum of science,—a sibilant sound,
     Like some element just from its trammels unbound,
     Or two substances that their affinities found.

     The night of the anxiously looked for soiree
     Had come, with its fair ones in gorgeous array;
     With the rattle of wheels and the tinkle of bells,
     And the "How do ye do's" and the "Hope you are well's;"
     And the crush in the passage, and last lingering look
     You give as you hang your best hat on the hook;
     The rush of hot air as the door opens wide;
     And your entry,—that blending of self-possessed pride
     And humility shown in your perfect-bred stare
     At the folk, as if wondering how they got there;
     With other tricks worthy of Vanity Fair.
     Meanwhile, the safe topic, the beat of the room,
     Already was losing its freshness and bloom;
     Young people were yawning, and wondering when
     The dance would come off; and why didn't it then:
     When a vague expectation was thrilling the crowd,
     Lo! the door swung its hinges with utterance proud!
     And Pompey announced, with a trumpet-like strain,
     The entrance of Brown and Miss Addie De Laine.

     She entered; but oh! how imperfect the verb
     To express to the senses her movement superb!
     To say that she "sailed in" more clearly might tell
     Her grace in its buoyant and billowy swell.
     Her robe was a vague circumambient space,
     With shadowy boundaries made of point-lace;
     The rest was but guesswork, and well might defy
     The power of critical feminine eye
     To define or describe: 'twere as futile to try
     The gossamer web of the cirrus to trace,
     Floating far in the blue of a warm summer sky.

     'Midst the humming of praises and glances of beaux
     That greet our fair maiden wherever she goes,
     Brown slipped like a shadow, grim, silent, and black,
     With a look of anxiety, close in her track.
     Once he whispered aside in her delicate ear
     A sentence of warning,—it might be of fear:
     "Don't stand in a draught, if you value your life."
     (Nothing more,—such advice might be given your wife
     Or your sweetheart, in times of bronchitis and cough,
     Without mystery, romance, or frivolous scoff.)
     But hark to the music; the dance has begun.
     The closely draped windows wide open are flung;
     The notes of the piccolo, joyous and light,
     Like bubbles burst forth on the warm summer night.
     Round about go the dancers; in circles they fly;
     Trip, trip, go their feet as their skirts eddy by;
     And swifter and lighter, but somewhat too plain,
     Whisks the fair circumvolving Miss Addie De Laine.
     Taglioni and Cerito well might have pined
     For the vigor and ease that her movements combined;
     E'en Rigelboche never flung higher her robe
     In the naughtiest city that's known on the globe.
     'Twas amazing, 'twas scandalous; lost in surprise,
     Some opened their mouths, and a few shut their eyes.

     But hark! At the moment Miss Addie De Laine,
     Circling round at the outer edge of an ellipse
     Which brought her fair form to the window again,
     From the arms of her partner incautiously slips!
     And a shriek fills the air, and the music is still,
     And the crowd gather round where her partner forlorn
     Still frenziedly points from the wide window-sill
     Into space and the night; for Miss Addie was gone!
     Gone like the bubble that bursts in the sun;
     Gone like the grain when the reaper is done;
     Gone like the dew on the fresh morning grass;
     Gone without parting farewell; and alas!
     Gone with a flavor of hydrogen gas!

     When the weather is pleasant, you frequently meet
     A white-headed man slowly pacing the street;
     His trembling hand shading his lack-lustre eye,
     Half blind with continually scanning the sky.
     Rumor points him as some astronomical sage,
     Re-perusing by day the celestial page;
     But the reader, sagacious, will recognize Brown,
     Trying vainly to conjure his lost sweetheart down,
     And learn the stern moral this story must teach,
     That Genius may lift its love out of its reach.