Dear friend and old, they say you shake your head

And wish some bitter words of mine unsaid:

I wish they might be, there we are agreed;

I hate to speak, still more what makes the need;

But I must utter what the voice within Dictates, for acquiescence dumb were sin ; I blurt ungrateful truths, if so they be, That none may need to say them after me. "T were my felicity could I attain The temperate zeal that balances your brain;

But nature still o'erleaps reflection's plan,

And one must do his service as he can. Think you it were not pleasanter to speak

Smooth words that leave unflushed the brow and cheek?

To sit, well-dined, with cynic smile, un

As sweeter lore than all from books derived.

I know the charm of hillside, field, and wo d.

Of lake and stream, and the sky's downy brood,

Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod,

But friends with hardhack, aster, goldenrod,

Or succory keeping summer long its trust Of heaven blue fleckless from the eddying dust:

These were my earliest friends, and latest too,

Still unestranged, whatever fate may do. For years I had these treasures, knew their worth,

Estate most real man can have on earth. I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose That hears but rumors of earth's wrongs

and woes;

Too well these Capuas could my muscles waste,

Not void of toils, but toils of choice and

taste;

These still had kept me could I but have quelled

The Puritan drop that in my veins re belled.

But there were times when silent were my books

As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks, When verses palled, and even the woodland path,

By innocent contrast, fed my heart with wrath,

swift as he?

To check the items in the bitter list
Of all I counted on and all I mist.
Only three instances I choose from all,
And each enough to stir a pigeon's gall:
Office a fund for ballot-brokers made
To pay the drudges of their gainful
trade;

Our cities taught what conquered cities feel

By ædiles chosen that they might safely steal;

And gold, however got, a title fair

To such respect as only gold can bear.
I seem to see this; how shall I gainsay
What all our journals tell me every
day?

Poured our young martyrs their highhearted blood

That we might trample to congenial mud

The soil with such a legacy sublimed? Methinks an angry scorn is here welltimed:

Where find retreat? How keep reproach at bay?

Where'er I turn some scandal fouls the way.

Was I too bitter? Who his phrase can choose

That sees the life-blood of his dearest ooze ?

I loved my Country so as only they
Who love a mother fit to die for may;
I loved her old renown, her stainless
fame, -

What better proof than that I loathed her shame?

That many blamed me could not irk me long,

But, if you doubted, must I not be wrong?

'Tis not for me to answer: this I know, That man or race so prosperously low Sunk in success that wrath they cannot feel,

Shall taste the spurn of parting Fortune's heel;

For never land long lease of empire won Whose sons sate silent when base deeds were done.

My battle-harness idles on the wall, The spider's castle, camping-ground of dust,

Not without dints, and all in front, I

trust.

Shivering sometimes it calls me as it hears

Afar the charge's tramp and clash of spears;

But 't is such murmur only as might be The sea-shell's lost tradition of the sea, That makes me muse and wonder Where? and When?

While from my cliff I watch the waves of men

That climb to break midway their seeming gain,

And think it triumph if they shake their chain.

Little I ask of Fate; will she refuse Some days of reconcilement with the Muse?

I take my reed again and blow it free Of dusty silence, murmuring, "Sing to

me!"

head,

Yet all with sense of something vainly

mist,

Of something lost, but when I never wist.

How empty seems to me the populous street,

One figure gone I daily loved to meet,The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow

Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below!

And, ah, what absence feel I at my side, Like Dante when he missed his laurelled guide,

What sense of diminution in the air Once so inspiring, Emerson not there! But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet

Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet,

And Death is beautiful as feet of friend Coming with welcome at our journey's end;

For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied,

A nature sloping to the southern side;
I thank her for it, though when clouds
arise

Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.
I muse upon the margin of the sea,
Our common pathway to the new To Be,
Watching the sails, that lessen more and