XXIX

W

IN THE STATES

ITH half a heart I wander here

As from an age gone by

A brother-yet though young in years,
An elder brother, I.

You speak another tongue than mine,
Though both were English born.

I towards the night of time decline,
You mount into the morn.

Youth shall grow great and strong and free,
But age must still decay:

To-morrow for the States-for me,

England and Yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO.

I

A PORTRAIT

AM a kind of farthing dip,

Unfriendly to the nose and eyes; A blue-behinded ape, I skip

Upon the trees of Paradise.

At mankind's feast, I take my place
In solemn, sanctimonious state,
And have the air of saying grace
While I defile the dinner plate.

I am the smiler with the knife,»>>
The battener upon garbage, I—
Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life,
Were it not better far to die?

Yet still, about the human pale,
I love to scamper, love to race,
To swing by my irreverent tail

All over the most holy place;

And when at length, some golden day, The unfailing sportsman, aiming at, Shall bag, me-all the world shall say: Thank God, and there's an end of that!

XXXI

ING clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still,

Sin clearlier, Mulo, geeving!

No more the voice of melancholy Jacques
To wake a weeping echo in the hill;
But as the boy, the pirate of the spring,
From the green elm a living linnet takes,
One natural verse recapture-then be still.

HE bed was made, the room was fit,

THE

By punctual eve

the stars were lit;

The air was still, the water ran,

No need was there for maid or man,
When we put up, my ass and I,
At God's green caravanserai.

1 From Travels with a Donkey.

They pass and smile, the children of the sword-
No more the sword they wield;

And O, how deep the corn

Along the battlefield!