Because your eyes are slant and slow,
Because your hair is sweet to touch,
My heart is high again; but oh,
I doubt if this will get me much.

Achievin' sech distinction with his moddel tabble dote
Ez to make his Red Hoss Mountain restauraw a place uv note,
Our old friend Casey innovated somewhat round the place,
In hopes he would ameliorate the sufferin's uv the race;
'Nd uv the many features Casey managed to import
The most important wuz a Steenway gran' pianny-fort,
An' bein' there wuz nobody could play upon the same,
He telegraffed to Denver, 'nd a real perfesser came,--
The last an' crownin' glory uv the Casey restauraw
Wuz that tenderfoot musicianer, Perfesser Vere de Blaw!

WITHOUT increasing his genius, the author may have improved his language, in the eleven years that the following poems have been in the hands of the public. Errors in diction might have been committed at twenty-four, which the experience of a riper age may remove; and some exuberances in imagery may be restrained with advantage, by a degree of judgment acquired in the progress of time. Impressed with this opinion, he ran over the whole with attention and accuracy; and he hopes he has brought the work to a state of correctness which will preclude all future improvements.

PREFACE

If---and the thing is wildly possible---the charge of writing
nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but
instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line

``Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes''

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal
indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of
such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral
purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so

727

Precious to Me—She still shall be—
Though She forget the name I bear—
The fashion of the Gown I wear—
The very Color of My Hair—

So like the Meadows—now—
I dared to show a Tress of Theirs
If haply—She might not despise
A Buttercup's Array—

I know the Whole—obscures the Part—
The fraction—that appeased the Heart
Till Number's Empery—
Remembered—as the Millner's flower

When Summer's Everlasting Dower—
Confronts the dazzled Bee.

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair:
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--

Vicisti, Galilæe
I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove;
But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love.
Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold,
A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?

It is time (it was time long ago) I should sever
This chain -- why I wear it I know not -- forever!
Yet I cling to the bond, e'en while sick of the mask
I must wear, as of one whom his commonplace task
And proof-armor of dullness have steeled to her charms!
Ah! how lovely she looked as she flung from her arms,
In heaps to this table (now starred with the stains
Of her booty yet wet with those yesterday rains),
These roses and lilies, and -- what? let me see!
Then was off in a moment, but turned with a glee,

The mighty sound of forests murmuring
In answer to the dread command;
The stars that shudder when their king
extends his hand,

His awful hand to bless, to curse; or moves
Toward the dimmest den
In the thick leaves, not known of loves
Or nymphs or men;

(Only the sylph's frail gossamer may wave
Their quiet frondage yet,
Only her dewy tears may lave
The violet;)

The mighty answer of the shaken sky
To his supreme behest; the call
Of Ibex that behold on high
Night's funeral,

The lady at the corner wicket
Sold me a stamp, I stooped to lick it,
And on the envelope to stick it;
A spinster lacking girlish grace,
Yet sweetly sensitive, her face
Seemed to en-star that stodgy place.

Said I: "I've come from o'er the sea
To ask you if you'll marry me -
That is to say, if you are free.
I see your gentle features freeze;
'I do not like such jokes as these,'
You seem to say . . . Have patience, please.

I saw you twenty years ago;
Just here you sold me stamps, and Oh
Your image seemed to haunt me so.