Other Poems in the collection by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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THE SISTERS' TRAGEDY
WITH OTHER POEMS, LYR- ICAL AND DRAMATIC. BY
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
PART FIVE: BAGATELLE
CORYDON
A PASTORAL
- SCENE: A roadside in Arcady
- SHEPHERD.
- GOOD sir, have you seen pass this way
- A mischief straight from market-day?
- You'd know her at a glance, I think;
- Her eyes are blue, her lips are pink;
- She has a way of looking back
- Over her shoulder, and, alack!
- Who gets that look one time, good sir,
- Has naught to do but follow her.
- PILGRIM.
- I have not seen this maid, methinks,
- Though she that passed had lips like pinks.
- SHEPHERD.
- Or like two strawberries made one
- By some sly trick of dew and sun.
- PILGRIM.
- A poet!
- SHEPHERD.
- Nay, a simple swain
- That tends his flock on yonder plain,
- Naught else, I swear by book and bell.
- But she that passed, you marked her well.
- Was she not smooth as any be
- That dwell herein in Arcady?
- PILGRIM.
- Her skin was as the satin bark
- Of birches
- SHEPHERD.
- Light or dark?
- PILGRIM.
- Quite dark.
- SHEPHERD.
- Then 'twas not she.
- PILGRIM.
- The peach's side
- That's next the sun is not so dyed
- As was her cheek. Her hair hung down
- Like summer twilight falling brown;
- And when the breeze swept by, I wist
- Her face was in a sombre mist.
- SHEPHERD.
- No, that is not the maid I seek.
- Her hair lies gold against the cheek;
- Her yellow tresses take the morn
- Like silken tassles of the corn.
- And yet--brown locks are far from bad.
- PILGRIM.
- Now I bethinks me, this one had
- A figure like the willow-tree
- Which, slight and supple, wondrously
- Inclines to droop with pensive grace,
- And still retains its proper place;
- A foot so arched and very small
- The marvel was she walked at all;
- Her hand--in sooth I lack for words--
- her hand, five slender snow-white birds.
- Her voice--though she but said "God-speed"--
- Was melody blown through a reed;
- The girl Pan changed into a pipe
- Had not a note so full and ripe.
- And then her eye--my lad her eye!
- Discreet, inviting, candid, shy,
- An outward ice, an inward fire,
- And lashes to the heart's desire--
- Soft fringes blacker than the sloe.
- SHEPHERD.
- Good sir, which way did this one go?
- PILGRIM, solus.
- So, he is off! The silly youth
- Knoweth not love in sober sooth.
- He loves, thus lads at first are blind--
- No woman, only Womankind.
- I needs must laugh, for, by the Mass,
- No maid at all did this way pass!
AT A READING
- THE spare professor, grave and bald,
- Began his paper. It was called,
- I think, "A Brief Historic Glance
- At Russia, Germany, and France."
- A glance, but to my best belief
- 'T was almost anything but brief--
- A wide survey, in which the earth
- Was seen before mankind had birth;
- Strange monsters basked them in the sun,
- Behemoth, armored glyptodon,
- And in the dawn's unpractised ray
- The transient dodo winged its way;
- Then, by degrees, through slit and slough,
- We reached Berlin--I don't know how.
- The good Professor's monotone
- Had turned me into senseless stone
- Instanter, but that near me sat
- Hypatia in her new spring hat,
- Blue-eyed, intent, with lips whose bloom
- Lighted the heavy-curtained room.
- Hypatia--ah, what lovely things
- Are fashioned out of eighteen springs!
- At first, in sums of this amount,
- The eighteen winters do not count.
- Just as my eyes were growing dim
- With heaviness, I saw that slim,
- Erect, elastic figure there,
- Like a pond-lily taking air.
- She looked so fresh, so wise, so neat,
- So altogether crisp and sweet,
- I quite forgot what Bismarck said,
- And why the Emperor shook his head,
- And how it was Von Moltke's frown
- Cost France another frontier town.
- The only facts I took away
- From the Professor's theme that day
- Were these: a forehead broad and low,
- Such as antique sculptures show;
- A chin to Greek perfection true;
- Eyes of Astarte's tender blue;
- A high complection without fleck
- Or flaw, and curls about her neck.
THE MENU
- I BEG you come to-night and dine.
- A welcome waits you, and sound wine--
- The Roederer chilly to a charm,
- As Juno's breath the claret warm,
- The sherry of an ancient brand.
- No Persian pomp, you understand--
- A soup, a fish, two meats, and then
- A salad fit for aldermen
- (When alderman, alas, the days!
- Were really worth their mayonnaise);
- A dish of grapes whose clusters won
- Their bronze in Carolinian sun;
- Next, cheese--for you the Neufchâtel,
- A bit of Cheshire likes me well;
- Café au lait or coffee black,
- With Kirsch or Kümmel or Cognac
- (The German band in Irving Place
- By this time purple in the face);
- Cigars and pipes. These being through,
- Friends shall drop in, a very few--
- Shakespeare and Milton, and no more.
- When these are guests I bolt the door,
- With Not at Home to any one
- Excepting Alfred Tennyson.
AN ELECTIVE COURSE
- LINES FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF A HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE
- THE bloom that lies on Fanny's cheek
- Is all my Latin, all my Greek;
- The only sciences I know
- Are frowns that gloom and smiles that glow;
- Siberia and Italy
- Lie in her sweet geography;
- No scolarship have I but such
- As teaches me to love her much.
- Why should I strive to read the skies,
- Who know the midnight of her eyes?
- Why should I go so very far
- To learn what heavenly bodies are!
- Not Berenice's starry hair
- With Fanny's tresses can compare;
- Not Venus on a cloudless night,
- Enslaving Science with her light,
- Ever reveals so much as when
- She stares and droops her lids again.
- If Nature's secrets are forbidden
- To mortals, she may keep them hidden.
- Æons and æons we progressed
- And did not let that break our rest;
- Little we cared if Mars o'erhead
- Were or were not inhabited;
- Without the aid of Saturn's rings
- Fair girls were wived in those fair springs;
- Warm lips met ours, and conquered us
- Or ere thou wert, Copernicus!
- Graybeards, who wish to bridge the chasm
- 'Twixt man to-day and protoplasm,
- Who theorize and probe and gape,
- And finally evolve an ape--
- Yours is a harmless sort of cult,
- If you are pleased with the result.
- Some folks admit, with cynic grace,
- That you have rather proved your case.
- Those dogmatists are so severe!
- Enough for me that Fanny's here,
- Enough that, having survived
- Pre-Eveic forms, she has arrived--
- An illustration the completest
- Of the survival of the sweetest.
- Linnæus aveunt! I only care
- To know what flower she wants to wear.
- I leave it to the addle-pated
- To guess how pinks originated,
- As if it mattered! The chief thing
- Is that we have them in the Spring,
- And Fanny likes them. When they come,
- I straightaway send and purchase some.
- The Origin of Plants--go to!
- Their proper end I have in view.
- O loveliest book that ever man
- Looked into since the world began
- Is Woman! As I turn those pages,
- As fresh as in the primal ages,
- As day by day I scan, perplext,
- The ever subtly changing text,
- I feel that I am slowly growing
- To think no other work worth knowing.
- And in my copy--there is none
- So perfect as the one I own--
- I find no thing set down as such
- As teaches me to love it much.
L'EAU DORMANTE
- CURLED up and sitting on her feet.
- Within the window's deep embrasure,
- Is Lydia; and across the street,
- A lad, with eyes of roguish azure,
- Watches her buried in her book.
- In vain he tries to win a look,
- And from the trellis over there
- Blows sundry kisses through the air,
- Which miss the mark, and fall unseen,
- Uncared for. Lydia is thirteen.
- My lad, if you, without abuse,
- Will take advise from one who's wiser,
- And put his wisdom to more use
- Than ever yet did your adviser;
- If you will let, as none will do,
- Another's heartbreak serve for two,
- You'll have a care, some four years hence,
- How you lounge there by yonder fence
- And blow those kisses through that screen--
- For Lydia will be seventeen.
THALIA
- "A MIDDLE-AGED LYRICAL POET IS SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING FINAL LEAVE OF THE MUSE OF COMEDY. SHE HAS BROUGHT HIM HIS HAT AND GLOVES, AND IS ABSTRACTEDLY PICKING A THREAD OF GOLD HAIR FROM HIS COAT SLEEVE AS HE BEGINS TO SPEAK:
- I SAY it under the rose--
- oh, thanks! --yes, under the laurel,
- We part lovers, not foes;
- we are not going to quarrel.
- We have too long been friends
- on foot and in guilded coaches,
- Now that the whole thing ends,
- to spoil our kiss with reproaches.
- I leave you; my soul is wrung;
- I pause, look back from the portal--
- Ah, I no more am young,
- and you, child, are immortal!
- Mine is the glacier's way,
- yours is the blossom's weather--
- When were December and May
- known to be happy together?
- Before my kisses grow tame,
- before my moodiness grieve you,
- While yet my heart is flame,
- and I all lover, I leave you.
- So, in the coming time,
- when you count the rich years over,
- Think of me in my prime,
- and not as a white-haired lover.
- Fretful, pierced with regret,
- the wraith of dead Desire
- Thrumming a cracked spinnet
- by a slowly dying fire.
- When, at last, I am cold--
- years hence, if the gods so will it--
- Say, "He was true as gold,"
- and wear a rose in your fillet!
- Others, tender as I,
- will come and sue for carresses,
- Woo you, win you, and die--
- mind you, a rose in your tresses!
- Some Melpomene woo,
- some hold Clio nearest;
- You, sweet Comedy--you
- were ever sweetest and dearest!
- Nay, it is time to go--
- when writing your tragic sister
- Say to that child of woe
- how sorry I was I missed her.
- Really, I cannot stay,
- though "parting is such sweet sorrow" . . .
- Perhaps I will, on my way
- down-town, look in to-morrow!
PALINODE
- WHO is Lydia, pray, and who
- Is Hypatia? Softly, dear,
- Let me breathe it in your ear--
- They are you, and only you.
- And those other nameless two
- Walking in Arcadian air--
- She that was so very fair?
- She that had the twilight hair?--
- They were you, dear, only you.
- If I speak of night or day,
- Grace of fern or bloom of grape,
- Hanging cloud or fountain spray,
- Gem or star or glistening dew,
- Or of mythologic shape,
- Psyche, Pyrrha, Daphne, say--
- I mean you, dear, you, just you.
A PETITION
- TO spring belongs the violet, and the blown
- Spice of the roses let the summer own.
- Grant me this favor, Muse--all else withhold--
- That I may not write verse when I am old.
- And yet I pray you, Muse, delay the time!
- Be not too ready to deny me rhyme;
- And when the hour strikes, as it must, dear Muse,
- I beg you very gently break the news.
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