The best of days is foul enough

From this world's fare to flee;
And the saint that died o' Sabba' day,
With his grave turf yet to grow,
Is dead as the sinner brought to pray
A hundred years ago.

Where's he that died o' yesterday?
What better chance hath he
To clink the can and toss the pot
When this night's junkets be?
For the lad that died o' yesterday
Is just as dead-ho! ho!

As the whoreson knave men laid away
A thousand years ago.

Crops failed; wealth took a flight; house, treasure, land,

Slipped from my hold-thus plenty comes and goes.

One friend I had, but he too loosed his hand

(Or was it I?) the year I met with Rose.

There was a war, I think; some rumor, too,

Of famine, pestilence, fire, deluge, snows; Things went awry. My rivals, straight in view,

Throve, spite of all; but I, - I met with Rose.

Earth, sky, insensate forms, ourselves,
Thou seest, but vision-free
Thy fancy soars and delves,
Albeit no sounds to us relate

The wondrous things
Thy brave imaginings
Within their starry night create.

Pity thy unconfined
Clear spirit, whose enfranchised eyes
Use not their grosser sense?
Ah, no! thy bright intelligence
Hath its own Paradise,
A realm wherein to hear and see
Things hidden from our kind.
Not thou, not thou 't is we
Are deaf, are dumb, are blind!

1888.

MORGAN

Он, what a set of Vagabundos,
Sons of Neptune, sons of Mars,
Raked from todos otros mundos,

Lascars, Gascons, Portsmouth tars,
Prison mate and dock-yard fellow,
Blades to Meg and Molly dear,
Off to capture Porto Bello

Sailed with Morgan the Buccaneer !

Out they voyaged from Port Royal
(Fathoms deep its ruins be,
Pier and convent, fortress loya,

Sunk beneath the gaping sea,;
On the Spaniard's beach they landed,
Dead to pity, void of fear,-
Round their blood-red flag embanded,
Led by Morgan the Buccaneer.

Dawn till dusk they stormed the castle,
Beat the gates and gratings down;
Then, with ruthless rout and wassail,
Night and day they sacked the town,
Staved the bins its cellars boasted,

Port and Lisbon, tier on tier, Quaffed to heart's content, and toasted Harry Morgan the Buccaneer:

Stripped the church and monastery,
Racked the prior for his gold,
With the traders' wives made merry,
Lipped the young and mocked the old,
Diced for hapless señoritas

(Sire and brother bound anear), Juanas, Lolas, Manuelitas,

Cursing Morgan the Buccaneer.

Lust and rapine, flame and slaughter, Forayed with the Welshman grim: "Take my pesos, spare my daughter!" "Ha! ha!" roared that devil's limb, "These shall jingle in our pouches,

She with us shall find good cheer." "Lash the graybeard till he crouches!" Shouted Morgan the Buccaneer.

Out again through reef and breaker, While the Spaniard moaned his fate, Back they voyaged to Jamaica,

Flush with doubloons, coins of eight, Crosses wrung from Popish varlets, Jewels torn from arm and ear, Jesu! how the Jews and harlots Welcomed Morgan the Buccaneer!

SI JEUNESSE SAVAIT!

WHEN the veil from the eyes is lifted
The seer's head is gray;

When the sailor to shore has drifted
The sirens are far away.
Why must the clearer vision,

The wisdom of Life's late hour,
Come, as in Fate's derision,

When the hand has lost its power? Is there a rarer being,

Is there a fairer sphere Where the strong are not unseeing, And the harvests are not sere; Where, ere the seasons dwindle, They yield their due return; Where the lamps of knowledge kindle While the flames of youth still burn? O, for the young man's chances ! O, for the old man's will! Those flee while this advances, And the strong years cheat us still.

SONG OF THE PALM

I

WILD is its nature, as it were a token,

Born of the sunshine, and the stars, and sea;

Grand as a passion felt but never spoken,
Lonely and proud and free.

For when the Maker set its crown of beauty,
And for its home ordained the torrid
ring,
Assigning unto each its place and duty,
He made the Palm a King.

So when in reverie I look and listen,

Half dream-like floats, within my passive mind,

Why in the sun its branches gleam and glisten,

And harp-wise beat the wind;

Why, when the sea-waves, heralding their tidings,

Come roaring on the shore with crests of down,

In grave acceptance of their sad confidings, It bows its stately crown;

Why, in the death-like calms of night and morning,

Its quivering spears of green are never
still,

But ever tremble, as at solemn warning
A human heart may thrill;

And also why it stands in lonely places,

By the red desert or the sad sea shore, Or haunts the jungle, or the mountain graces

Where eagles proudly soar !

It is a sense of kingly isolation,

Of royal beauty and enchanting grace, Proclaiming from the earliest creation

The power and pride of race,

That has almost imbued it with a spirit, And made it sentient, although still a tree,

With dim perception that it might inherit An immortality.

The lines of kinship thus so near conver ging,

It is not strange, O heart of mine, that I,

While stars were shining and old ocean surging,

Should intercept a sigh.

It fell a-sighing when the faint wind, dying, Had kissed the tropic night a fond adieu

The starry cross on her warm bosom lying, Within the southern view.

And when the crescent moon, the west descending,

Drew o'er her face the curtain of the sea,

In the rapt silence, eager senses lending, Low came the sigh to me.

God of my life! how can I ever render The full sweet meaning sadly thus conveyed

The full sad meaning, heart-breakingly tender,

That through the cadence strayed.

II

When the wild North-wind by the sun enchanted,

Seeks the fair South, as lover beauty's shrine,

It bears the moaning of the sorrow-haunted, Gloomy, storm-beaten Pine.

The waves of ocean catch the miserere,

Far wafted seaward from the wintry main,

They roll it on o'er reaches vast and dreary With infinite refrain,

Until on coral shores, where endless Sum

mer

Waves golden banners round her queenly throne,

The Palm enfolds the weary spirit roamer With low responsive moan.

The sea-grape hears it, and the lush banana,

In the sweet indolence of their repose;

The frangipanni, like a crowned Sultana, The passion flower, and rose;

And the fierce tiger in his darksome lair, Deep hid away beneath the bambootree;

All the wild habitants of earth and air,
And of the sleeping sea.

It throws a spell of silence so enthralling,
So breathless and intense and mystical,
Not the deep hush of skies when stars are
falling

Can fill the soul so full.

A death in life! A calm so deep and brooding

It floods the heart with an ecstatic pain, Brimming with joy, yet fearfully foreboding

The dreadful hurricane.

Fail love, fly happiness, yield all things mortal!

Fate, with the living, hath my small lot cast

To dwell beside thee, Palm! Beyond death's portal,

Guard well my sleep at last.

For I do love thee with a lover's passion.

Morn, noon, and night thou art forever
grand,

Type of a glory God alone may fashion
Within the Summer Land.

Sigh not, O Palm! Dread not the final hour;

For oft I've seen within thy gracious shade,

Amid rose-garlands fair, from Love's own bower,

Lithe, dusky forms displayed,

Clad with the magic of their beauty only;

And it were strange if Paradise should be

Despoiled and made forever sad and lonely,

Bereft of these and thee!