Time and Thought were my surveyors,— They boil'd the sea, and baked the layers But he, the man-child glorious,— My boreal lights leap upward, Must time and tide forever run? Will never my winds go sleep in the west? Will never my wheels which whirl the sun And satellites have rest? Too much of donning and doffing, I Too slow the rainbow fades, weary of my robe of snow, My leaves and my cascades; I tire of globes and races, Too long the game is play'd; What without him is summer's pomp, I travail in pain for him, My creatures travail and wait; His couriers come by squadrons, He comes not to the gate. Twice I have moulded an image, And thrice outstretch'd my hand, One in a Judæan manger, One over against the mouths of Nile, And one in the Academe. I moulded kings and saviours, Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more, Seethe, Fate! the ancient elements, Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain. Let war and trade and creeds and song The sunburnt world a man shall breed No ray is dimm'd, no atom worn, My oldest force is good as new, And the fresh rose on yonder thorn Gives back the bending heavens in dew. BRAHMA. IF the red slayer think he slays, Shadow and sunlight are the same; And one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me out; And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. FRIENDSHIP. A RUDDY drop of manly blood I fancied he was fled, And, after many a year, All things through thee take nobler form, A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught The fountains of my hidden life TO EVA. OH fair and stately maid, whose eyes At the same torch that lighted mine; Thy sweet dominion o'er my will, Ah, let me blameless gaze upon Nor fear those watchful sentinels, CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. Born in New York City 1806. THE BOB O' LINKUM. THOU Vocal sprite! thou feather'd troubadour! And play in foppish trim the masquing stranger? Say! art thou, long 'mid forest glooms benighted, They say, alike thy song and plumage changes: Joyous, yet tender, was that gush of song Caught from the brooks, where, 'mid its wildflowers smiling, The silent prairie listens all day long, The only captive to such sweet beguiling; Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls And column'd aisles of western groves symphonious, Learn from the tuneful woods rare madrigals, To make our flowering pastures here harmonious? Caught'st thou thy carol from Otawa maid, Where, through the liquid fields of wild rice plashing, Brushing the ears from off the burden'd blade, Her birch canoe o'er some lone lake is flashing? Or did the reeds of some savannah south Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing, To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth The spice-fed winds had taught them in their wooing? Unthrifty prodigal! is thought of ill Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever? THE ORIGIN OF MINT JULEPS. "TIS said that the gods, on Olympus of old But, determined to send round the goblet once more, In composing a draught, which, till drinking were o'er, Grave CERES herself blithely yielded her corn; And the spirit that lives in each amber-hued grain, And which first had its birth in the dews of the morn, Was taught to steal out in bright dew-drops again. POMONA, whose choicest of fruits on the board Were scatter'd profusely in every one's reach, When call'd on a tribute to cull from the hoard, Express'd the mild juice of the delicate peach. |