Here many a pleasant friend has sat;
Here many a crony's come to chat;
While our grand bust, Melpomene,
Smiles down on right good company.
Then high discourse they'll sometimes hold,
Or Eastern stories have been told;
Or, wandering up and down the gravel,
Deep hidden truths sought to unravel.
One, having first a cup of tea sipped,
Will tell of Thebes and Ancient Egypt,
And how one king the other out-did
By making his the larger pyramid;
Or of the nation Israelite,
And by which route they made their flight;
Dilate upon the "Short Chronology,"
And such vext points of Archæology;
Or talk o'er questions of Divinity,
And what they say who hold "The Trinity."
And heeding not improvement haters,
Will dare to mend King James' translators;
Show that some passage, dark and weak,
Is clear when altered by the Greek ;
And wonder when the English nation
Will tolerate a new translation.
Another upon art will lecture,
And trace the growth of architecture;
Tell how Greek columns, with their graceful ease,
Were copying the stems of trees,
While blended twigs of pliant larch
Gave the idea to Gothic arch;
And how the art in Egypt rose, And that earliest column imitates papyrus as it grows.
One friend has lived in Arab tents,
Spent years 'mid Egypt's monuments,
Chatted with Bedouins face to face,
Till they thought him of their own race;
And entered, as if one of them,
The guarded temple of Jerusalem,
In times when any of Frankish race
Were slain if found in that sacred place.
One friend, half English, half a Yankee,
Would tell how he, now finished dandy,
Among Egypt's tombs ran helter-skelter,
And hunted jackals in the Delta.
One's great on novels in Chinese,
And hieroglyphics read with ease.
One guards rare papers in the Museum,
Tells of grand folks who go to see them;
Is quite at home with Missal tawdry,
And knows to date a monkish forgery.
Another talks of Hebrew roots,
Strabo and Irish Records quotes.
And one will warm with Shakespeare's praise,
Or doubt on crabbed text he'll raise ;
Will tell of who's the last detector
Of flaw in Collier's "Old Corrector;"
And how, among the Museum's Greek debris,
Searching the fragments of the Elgin frieze,
He found the driver for the horse's head
Lost from the Parthenon pediment
More than two hundred years, 'tis said.
Another the right moment picks
To turn our thoughts to politics;
Starts a discussion warmly on
The moves of Louis Napoleon ;*
* 1859.
Wonders how long his power will last,
And who'll succeed when he is past.
Pronounce his ill-seized throne a-shaking,
Divine that in his heart he's quaking.
Sometimes a Cambridge friend will come
And bring a spice of College fun;
Showing how those who teach can trifle,
For parson's wit runs on the Bible;
And Fellows' jokes, until it's clear
Fellows are hardly all sincere ;
Or, culling from his well-stored mind,
Quote classic authors' works refined;
Or anecdotes bring pouring out
Of men one cares to hear about.
Thus just beyond the London smoke,
Not quite too far for London folk,
While country gardens outshine ours,
We feast on friends instead of flowers,
And think-but those who smile must pardon-
No place is pleasanter than our garden.
From-Father, I know that all my life.
A heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.
A little child, a limber elf,
All my chamber 'gan to ring
All travellers at first incline
A look all innocence and trust,
A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays
A better priest I trow that no where none is,
Abra was ready ere I called her name
A chieftain to the Highlands bound,
Achilles' wrath to Greece the direful spring
Adorning fashion, unadorned by dress,
A gentle knight was pricking on the plain,
A good man there was of religion.
A great and strong wind rent the mountains
A heart at leisure from itself
Alas! how little from the grave we claim,
All equal here as if the pavement
All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away
Although the fig-tree shall not blossom
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find
Among thy fancies tell me this
And is there care in Heaven-and is there love
And panting Time toiled after him in vain
And shall Trelawney die?
And think'st thou, Britain, still to sit at ease?
And though they sweep their hearths no less
And were this life the utmost span,
And what becomes of all the days?
Angels listen when she speaks
An inward prompting-now grew daily upon me
A Power is passing from the earth.
As chaos, which by heavenly doom,
As his flock the shepherd leads-
A springy motion in her gait, .
As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont,
As thou hast proved it by their practice;
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