Let these folks with champagne stuffing,
Not their Engines, do the puffing.
Listen! Where Atlantic beats
Shores of snow and summer heats;
Where the Indian autumn skies
Paint the woods with wampum dyes,—
I have chased the flying sun,
Seeing all he looked upon,
Blessing all that he has blest,
Nursing in my iron breast
All his vivifying heat,
All his clouds about my crest;
And before my flying feet
Every shadow must retreat."
Said the Western Engine, "Phew!"
And a long low whistle blew.
"Come now, really that's the oddest
Talk for one so very modest.
You brag of your East! You do?
Why, I bring the East to you!
All the Orient, all Cathay,
Find through me the shortest way;
And the sun you follow here
Rises in my hemisphere.
Really, if one must be rude,
Length, my friend, ain't longitude."
Said the Union, "Don't reflect, or
I'll run over some Director."
Said the Central, "I'm Pacific;
But, when riled, I'm quite terrific.
Yet to-day we shall not quarrel,
Just to show these folks this moral,
How two Engines-in their vision-
Once have met without collision."
That is what the Engines said,
Unreported and unread;
Spoken slightly through the nose,
With a whistle at the close.
The Legends of the Rhine.
BEETLING walls with ivy grown,
Frowning heights of mossy stone;
Turret, with its flaunting flag
Flung from battlemented crag;
Dungeon-keep and fortalice
Looking down a precipice
O'er the darkly glancing wave
By the Lurline-haunted cave;
Robber haunt and maiden bower,
Home of Love and Crime and Power,—
That's the scenery, in fine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.
One bold baron, double-dyed
Bigamist and parricide,
And, as most the stories run,
Partner of the Evil One;
Injured innocence in white,
Fair but idiotic quite,
Wringing of her lily hands;
Valour fresh from Paynim lands,
Abbot ruddy, hermit pale,
Minstrel fraught with many a tale,
Are the actors that combine
In the Legends of the Rhine.
Bell-mouthed flagons round a board;
Suits of armour, shield, and sword;
Kerchief with its bloody stain ;
Ghosts of the untimely slain;
Thunder-clap and clanking chain;
Headsman's block and shining axe;
Thumb-screw, crucifixes, racks;
Midnight-tolling chapel bell,
Heard across the gloomy fell,-
These and other pleasant facts
Are the properties that shine
In the Legends of the Rhine.
Maledictions, whispered vows
Underneath the linden boughs;
Murder, bigamy, and theft;
Travellers of goods bereft ;
Rapine, pillage, arson, spoil,—
Everything but honest toil,
Are the deeds that best define
Every Legend of the Rhine.
That Virtue always meets reward, But quicker when it wears a sword; That Providence has special care Of gallant knight and lady fair; That villains, as a thing of course, Are always haunted by remorse,Is the moral, I opine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.
FOR THE PARLOUR AND PIANO.
I. THE PERSONIFIED SENTIMENTAL.
AFFECTION'S charm no longer gilds
The idol of the shrine;
But cold Oblivion seeks to fill
Regret's ambrosial wine.
Though Friendship's offering buried lies.
'Neath cold Aversions snow,
Regard and Faith will ever bloom
Perpetually below.
I see thee whirl in marble halls,
In Pleasure's giddy train;
Remorse is never on that brow,
Nor Sorrow's mark of pain.
Deceit has marked thee for her own;
Inconstancy the same;
And Ruin wildly sheds its gleam
Athwart thy path of shame.
II. THE HOMELY PATHETIC.
The dews are heavy on my brow;
My breath comes hard and low;
Yet, mother dear, grant one request,
Before your boy must go.
Oh! lift me ere my spirit sinks,
And ere my senses fail:
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