XXIX

IN THE STATES

WITH half a heart I wander here

WITH

As from an age gone by

A brother-yet though young in years,
An elder brother, I.

You speak another tongue than mine,
Though both were English born.
I towards the night of time decline
You mount into the morn.

Youth shall grow great and strong and free,
But age must still decay:

To-morrow for the States-for me,

England and Yesterday.

I

A PORTRAIT

AM a kind of farthing dip,

Unfriendly to the nose and eyes; A blue-behinded ape, I skip

Upon the trees of Paradise.

At mankind's feast, I take my place
In solemn, sanctimonious state,
And have the air of saying grace
While I defile the dinner plate.

I am "the smiler with the knife,"
The battener upon garbage, I-
Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life,
Were it not better far to die?

Yet still, about the human pale,
I love to scamper, love to race,
To swing by my irreverent tail
All over the most holy place;

And when at length, some golden day, The unfailing sportsman, aiming at, Shall bag, me-all the world shall say: Thank God, and there's an end of that!

XXXI

ING clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still,

SIN

Sing truer or no longer sing!

No more the voice of melancholy Jacques
To wake a weeping echo in the hill;
But as the boy, the pirate of the spring,
From the green elm a living linnet takes,
One natural verse recapture- then be still.

A CAMP1

HE bed was made, the room was fit,

THE

By punctual eve the stars were lit; The air was still, the water ran, No need was there for maid or man, When we put up, my ass and I, At God's green caravanserai.

1 From Travels with a Donkey.

XXXIII

THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 1

E travelled in the print of olden wars,

WE

Yet all the land was green,

And love we found, and peace,

Where fire and war had been.

They pass and smile, the children of the sword — No more the sword they wield;

And O, how deep the corn

Along the battlefield!

1 From Travels with a Donkey.