Burton Egbert Stevenson

“ If he ever Sets foot in the city Among the stockbrokers and Jews, If he has not a heart full of pity, If he don't stand six feet in his shoes, If his lips are not redder than roses, If his hands are not whiter than snow, If he has not the model of noses,— My own Araminta, say "No!" If he speaks of a tax or a duty, If he does not look grand on his knees, If he's blind to a landscape of beauty, Hills, valleys, rocks, waters, and trees, If he dotes not on desolate towers, If he likes not to hear the blast blow, If he knows not the language of flowers,— My own Araminta, say "No!" ”

“ I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower, Where roses and lilies and violets meet; Roving for ever from flower to flower, And kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet! I'd never languish for wealth, or for power, I'd never sigh to see slaves at my feet: I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower, Kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet. O could I pilfer the wand of a fairy, I'd have a pair of those beautiful wings; Their summer days' ramble is sportive and airy, They sleep in a rose when the nightingale sings. Those who have wealth must be watchful and wary ”

“ They sit all night at Ombre, With candles all of wax: But Phyllida, my Phyllida! She dons her russet gown, And runs to gather May dew Before the world is down. The ladies of St. James's! They are so fine and fair, You'd think a box of essences Was broken in the air: But Phyllida, my Phyllida! The breath of heath and furze When breezes blow at morning, Is not so fresh as hers. The ladies of St. James's! They're painted to the eyes; Their white it stays for ever, Their red it never dies: But Phyllida, my Phyllida! Her color comes and goes; It trembles to a lily,— It wavers to a rose. ”

“ Though certain omens oft forewarn a state, And dying lions show the monarch's fate, Why should such fears bid Celia's sorrow rise? For, when a lap-dog falls, no lover dies. Cease, Celia, cease; restrain thy flowing tears. Some warmer passion will dispel thy cares. In man you'll find a more substantial bliss, More grateful toying and a sweeter kiss. He's dead. Oh! lay him gently in the ground! And may his tomb be by this verse renowned: Here Shock, the pride of all his kind, is laid, Who fawned like man, but ne'er like man betrayed. ”

“ VILLON'S BALLADE Of Good Counsel, To His Friends Of Evil Life Nay, be you pardoner or cheat, Or cogger keen, or mumper shy, You'll burn your fingers at the feat, And howl like other folks that fry. All evil folks that love a lie! And where goes gain that greed amasses, By wile, and guile, and thievery? 'Tis all to taverns and to lasses! Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet, With game, and shame, and jollity, Go jigging through the field and street, With myst'ry and morality; Win gold at gleek,—and that will fly, Where all your gain at passage passes,— And that's? ”

“ Fixed are their feet in solid earth Where winds can never blow; But visitings of deeper birth Have reached their roots below. For they have gained the river's brink And of the living waters drink. There's little Will, a five years' child— He is my youngest boy; To look on eyes so fair and wild, It is a very joy. He hath conversed with sun and shower, And dwelt with every idle flower, As fresh and gay as them. He loiters with the briar-rose,— The blue-bells are his playfellows, That dance upon their slender stem. ”

“ Well, let the preacher have it so, And clay we are, and clay shall be;— Why iterate?—for this I know, That clay does very well for me. When clay has such red mouths to kiss, Firm hands to grasp, it is enough: How can I take it aught amiss We are not made of rarer stuff? And if one tempt you to believe His choice would be immortal gold, Question him, Can you then conceive A warmer heart than clay can hold? Or richer joys than clay can feel? And when perforce he falters nay, Bid him renounce his wish and kneel In thanks for this same kindly clay. ”

“ Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death; Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic, emotional, exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's breath. Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh ”

“ You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights, 'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights: You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive trees. Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. ”

“ THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH OF HER FAWN The wanton troopers riding by Have shot my fawn, and it will die. Ungentle men! They cannot thrive Who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst, alive, Them any harm; alas! nor could Thy death to them do any good. I'm sure I never wished them ill, Nor do I for all this; nor will: But, if my simple prayers may yet Prevail with Heaven to forget Thy murder, I will join my tears Rather than fail. But O my fears! It cannot die so. Heaven's King Keeps register of everything, And nothing may we use in vain ”

“ We shall march prospering,—not through his presence; Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre; Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins: let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation and pain, Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight, Never glad confident morning again! ”

“ For, as this sweet life passes by, We blink and nod with critic eye; We've no words rude enough to give Its charm so frank and fugitive. The green and scarlet of the Park, The undulating streets at dark, The brown smoke blown across the blue, This colored city we walk through;— The pallid faces full of pain, The field-smell of the passing wain, The laughter, longing, perfume, strife, The daily spectacle of life;— Ah! how shall this be given to rhyme, By rhymesters of a knowing time? Ah! for the age when verse was clad, Being godlike, to be bad and mad. ”

“ A lizard's body, lean and long, A fish's head, a serpent's tongue, Its foot with triple claw disjoined; And what a length of tail behind! How slow its pace; and then its hue— Who ever saw so fine a blue?" "Hold, there," the other quick replies, "'Tis green,—I saw it with these eyes, As late with open mouth it lay, And warmed it in the sunny ray: Stretched at its ease, the beast I viewed And saw it eat the air for food." "I've seen it, sir, as well as you, And must again affirm it blue; At leisure I the beast surveyed, Extended in the cooling shade." "'Tis green, 'tis green, sir, I assure ye!" ”

“ Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites; Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw! So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands. And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him. ”

“ Hector may tremble all his life, And die,—but not of that he's dreading.... Ah me, the World! How fast it spins! The beldams dance, the caldron bubbles; They shriek, they stir it for our sins, And we must drain it for our troubles. We toil, we groan; the cry for love Mounts up from this poor seething city, And yet I know we have above A Father, infinite in pity. When Beauty smiles, when Sorrow weeps, Where sunbeams play, where shadows darken, One inmate of our dwelling keeps Its ghastly carnival ”

“ He must walk like a god of old story Come down from the home of his rest; He must smile like the sun in his glory On the buds he loves ever the best; And oh! from its ivory portal Like music his soft speech must flow!— If he speak, smile, or walk like a mortal, My own Araminta, say "No!" Don't listen to tales of his bounty, Don't hear what they say of his birth, Don't look at his seat in the county, Don't calculate what he is worth ”

“ No! 'tis some sly minx In cousin's helmet masquerading; If not—then Wisdom was a dame For sonnets and for serenading! I thought the goddess cold, austere, Not made for love's despairs and blisses: Did Pallas wear her hair like that? Was Wisdom's mouth so shaped for kisses? The Nightingale should be her bird, And not the Owl, big-eyed and solemn: How very fresh she looks, and yet She's older far than Trajan's Column! The magic hand that carved this face, And set this vine-work round it running, Perhaps ere mighty Phidias wrought, Had lost its subtle skill and cunning. ”

“ For, had he waited, he might have wed Some maiden fair and thoroughbred; For there be women as fair as she, Whose verbs and nouns do more agree. Alas for maiden! alas for judge! And the sentimental,—that's one-half "fudge"; For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore, With all his learning and all his lore; And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face For more refinement and social grace. If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, "It might have been," More sad are these we daily see: "It is, but hadn't ought to be." ”

“ But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same; And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail, The female of the species must be deadlier than the male. She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest. These be purely male diversions—not in these her honor dwells. ”

“ And twenty thousand things may chance Before our second meeting; For oh! I have been often told That all the world grows older, And hearts and hopes to-day so cold, To-morrow must be colder. If I have never touched the string Beneath your chamber, dear one, And never said one civil thing When you were by to hear one,— If I have made no rhymes about Those looks which conquer Stoics, And heard those angel tones, without One fit of fair heroics,— Yet do not, though the world's cold school Some bitter truths has taught me, Oh, do not deem me quite the fool Which wiser friends have thought me! ”

“ An owl cannot roost With his limbs so unloosed; No owl in this world Ever had his claws curled, Ever had his legs slanted, Ever had his bill canted, Ever had his neck screwed Into that attitude. He can't do it, because 'Tis against all bird-laws. Anatomy teaches, Ornithology preaches An owl has a toe That can't turn out so! I've made the white owl my study for years, And to see such a job almost moves me to tears! Mister Brown, I'm amazed You should be so gone crazed As to put up a bird In that posture absurd! To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness ”

“ BALLADE OF LADIES' NAMES Brown's for Lalage, Jones for Lelia, Robinson's bosom for Beatrice glows, Smith is a Hamlet before Ophelia. The glamor stays if the reason goes! Every lover the years disclose Is of a beautiful name made free. One befriends, and all others are foes. Anna's the name of names for me. Sentiment hallows the vowels of Delia; Sweet simplicity breathes from Rose; Courtly memories glitter in Celia; Rosalind savors of quips and hose, Araminta of wits and beaux, Prue of puddings, and Coralie All of sawdust and spangled shows; Anna's the name of names for me. ”

“ That (however the writer the truth may deplore) , 'Twas Gainsborough painted your "Little Boy Blue"; Smile only serenely—though cut to the core— For the man who plants cabbages imitates, too! And you too, my Poet, be never dismayed If they whisper your Epic—"Sir Eperon d'Or"— Is nothing but Tennyson thinly arrayed In a tissue that's taken from Morris's store; That no one, in fact, but a child could ignore That you "lift" or "accommodate" all that you do; Take heart—though your Pegasus' withers be sore— For the man who plants cabbages imitates, too! ”

“ And from that day, o'er hill and glade, Through those old woods a path was made; And many men wound in and out, And dodged, and turned, and bent about And uttered words of righteous wrath Because 'twas such a crooked path. But still they followed—do not laugh— The first migrations of that calf, And through this winding wood-way stalked, Because he wobbled when he walked. This forest path became a lane, That bent, and turned, and turned again; This crooked lane became a road, Where many a poor horse with his load Toiled on beneath the burning sun, And traveled some three miles in one. ”