A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET

A little while (my life is almost set!)

I fain would pause along the downward way,
Musing an hour in this sad sunset ray,

While, Sweet! our eyes with tender tears are wet :
A little hour I fain would linger yet.

A little while I fain would linger yet,

All for love's sake, for love that cannot tire;
Though fervid youth be dead, with youth's desire,
And hope has faded to a vague regret,
A little while I fain would linger yet.

A little while I fain would linger here:

Behold! who knows what strange, mysterious bars 'Twixt souls that love may rise in other stars?

Nor can love deem the face of death is fair:

A little while I still would linger here.

A little while I yearn to hold thee fast,

Hand locked in hand, and loyal heart to heart;

(O pitying Christ! those woeful words, "We part!") So ere the darkness fall, the light be past,

A little while I fain would hold thee fast.

A little while, when light and twilight meet, —
Behind, our broken years; before, the deep
Weird wonder of the last unfathomed sleep,-
A little while I still would clasp thee, Sweet,
A little while, when night and twilight meet.

A little while I fain would linger here;

Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars
Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars?
Nor can love deem the face of death is fair :
A little while I still would linger here.

A STORM IN THE DISTANCE

I see the cloud-born squadrons of the gale,
Their lines of rain like glittering spears deprest,
While all the affrighted land grows darkly pale

In flashing charge on earth's half-shielded breast.

Sounds like the rush of trampling columns float

From that fierce conflict; volleyed thunders peal, Blent with the maddened wind's wild bugle-note; The lightnings flash, the solid woodlands reel !

Ha! many a foliaged guardian of the height,
Majestic pine or chestnut, riven and bare,
Falls in the rage of that aërial fight,

Led by the Prince of all the Powers of air!

Vast boughs like shattered banners hurtling fly
Down the thick tumult: while, like emerald snow,
Millions of orphaned leaves make wild the sky,
Or drift in shuddering helplessness below.

Still, still, the levelled lances of the rain.

At earth's half-shielded breast take glittering aim; All space is rife with fury, racked with pain,

Earth bathed in vapor, and heaven rent by flame!

At last the cloud-battalions through long rifts
Of luminous mists retire: the strife is done,
And earth once more her wounded beauty lifts,
To meet the healing kisses of the sun.

FRANCIS BRET HARTE

[Born at Albany, New York, August 25, 1839; died at Camberley, England, May 5, 1902]

Here, where Nature makes thy bed,
Let thy rude, half-human tread

Point to hidden Indian springs,
Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses,
Hovered o'er by timid wings,
Where the wood-duck lightly passes,
Where the wild bee holds her sweets,
Epicurean retreats,

Fit for thee, and better than
Fearful spoils of dangerous man.

In thy fat-jowled deviltry

Friar Tuck shall live in thee;

Thou mayest levy tithe and dole;

Thou shalt spread the woodland cheer,

From the pilgrim taking toll;

Match thy cunning with his fear;

Eat, and drink, and have thy fill;

Yet remain an outlaw still!

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

[Born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 11, 1836; died at Boston, March 19, 1907]

WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN

When the Sultan Shah-Zaman

Goes to the city Ispahan,

Even before he gets so far

As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,

At the last of the thirty palace-gates,

The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,

Orders a feast in his favorite room

Glittering squares of colored ice,

Sweetened with syrup, tinctured with spice,

Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,

Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,

Limes, and citrons, and apricots,

And wines that are known to Eastern princes;
And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots

Of spiced meats and costliest fish.

And all that curious palate could wish,
Pass in and out of the cedarn doors;
Scattered over mosaic floors

Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,
And a musical fountain throws its jets
Of a hundred colors into the air.
The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,
And stains with the henna-plant the tips
Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips
Till they bloom again; but alas, that rose
Not for the Sultan buds and blows,
Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman
When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand
The dancing-girls of Samarcand
Glide in like shapes from fairy-land,

Making a sudden mist in air

Of fleecy veils and floating hair

And white arms lifted. Orient blood
Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes.
And there, in this Eastern Paradise,
Filled with the breath of sandal-wood,
And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,
Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,
Sipping the wines of Astrakhan ;
And her Arab lover sits with her.
That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Goes to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light,
Flaming, flickering on the night
From my neighbor's casement opposite,
I know as well as I know to pray,
I know as well as tongue can say,
That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman
Has gone to the city Ispahan.

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

[Born at Plainfield, Massachusetts, September 12, 1829; died in Hartford, Connecticut, October 20, 1900]

CAMPING OUT

It seems to be agreed that civilization is kept up only by a constant effort. Nature claims its own speedily when the effort is relaxed. If you clear a patch of fertile ground in the forest, uproot the stumps and plant it, year after year, in potatoes and maize, you say you have subdued it. But if you leave it for a season or two, a kind of barbarism seems to steal out upon it from the circling woods; coarse grass and brambles cover it; bushes spring up in a wild tangle; the raspberry and the blackberry flower and fruit, and the humorous bear feeds upon them. The last state of the ground is worse than the first.