EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

[Born at Hartford, Connecticut, October 8, 1833; died in New York, January 18, 1908]

PAN IN WALL STREET

Just where the Treasury's marble front
Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations;
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
To throng for trade and last quotations;
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled
From Trinity's undaunted steeple,

Even then I heard a strange, wild strain
Sound high above the modern clamor,
Above the cries of greed and gain,

The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;
And swift, on Music's misty ways,

It led, from all this strife for millions,

To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days
Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.

And as it stilled the multitude,

And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
I saw the minstrel, where he stood

At ease against a Doric pillar:
One hand a droning organ played,

The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned

Like those of old) to lips that made

The reeds give out that strain impassioned.

'T was Pan himself had wandered here
A-strolling through this sordid city,

And piping to the civic ear

The prelude of some pastoral ditty!

The demigod had crossed the seas,-

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr, And Syracusan times, to these

-

Far shores and twenty centuries later.

A ragged cap was on his head;

But hidden thus there was no doubting

That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,

His gnarléd horns were somewhere sprouting; His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,

Were crossed, as in some frieze you see them, And trousers, patched of divers hues,

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,
And with his goat's-eyes looked around
Where'er the passing current drifted;
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills

The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
Even now the tradesmen from their tills,
With clerks and porters crowded near him.

The bulls and bears together drew

From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, As erst, if pastorals be true,

Came beats from every wooded valley;
The random passers stayed to list-
A boxer Aegon, rough and merry,
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst
With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long

In tattered cloak of army pattern, And Galatea joined the throng,

A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;

While old Silenus staggered out

From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,

And bade the piper, with a shout,

To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!

A newsboy and a peanut-girl

Like little Fauns began to caper:
His hair was all in tangled curl,

Her tawny legs were bare and taper;
And still the gathering larger grew,
And gave its pence and crowded nigher,
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew
His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating still

With throbs her vernal passion taught her, Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,

Or by the Arethusan water!

New forms may fold the speech, new lands
Arise within these ocean portals,

But Music waves eternal wands,

Enchantress of the souls of mortals!

So thought I, but among us trod

A man in blue, with legal baton,

And scoffed the vagrant demigod,

And pushed him from the step I sat on.

Doubting I mused upon the cry,

"Great Pan is dead!" - and all the people Went on their ways: and clear and high

The quarter sounded from the steeple.

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

[Born at Windsor, Connecticut, 1841; died at Cleveland, Ohio, February 27, 1887]

THE FOOL'S PRAYER

The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile.
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool:
The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!
The word we had not sense to say -

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders

- oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

JOAQUIN MILLER

Born in Indiana, November 10, 1841; died in California, February 17, 1913]

CROSSING THE PLAINS

What great yoked brutes with briskets low,
With wrinkled necks like buffalo,

With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes,
That turned so slow and sad to you,
That shone like love's eyes soft with tears,
That seemed to plead, and make replies,
The while they bowed their necks and drew
The creaking load; and looked at you.
Their sable briskets swept the ground,
Their cloven feet kept solemn sound.