And the days have passed, the three,

Over me!

And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!

'Twas the random runes I wrote

At the bottom of the note,

(Wrote and freely

Gave to Greeley)

In the middle of the night,
In the mellow, moonless night,
When the stars were out of sight,
When my pulses, like a knell,
(Israfel!)

Danced with dim and dying fays
O'er the ruins of my days,

O'er the dimeless, timeless days,
When the fifty, drawn at thirty,
Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty

Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!

Fiends controlled it,

(Let him hold it!)

Devils held for me the inkstand and the pen;
Now the days of grace are o'er,

(Ah, Lenore!)

I am but as other men;
What is time, time, time,

To my rare and runic rhyme,

To my random, reeling rhyme,

By the sands along the shore,

Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer,

"Nevermore!"

CAMERADOS

Bayard Taylor.

EVERYWHERE, everywhere, following me;

Taking me by the buttonhole, pulling off my boots, hustling

me with the elbows;

Sitting down with me to clams and the chowder-kettle;

The Last Ride Together

431

Plunging naked at my side into the sleek, irascible surges; Soothing me with the strain that I neither permit nor pro

hibit;

Flocking this way and that, reverent, eager, orotund, irrepressible;

Denser than sycamore leaves when the north-winds are scouring Paumanok;

What can I do to restrain them? Nothing, verily nothing, Everywhere, everywhere, crying aloud for me;

Crying, I hear; and I satisfy them out of my nature;

And he that comes at the end of the feast shall find some

thing over.

Whatever they want I give; though it be something else, they shall have it.

Drunkard, leper, Tammanyite, small-pox and cholera patient, shoddy and codfish millionnaire,

And the beautiful young men, and the beautiful young women, all the same,

Crowding, hundreds of thousands, cosmical multitudes,

Buss me and hang on my hips and lean up to my shoulders, Everywhere listening to my yawp and glad whenever they

hear it;

Everywhere saying, say it, Walt, we believe it:

Everywhere, everywhere.

Bayard Taylor.

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

FROM HER POINT OF VIEW

WHEN I had firmly answered “No,”

And he allowed that that was so,

I really thought I should be free
For good and all from Mr. B.,

And that he would soberly acquiesce.

I said that it would be discreet
That for awhile we should not meet;
I promised that I would always feel

A kindly interest in his weal;
I thanked him for his amorous zeal;

In short, I said all I could but "yes."

I said what I'm accustomed to;
I acted as I always do.

I promised he should find in me
A friend, a sister, if that might be;
But he was still dissatisfied.
He certainly was most polite;
He said exactly what was right,
He acted very properly,

Except indeed for this, that he

Insisted on inviting me

To come with him for " one more last ride."

A little while in doubt I stood:

A ride, no doubt, would do me good;

I had a habit and a hat

Extremely well worth looking at;

The weather was distinctly fine. My horse, too, wanted exercise, And time, when one is riding, flies; Besides, it really seemed, you see, The only way of ridding me

Of pertinacious Mr. B.;

So my head I graciously incline.

I won't say much of what happened next;
I own I was extremely vexed.

Indeed I should have been aghast
If any one had seen what passed;
But nobody need ever know

That, as I leaned forward to stir the fire,
He advanced before I could well retire;
And I suddenly felt, to my great alarm,
The grasp of a warm, unlicensed arm,
An embrace in which I found no charm;

I was awfully glad when he let me go.

Then we began to ride; my steed
Was rather fresh, too fresh indeed,

The Last Ride Together
And at first I thought of little, save
The way to escape an early grave,

As the dust rose up on either side.
My stern companion jogged along
On a brown old cob both broad and strong.
He looked as he does when he's writing verse,
Or endeavoring not to swear and curse,
Or wondering where he has left his purse;
Indeed it was a sombre ride.

433

I spoke of the weather to Mr. B.,

But he neither listened nor spoke to me.
I praised his horse, and I smiled the smile
Which was wont to move him once in a while.
I said I was wearing has favorite flowers,
But I wasted my words on the desert air,
For he rode with a fixed and gloomy stare.
I wonder what he was thinking about.
As I don't read verse, I shan't find out.
It was something subtle and deep, no doubt,
A theme to detain a man for hours.

Ah! there was the corner where Mr. S.
So nearly induced me to whisper "yes";
And here it was that the next but one
Proposed on horseback, or would have done,

Had his horse not most opportunely shied;
Which perhaps was due to the unseen flick
He received from my whip; 'twas a scurvy trick,
But I never could do with that young man,-

I hope his present young woman can.

Well, I must say, never, since time began,
Did I go for a duller or longer ride.

He never smiles and he never speaks;
He might go on like this for weeks;
He rolls a slightly frenzied eye
Towards the blue and burning sky,

And the cob bounds on with tireless stride.

If we aren't home for lunch at two
I don't know what papa will do;

But I know full well he will say to me,
"I never approved of Mr. B.;

It's the very devil that you and he

Ride, ride together, forever ride."

James Kenneth Stephen.

IMITATION OF WALT WHITMAN

WHO am I?

I have been reading Walt Whitman, and know not whether he be me, or me he;

Or otherwise!

Oh, blue skies! oh, rugged mountains! oh, mighty, rolling Niagara!

O, chaos and everlasting bosh!

I am a poet; I swear it! If you do not believe it you are a dolt, a fool, an idiot!

Milton, Shakespere, Dante, Tommy Moore, Pope, never, but Byron, too, perhaps, and last, not least, Me, and the Poet Close.

We send our resonance echoing down the adamantine cañons of the future!

We live forever! The worms who criticise us (asses!) laugh, scoff, jeer, and babble-die!

Serve them right.

What is the difference between Judy, the pride of Fleet Street, the glory of Shoe Lane, and Walt Whitman? Start not! 'Tis no end of a minstrel show who perpends

this query;

'Tis no brain-racking puzzle from an inner page of the Family Herald,

No charade, acrostic (double or single), conundrum, riddle, rebus, anagram, or other guess-work.

I answer thus: We both write truths-great, stern, solemn, unquenchable truths-couched in more or less ridiculous language.