WHEN days were long, and o'er that farm of mine,
Green Cedarcroft, the summer breezes blew,
And from the walnut-shadows I and you,
Dear Edmund, saw the red lawn-roses shine,
Or, following our idyllic Brandywine
Through meadows flecked with many a flowery hue,
To where with wild Arcadian pomp I drew
Your Bacchic march among the startled kine,
You gave me, linked with old Mæonides,
Your loving sonnet, record dear and true
Of days as dear; and now, when suns are brief
And Christmas snows are on the naked trees,
I give you this, -a withered winter leaf,
Yet with your blossom from one root it grew!
THE years go by, old friend! Each, as it fleets,
Moves to a farther, fairer realm the time
When first we twain the pleasant land of rhyme
Discovered, choosing side by side our seats
Below our separate gods: in midnight streets
And haunted attics flattered by the chime
Of silver words, and fed by faith sublime,
I Shelley's mantle wore, you that of Keats,
Dear dreams, that marked the Muse's childhood then,
Nor now to be disowned! The years go by:
The clear-eyed goddess flatters us no more,
And yet, I think, in soberer aims of men
And servitude of Song, that you and I
Are nearer, dearer, faithfuller than before.
IF I could touch with Petrarch's pen this strain
Of graver song, and shape to liquid flow
Of soft Italian syllables the glow
That warms my heart, my tribute were not vain ;
But how shall I such measured sweetness gain
As may your golden nature fitly show,
And with the heart-light shine, that fills you so,
It pales the graces of the cultured brain?
Long have I known, Love better is than Fame,
And Love hath crowned you; yet if any bay
Cling to my chaplet when the years have fled
And I am dust, may this which bears your name
Cling latest, that my love's result shall stay,
When that which mine ambition wrought is dead!
ON HIS FORTIETH BIRTHDAY.*
"WHOM the gods love die young," we have been told, And wise of some the saying seems to be;
Of others foolish; as it is of thee,
Who proven hast, "Whom the gods love live old.”
For have not forty seasons o'er thee rolled,
The worst propitious, - setting like the sea
Towards the haven of prosperity,
Now full in sight, so fair the wind doth hold?
Hast thou not fame, the poet's chief desire;
A wife, whom thou dost love, who loves thee well;
A child, in whom your differing natures blend;
And friends, troops of them, who respect,
(How deeply one, it suits not now to tell ;) Such lives are long, and have a perfect end.
*New York, January 11, 1865.
TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
(With a volume of Shakespeare's Sonnets.)
HAD we been living in the antique days,
With him whose young but cunning fingers penned
These sugared sonnets to his strange-sweet friend,
I dare be sworn we would have won the bays.
Why not? We could have twined in amorous phrase
Sonnets like these, where love and friendship blend,
(Or were they writ for some more private end?)
And this, we see, remembered is with praise.
Yes, there's a luck in most things, and in none
More than in being born at the right time,
It boots not what the labor to be done,
Or feats of arms, or arts, or building rhyme.
Not that the heavens the little can make great,
But many a man has lived an age too late!
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