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False to his art and to the high command
Beats all in vain the harp he touched before:It yields a jingle and it yields no more.No more the strings beneath his finger-tipsSing harmonies divine. No more his lips,Touched with a living coal from sacred fires,Lead the sweet chorus of the golden wires.The voice is raucous and the phrases squeak;They labor, they complain, they sweat,…
Professor dear, I think it queer
(‘Twixt you and me, some two or threeAre schemes for plucking pigeons)I mean ’tis strange that every changeOur poor minds to unfetterEntails a new religion-trueAs t’ other one, and better.From each in turn the truth we learn,That wood or flesh or spiritMay justly boast it rules the roastUntil we cease to fear it.Nay, once upon…
A traveler observed one day
And reining in his horse exclaimed:‘The man is greatly to be blamedWho, careless of good morals, leavesTemptation in the way of thieves.Now lest some villain pass this wayAnd by this fruit be led astrayTo bag it, I will kindly packIt snugly in my saddle-sack.’He did so; then that Salt o’ the EarthRode on, rejoicing in…
Fly, heedless stranger, from this spot accurst,
In point of greatness, as in point of time,Of new-school rascals who proclaim their crime.Skilled with a frank loquacity to blabThe dark arcana of each mighty grab,And famed for lying from his early youth,He sinned secure behind a veil of truth.Some lock their lips upon their deeds; some writeA damning record and conceal from sight;Some,…
In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
That he the metal, she the stone,Had cherished secretly alone.
In that fair city, Ispahan,
Whose angel never was released,Who never once let out his beast,But kept, through all the seasons’ round,Silence unbroken and profound.No Prophecy, with ear appliedTo key-hole of the future, triedSuccessfully to catch a hintOf what he’d do nor when begin ‘t;As sternly did his past defyMild Retrospection’s backward eye.Though all admired his silent ways,The women loudest…