“By long a-studyin’ their throbs
  I catches onto all the probs.”

  Much more, no doubt, he would have said,
  But suddenly he turned and fled;

  For in mine eye’s indignant green
  Lay storms that he had not foreseen,

  Till all at once, with silent squeals,
  His toes “caught on” and told his heels.

  T.A.H.

  Yes, he was that, or that, as you prefer—­
  Did so and so, though, faith, it wasn’t all;
  Lived like a fool, or a philosopher. 
  And had whatever’s needful for a fall. 
  As rough inflections on a planet merge
  In the true bend of the gigantic sphere,
  Nor mar the perfect circle of its verge,
  So in the survey of his worth the small
  Asperities of spirit disappear,
  Lost in the grander curves of character. 
  He lately was hit hard:  none knew but I
  The strength and terror of that ghastly stroke—­
  Not even herself.  He uttered not a cry,
  But set his teeth and made a revelry;
  Drank like a devil—­staining sometimes red
  The goblet’s edge; diced with his conscience; spread,
  Like Sisyphus, a feast for Death, and spoke
  His welcome in a tongue so long forgot
  That even his ancient guest remembered not
  What race had cursed him in it.  Thus my friend
  Still conjugating with each failing sense
  The verb “to die” in every mood and tense,
  Pursued his awful humor to the end. 
  When like a stormy dawn the crimson broke
  From his white lips he smiled and mutely bled,
  And, having meanly lived, is grandly dead.

MY MONUMENT.

  It is pleasant to think, as I’m watching my ink
    A-drying along my paper,
  That a monument fine will surely be mine
    When death has extinguished my taper.

  From each rhyming scribe of the journalist tribe
    Purged clean of all sentiments narrow,
  A pebble will mark his respect for the stark
    Stiff body that’s under the barrow.

  By fellow-bards thrown, thus stone upon stone
    Will make my celebrity deathless. 
  O, I wish I could think, as I gaze at my ink,
    They’d wait till my carcass is breathless.

  MAD.

  O ye who push and fight
    To hear a wanton sing—­
  Who utter the delight
    That has the bogus ring,—­

  O men mature in years,
    In understanding young,
  The membranes of whose ears
    She tickles with her tongue,—­

  O wives and daughters sweet,
    Who call it love of art
  To kiss a woman’s feet
    That crush a woman’s heart,—­

  O prudent dams and sires,
    Your docile young who bring
  To see how man admires
    A sinner if she sing,—­

  O husbands who impart
    To each assenting spouse
  The lesson that shall start
    The buds upon your brows,—­