LINES

Suggested by the singing of A bird early in march, 1868.

Sing on, sweet feathered warbler, sing! 
Mount higher on thy joyous wing,
And let thy morning anthem ring
      Full on my ear;
Thou art the only sign of spring
      I see or hear.

The earth is buried deep in snow;
The muffled streams refuse to flow,
The rattling mill can scarcely go,
      For ice and frost: 
The beauty of the vale below
      In death is lost.

Save thine, no note of joy is heard—­
Thy kindred songsters of the wood
Have long since gone, and thou, sweet bird,
      Art left behind—­
A faithful friend, whose every word
      Is sweet and kind.

But Spring will come, as thou wilt see,
With blooming flower and budding tree,
And song of bird and hum of bee
      Their charms to lend;
But I will cherish none like thee,
      My constant friend.

Like the dear friends who ne’er forsake me—­
Whatever sorrows overtake me—­
In spite of all my faults which make me
      Myself detest,
They still cling to and kindly take me
      Unto their breast.

AN EASTERN TALE

Addressed to Mrs. S.C.  Choate.

A Persian lady we’re informed—­
  This happened long, long years before
The Christian era ever dawned,
  A thousand years, it may be more,
The date and narrative are so obscure,
I have to guess some things that should be sure.

I’m puzzled with this history,
  And rue that I began the tale;
It seems a kind of mystery—­
  I’m very much afraid I’ll fail,
For want of facts of the sensation kind: 
I therefore dwell upon the few I find.

I like voluminous writing best,
  That gives the facts dress’d up in style. 
A handsome woman when she’s dressed
  Looks better than (repress that smile)
When she in plainer costume does appear;
The more it costs we know she is more dear.

The story is a Grecian one,
  The author’s name I cannot tell;
Perhaps it was old Xenophon
  Or Aristotle, I can’t dwell
On trifles; perhaps Plutarch wrote the story: 
At any rate its years have made it hoary.

The Greeks were famous in those days
  In arts, in letters and in arms;
Quite plain and simple in their ways;
  With their own hands they tilled their farms;
Some dressed the vine, some plow’d the ocean’s wave;
Some wrote, were orators, or teachers grave.

They were Republicans, in fact;
  The Persians might have called them “black
Republicans;” they never lacked
  The power to beat a foeman back. 
Thermopylae, so famed in Grecian story
Is but another name for martial glory.