My room is rather bleak and bare;
  I only have one broken chair,
  But then, there’s plenty of fresh air,—­
      Some light, beside. 
  What tho’ I cannot ask my friends
  To share with me my odds and ends,
  A liberty my aerie lends,
      To most denied.

  The bore who falters at the stair
  No more shall be my curse and care,
  And duns shall fail to find my lair
      With beastly bills. 
  When debts have grown and funds are short,
  I find it rather pleasant sport
  To live “above the common sort”
      With all their ills.

  I write my rhymes and sing away,
  And dawn may come or dusk or day: 
  Tho’ fare be poor, my heart is gay. 
      And full of glee. 
  Though chimney-pots be all my views;
  ’T is nearer for the winging Muse,
  So I am sure she ’ll not refuse
      To visit me.

TO E. H. K.

ON THE RECEIPT OF A FAMILIAR POEM

  To me, like hauntings of a vagrant breath
    From some far forest which I once have known,
    The perfume of this flower of verse is blown. 
  Tho’ seemingly soul-blossoms faint to death,
  Naught that with joy she bears e’er withereth. 
    So, tho’ the pregnant years have come and flown,
  Lives come and gone and altered like mine own,
  This poem comes to me a shibboleth: 
  Brings sound of past communings to my ear,
    Turns round the tide of time and bears me back
    Along an old and long untraversed way;
  Makes me forget this is a later year,
    Makes me tread o’er a reminiscent track,
      Half sad, half glad, to one forgotten day!

A BRIDAL MEASURE

  Come, essay a sprightly measure,
  Tuned to some light song of pleasure. 
    Maidens, let your brows be crowned
    As we foot this merry round.

  From the ground a voice is singing,
  From the sod a soul is springing. 
    Who shall say ’t is but a clod
    Quick’ning upward toward its God?

  Who shall say it?  Who may know it,
  That the clod is not a poet
    Waiting but a gleam to waken
    In a spirit music-shaken?

  Phyllis, Phyllis, why be waiting? 
  In the woods the birds are mating. 
    From the tree beside the wall,
    Hear the am’rous robin call.

  Listen to yon thrush’s trilling;
  Phyllis, Phyllis, are you willing,
    When love speaks from cave and tree,
    Only we should silent be?

  When the year, itself renewing,
  All the world with flowers is strewing,
    Then through Youth’s Arcadian land,
    Love and song go hand in hand.

  Come, unfold your vocal treasure,
  Sing with me a nuptial measure,—­
    Let this springtime gambol be
    Bridal dance for you and me.

VENGEANCE IS SWEET