The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-11-17
POETRY.
The Poet and his Muse.
They Have Cosy Chat ut the Fireside.
BY T. b. ALDRICH.

The leafess branches snap with cold:
The night is still, the winds are laid;
And you are sitting as of old,
Beside my hearth tone heavenly maid!
what would have CHANGED me all these years.
AS man any boy, had you not come
AND brought me gifts of smiles and tears
From your Olympian home?
"The blacklist cloud that ever lowers"
rs, GU sang when was most torlorn,
III we but watch some patient hours,
Take silver edges from the morn"
Thanks for he lessons; thanks for all.
Not only tor ambrosia brought,
But for those drops which fell like gall
Into tue cup of thought.
Dear Muse, tits twenty years or more
Since that enchanted, iairy time
When you came tapping at my door.
Your reticule stuffed full of rhvme.
What strange things have betallen, indeed,
Since then! Who has the time to say
What bards have lowered land gone to seed)-
Immortal for day!
We've seen pretense with cross and crown,
And folly caught In self-spun tolls;
Merit coDtentment to pass unknown,
And honor scorning public spoils-
Seen Bottom WELD the critics pen
While Ariel sang in sun-lit cloud:
Sometimes we wept, and now and then
We could but laugh aloud.
And once we saw--ah, day of woe!
The lurid fires OF civil war,
The blue and gray frocks laid-a-row,
And many a name rise like star
To shine in splendor evermore.
The fiery flood swept hill and plain,
But clear above the battles
Rang slavery's falling chain.
With pilgrim staff and sandal-shoop,
One time we sought the Old-World shrines;
Saw Venice lying in the moon,
The Jungfrau and the Apprentices;
Beheld the Tlber, rolling dark,
Bent temples fanes and gods austere;
In English meadows heard the lark
That charmed her Shakespeare's ear.
What dreams and visions we haveihad,
What tempests we have weathered through!
Been rich and poor, and gay and sad,
But never hopeless-thanks to you.
A draught of water from the brook,
Or alt Hocheimer-it was one;
Whatever fortune fell we took,
Children of shade and sun.
Though lacking gold, we never stopped
To pick it up in all our days;
Though lacking praise, we sometimes dropped,
We never asked soul for praise.
The exquisite reward OF song
Was song-the self-same thrill and glow
Which to unfolding flowers belong.
And wrens and thrushes know!
I tried you once--the day wed:
Dear Muse, do you remember how
With sudden-knitted, scornful brow?
But you relented, smiled, at last.
Returned, and, with your tears half dried,
"Ah well, she cannot take The Past,
Though she have all besde!'
What gilt-winged hopes have taken flight.
And dropped like Icarus, in mid-sky!
What cloudy day has turned to bright!
What sad, sweet years have fitted by!
What lips we loved vain memory seeks
What hands are cold that once pressed ours!
What lashes reft upon the cheeks
Beneath the SHOWS and flowers!
We would not wish them back again;
The way is rude from here to there,
For us the shoIt-lived joy and pain;
For them the endless rest from care,
The crown, the palm, the deathless youth;
We would not wish them back-ah no!
And as for US. Dear Muse, in truth,
We've but half way to go.
-Harper's for December.