The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-05-10

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Browning:
Each only as God wills
Can wSrB; Gods PUPPETS, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first.
And here, by way of conclusion, is pas
sage from a poem which Yorick thinks he
saw in the Atlantic Monthly. years ago. Is
the poem to be found in the Atlantic, and
who is the author?
Once. the Castle of Chalus crowned
With sulen battlemenIs, stood and frowned
On the suen plain around it;
But Richard of Enelaod came one day,
Aud the Castle OF Chalus passed away
In such rapid aud sure decay
No modern yet has found it,
Lowell ought to be the author Of that.
The lines of fragments of roems quoted
above have been ringing in Yorick's ears for
years. He can remember exactly how some
of them looked on the printed pages in which
he found them. But of their authorship he
is ignorant. II readers Of the Drawer can
"place" any of them, and will take the trou-
Bile to do so the information will be thankful
ly received and made note of. Not few
other fragments, tags of verse and chips of
prose, await Identification; but the reader
shall not be troubled with them--this week
at least.
Mr.. W. 81. Mallock who wrote "The New
Republic" and who is nothing if not satirical,
has just gotten out little pamphlet after the
manner of "Egery Man his Own Doctor''
and tracts of that kind. The pamphlet is
called Every Man his own Poet" and gives
receipts for making all kinds of poetry. It
has not been reprinted on this side yet, but
the correspondents have sent over some of
the recipes. Here is one for making pre-
Raphaelite poem:
Take three damozels, dressed in straight
nightgowns. Pull their hairpins out, and let
their hair tumble all about their shoulders.
A few stars may be sprinkled into this with
advantage. Place an aureole about the head
of each, and give each lily in her hand,
about halt the size of herself. Bend their
necks all different ways, and set them in a
row before stone wall, with an apple tree
bstween each, and some large flowers at their
feet. Trees and flowers of the right sort are
| very plentiful in church windows. When you
bave arranged all these objects rightly, take a
cast OF them in the sottest part of your brain,
and pour in your word composition, as above
described. This kind of poem is much i'm
| proved by what is called burden. This con-
| ssts OF few jingling words, generally of an
archaic character, about which we have only
| to De careful that they have no reference to
| the subject of the poem they are to ornament.
| They are inserted without variation between
the stanzas. In conclusion, we would re-
mark to beginners that this SOFT of compost
lion must be attempted only in a perfectly
vacant atmosphere; so that no grains of COM
mon sense may iniure the work whilst in
| progress.
Here is something that is ''good for the
spring of the year," as a genial lecturer on
matera medica used to laughingly say when
he described thoroughwort-eup eupatoriuns per-
foliatuna he called it. 1t is to be found in "My
Garden Acquaintances," book written by
literary feller who is now airing himself in
Madrid among the Senoritas, as be laughed
at Caleb Gushing for doing so many years
| ago. Here it is:
The return of the robin is commonly an
nounced by the newspapers, like that of en-
| inent or notorious people to watering place,
as the first authentic notification of spring
| And such his appearance in the orchard and
| garden undoubtedly is. But in spite of his
name of migratory thI ush, he stays with us
| all winter, and l have seen him when the
| thermometer marked Is deg below zero
of Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within.
like Emerson's Tltmouse, aud as cheerful as
he. The robin has a bad reputation among
| people who do not value themselves less for
| being fond of cherries. There is, admit,
a spice of vulgarity in him, and his song is
rather of the Bloomfield sort, too LARGELY
ballasted with prose. His ethics are of the
| Poor Richard school, and the main chance
which calls forth all his energy Is alto
gether of the belly. He never has those fine
intervals of luDacy into which his cousins,
the catbird and the mavis, are apt to
| fall. But for a. that and twice as muckle's
a. that, would not exchange him for all
the cherries that ever came out of Asia Min
Or With whatever faults, he has not
wholly forfeited that superiority which be-
longs to the children of nature. He has a
finer taste in fruit than could be distilled
from many successive committees of the Hor-
tcutural Society, and he eats with relish
ing gulp not inferior TO DR.. Johnson's. He
feels and freely exercises bis right of eminent
domain. His is the earliest mess of green
peas; his all the mulberries l had fancied
mine. But he gets also the lions share of
the raspberries, he is great planter, and
sows those wild ones in the woods, that SOL
ace the pedestrian and give momentary
calm even to the jaded victims of the White
Hills. He keeps strict eye over ones fruit,
and knows to shade OF purple when your
grapes have cooked long enough in the sun.
During the severe drought few years ago,
the robins wholly vanished from my garden.
l neither saw nor beard one for three weeks.
Meanwhile small foreign grape vine, rather
shy of bearing, seemed to fnd the dusty air
congenial. and, dreaming perhaps OF its sweet
Argos across the sea, decked itself with a
score or SO of fair punches. watched them
rom day to day till they should have Sc
reted sugar enough from the sunbeams, and
at last made up nv mind that would cele-
brate my vintage the next morning. But the
robins too somehow had kept note of them.
They must have sent out spies as did the
Jews into the promised land, before 1 was
stirring. When went with my basket, al
least dozen of these winged vintagers
hustled out from among the leaves, and
aightiDg on the nearest tree intereb anged
some shrll remarks about me of dero gatory
nature. They had fairly sacked the vine.
Not Wellingtou's veterans made cleaner
work of aSpanish town not Federals or Con-
federates were ever more impartial in the con-
fiscation nf neutral chickens. was keeping
my grapes q secret to surprise the fair Fedele
with, but the robins made them aprofoundel
secret to her than had meant. The tattered
remnant of single bunch was all my harvest
home. How paltry it looked at the bottom