Cobwebs from a Library Corner

Where are Marc Antony’s clothes?
Where are the gloves from Antoinette’s hand?
Where Oliver Goldsmith’s hose?

I do not search for the ships of Tyre —
The grave of Whittington’s cat
Would sooner set my spirit on fire —
Or even Beau Brummel’s hat.

And when I reflect that there are spots
In the world that I can’t find,
Where lie these same identical lots,
And many of this same kind,

I’m tempted to give a store of gold
To him that will bring to me
A glass, Earth’s mysteries to unfold,
And show me where these things be.

MEMORIES

Yon maiden once a jester did adore,
Who early died and in the church-yard sleeps.
Once in a while she reads his best jokes o’er
And sits her down and madly, sorely weeps.

A SAD STATE

I know a man in Real Estate,
Whose pride of self’s sublime.
He’d like to be a poet great
But “can’t afford the time.”

AD ASTRA PER OTIUM

As I read over old John Dryden’s verse,
The rhymes of men like William Blake, and Gay,
The stuff that helped fill Edmund Waller’s purse,
And that which placed on Marvell’s brow the bay,

It doth appear to me that in those times
The Muses quaffed not sparkling wine, but grog,
And that to grow immortal through one’s rhymes
Was ’bout as hard as falling off a log.

CONSOLATION

Shakespeare was not accounted great
When good Queen Bess ruled England’s state,
So why should I to-day repine
Because the laurel is not mine?

Perhaps in twenty-ninety-three
Folks will begin to talk of me,
And somewhere statues may be built
Of me, in bronze, perhaps in gilt,

And sages full of quips and quirks
Will wonder if I wrote my works.
So why should I repine to-day
Because my brow wears not the bay?

SATISFACTION

ON READING “NOT ONE DISSATISFIED,” BY WALT WHITMAN

God spare the day when I am satisfied!
Enough is truly likened to a feast that leaves man satiate.
The sluggishness of fulness comes apace; the dulness of a mind that knows all things.
The lack of every sweet desire; no new sensation for the soul!
To want no more?
What vile estate is that?
What holds the morrow for the soul that’s satisfied?
What holds the future for the mind content?
Is aspiration worthless?
Is much-abused ambition then so vile?
What is the essence of the joy of living?
Must yesterday, to-morrow, and to-day all be the same,
With nothing to be hoped for?
Is not a soul athirst a joyous thing?
Where lies content to him whose eye doth rest on higher things?
What satiation can compare to hope?
Yet who among the satisfied hath need of hope?
What can he hope for if he’s satisfied?
’Tis but conceit, and nothing more, to prate of satisfaction!
God spare the day when I am satisfied!
I do not want the earth,
Yet nothing less will leave me quite content;
And once ’tis mine,
I’m very sure you’ll find me roaming off
After the universe!

TO A WITHERED ROSE

Thy span of life was all too short —
A week or two at best —
From budding-time, through blossoming,
To withering and rest.

Yet compensation hast thou – aye! —