The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858

And Summer's fruited gems,
And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.

Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves,–
Or stretched by grass-grown graves,
Whose gray, high-shouldered stones,
Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns,
Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones
Still slumbering where they lay
While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away!

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing!
Still let me dream and sing,–
Dream of that winding shore
Where scarlet cardinals bloom,–for me no more,–
The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor,
And clustering nenuphars
Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!

Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed!–
Come while the rose is red,–
While blue-eyed Summer smiles
O'er the green ripples round yon sunken piles
Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles,
And on the sultry air
The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!

Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain
With thrills of wild sweet pain!–
On life's autumnal blast,
Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast,–
Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!–
Behold thy new-decked shrine,
And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"

THE TRUSTEE'S LAMENT

Per aspera ad astra

(SCENE.–Outside the gate of the Astronomical Observatory at Albany.)

There was a time when I was blest;
The stars might rise in East or West
With all their sines and wonders;
I cared for neither great nor small,
As pointedly unmoved by all
As, on the top of steeple tall,
A lightning-rod at thunders.

What did I care for Science then?
I was a man with fellow-men,
And called the Bear the Dipper;
Segment meant piece of pie,–no more;
Cosine, the parallelogram that bore
JOHN SMITH & CO. above a door;
Arc, what called Noah skipper.

No axes weighed upon my mind,
(Unless I had a few to grind.)
And as for my astronomy,
Had Hedgecock's quadrant then been known,
I might a lamp-post's height have shown
By gas-tronomic skill,–if none
Find fault with the metonymy.

O hours of innocence! O ways
How far from these unhappy days
When all is vicy-versy!
No flower more peaceful took its due
Than I, who then no difference knew
'Twixt Ursy Major and my true
Old crony, Major Hersey.

Now in long broils and feuds we roast,
Like Strasburg geese that living toast
To make a liver-paté,–
And all because we fondly strove
To set the city of our love
In scientific fame above
Her sister Cincinnati!

We built our tower and furnished it
With everything folks said was fit,
From coping-stone to grounsel;
And then, to give a knowing air,
Just nominally assigned its care
To that unmanageable affair,
A Scientific Council.

We built it, not that one or two
Astronomers the stars might view
And count the comets' hair-roots,
But that it might by all be said
How very freely we had bled,–
We were not laying out a bed
To force their early square-roots.

The observations we wished made
Were on the spirit we'd displayed,
Worthy of Athens' high days;