Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/168

 Richard Riker. As to my plan. Our fourteen wards Contain some thirty-seven bards. Who, if my glorious theme were known, Would make it, thought and word, their own, My hopes and happiness destroy, And trample with a rival's joy Upon the grave of my renown. My younger brothers in the art, Whose study is the human heart — Minstrels, before whose spells have bowed The learned, the lovely and the proud — Ere their life's morning hours are gone Free minds be theirs, the Muses' boon, And may their suns blaze bright at noon, And set without a cloud. Hillhouse, whose music like his themes Lifts earth to Heaven — whose poet-dreams Are pure and holy as the hymn Echoed from harps of seraphim, By bards that drank at Zion's fountains When glory, peace and hope were hers. And beautiful upon her mountains The feet of angel messengers. Bryant,6 whose songs are thoughts that bless The heart, its teachers, and its joy. As mothers blend with their caress Lessons of truth and gentleness And virtue for the listening boy. Spring's lovelier flowers for many a day Have blossomed on his wandering way — Being of beauty and decay. They slumber in their autumn tomb; But those that graced his own Green River And wreathed the lattice of his home, Charmed by his song from mortal doom. 6 Bryant was not above the reach of flattery, and suc cumbed to the compliment here bestowed — the most ex quisite ever paid by one poet to another. He prefaced this poem in the Post as follows: "There is a wonderful fresh ness and youthfulness of imagination in the following epistle, for a septuagenarian if not an octogenarian poet, as the writer must be, if we are to judge from the chronol ogy of his initial lines. He has lost nothing of the grace and playfulness which might have belonged to his best years. The sportive irony of the piece will amuse our readers and offend nobody. Indeed, we are not sure but a part of this is directed against ourselves, but as Mr. Castaly has chosen to cover it up in dashes, it might imply loo great a jealousy of our dignity to make the application, and to mutilate the poem by omitting any part is contrary to the strict charge of the writer, who insists upon our publishing the whole or none." One can imagine the sat isfied smile that crept over Bryant's severe face in reading the elder poet's compliment. After that " The Croakers" were free to say anything in The Post that they had omitted to say before.

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Bloom on, and will bloom on forever. And Halleck — who has made thy roof, St. Tammany! oblivion-proof— Thy beer illustrious, and thee A belted knight of chivalry; And changed thy dome of painted bricks, And porter casks, and politics, Into a green Arcadian vale. With Stephen Allen' for its lark, Ben Bailey's voice its watchdog's bark, And John Targee its nightingale. These, and the other thirty-four, Will live a thousand years or more — If the world lasts so long. For me, I rhyme not for posterity, Though pleasant to my heirs might be The incense of its praise, When I, their ancestor, have gone And paid the debt, the only one A poet ever pays. But many are my years, and few Are left me ere night's holy dew. And sorrow"s holier tears, will keep The grass green where in death I sleep. And when that grass is green above me. And those who bless me now and love me Are sleeping by my side. Will it avail me aught that men Tell to the world with lip and pen That once I lived and died? No — if a garland for my brow Is growing, let me have it now, While I'm alive to wear it; And if, in whispering my name, There's music in the voice of fame, Like Garcia's, let me hear it! The Christmas holidays are nigh, Therefore, till New Year's Eve, good-bye, Then rcvenons a nos moutons. Yourself and Aldermen — meanwhile. Look o'er this letter with a smile; And keep the secret of its song As faithfully, but not as long, As you have guarded from the eyes Of editorial Paul Prvs, And other meddling, murmuring claimants. Those Eleusinian mysteries, The City's cash receipts and payments. Yours ever, T. C. 7 Stephen Allen had been mayor, state senator, and sub-treasurer. At the age of eighty he was one of the victims in the burning of the steamboat " Henry Clay," in 1852.