Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/43

 I would have rid the earth of him Once, in my pride! I never knew the worth of him Until he died.

A POEM FOR MAX NORDAU shades quiver down the lone long fallow, And the scared night shudders at the brown owl’s cry; The bleak reeds rattle as the winds whirl by, And frayed leaves flutter through the clumped shrubs callow.

Chill dews clinging on the low cold mallow Make a steel-keen shimmer where the spent stems lie; Dun shades quiver down the lone long fallow, And the scared night shudders at the brown owl’s cry.

Pale stars peering through the clouds' curled shallow Make a thin still flicker in a foul round sky; Black damp shadows through the hushed air fly; The lewd gloom wakens to a moon-sad sallow, Dun shades quiver down the lone long fallow.

BOSTON northern pines are good enough for me, But there's a town my memory uprears— A town that always like a friend appears, And always in the sunrise by the sea. And over it, somehow, there seems to be A downward flash of something new and fierce That ever strives to clear, but never clears The dimness of a charmed antiquity.

I know my Boston is a counterfeit,— A frameless imitation, all bereft