It seems the world was always bright
With some divine unclouded weather,
When we, with hearts and footsteps light,
By lawn and river walked together:
There was no talk of me and you,
Of theories with facts to bound them, We were content to be and do,
And take our fortunes as we found them.
We spoke no wistful words of love,
No hint of sympathy and dearness, Only around, beneath, above,
There ran a swift and subtle nearness.
Each inmost thought was known to each
By some impetuous divination:
We found no need of flattering speech,
Content with silent admiration.
I think I never touched your hand,
I took no heed of face or feature,
Only, I thought on sea or land
Was never such a gracious creature.
It seems I was not hard to please,
Where'er you led I needs must flollow;
For strength you were my Hercules,
For wit and lustre my Apollo.
The years flew onward: stroke by stroke
They clashed from the impartial steeple,
And we appear to other folk
A pair of ordinary people.
One word, old friend: though fortune flies,
If hope should fail-till death shall sever
In one dim pair of faithful eyes
You seem as bright, as brave as ever.
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Fra Pandolf" by design: for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none put by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace-all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men-good! but
thanked
Somehow-I know not how-as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-year-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech (which I have not)-to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss
Or there exceed the mark"-and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, not plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave com-
mands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me?
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Jim Bludso of the Prairie Bell
Wall, no! I can't tell whar he lives,
Becase he don't live, you see;
Leastways, he's got out of the habit
Of livin' like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three year
That you haven't heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Bell?
He weren't no saint-them engineers
Is all pretty much alike-
One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill,
And another one here, in Pike.
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward hand in a row;
But he never funked, and he never lied-
I reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had-
To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot's bell;
And if ever the Prairie Bell took fire-
A thousand times he swore
He'd hold her nozzle ag'in the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.
All boats has their day on the Mississip,
And her day come at last-
The Movastar was a better boat,
But the Belle she wouldn't be passed.
And so she came tearin' along that night-
The oldest craft on the line-
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.
The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned, and made
For that willer-bank on the right.
There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled
Over all the infernal roar,
"I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot's ashore."
Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat
Jim Bludso's voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And knowed he would keep his word.
And, sure's you're born, they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell-
And Bludso's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Bell.
He weren't no saint, but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim,
'Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing-
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.
Life! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met
I own to me's a secret yet.
Life! we've been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear
Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not "Good-night," but in some brighter
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