TER
UNEXPOUNDED
FRANCE
THE EASTERN QUESTION
A GUEST
A FALSE PROPHECY
TWO TYPES
SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS
A HYMN OF THE MANY
ONE MORNING
AN ERROR
AT THE "NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT"
THE KING OF BORES
HISTORY
THE HERMIT
TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON
THE YEARLY LIE
CO-OPERATION
AN APOLOGUE
DIAGNOSIS
FALLEN
DIES IRAE
THE DAY OF WRATH
ONE MOOD'S EXPRESSION
SOMETHING IN THE PAPERS
IN THE BINNACLE
HUMILITY
ONE PRESIDENT
THE BRIDE
STRAINED RELATIONS
THE MAN BORN BLIND
A NIGHTMARE
A WET SEASON
THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS
HAEC FARULA DOCET
EXONERATION
AZRAEL
AGAIN
HOMO PODUNKENSIS
A SOCIAL CALL

SHAPES OF CLAY

THE PASSING SHOW.

I.

I know not if it was a dream. I viewed
A city where the restless multitude,
Between the eastern and the western deep
Had roared gigantic fabrics, strong and rude.

Colossal palaces crowned every height;
Towers from valleys climbed into the light;
O'er dwellings at their feet, great golden domes
Hung in the blue, barbarically bright.

But now, new-glimmering to-east, the day
Touched the black masses with a grace of gray,
Dim spires of temples to the nation's God
Studding high spaces of the wide survey.

Well did the roofs their solemn secret keep
Of life and death stayed by the truce of sleep,
Yet whispered of an hour-when sleepers wake,
The fool to hope afresh, the wise to weep.

The gardens greened upon the builded hills
Above the tethered thunders of the mills
With sleeping wheels unstirred to service yet
By the tamed torrents and the quickened rills.

A hewn acclivity, reprieved a space,
Looked on the builder's blocks about his base
And bared his wounded breast in sign to say:
"Strike! 't is my destiny to lodge your race.

"'T was but a breath ago the mammoth browsed
Upon my slopes, and in my caves I housed
Your shaggy fathers in their nakedness,
While on their foeman's offal they caroused."

Ships from afar afforested the bay.
Within their huge and chambered bodies lay
The wealth of continents; and merrily sailed
The hardy argosies to far Cathay.

Beside the city of the living spread--
Strange fellowship!--the city of the dead;
And much I wondered what its humble folk,
To see how bravely they were housed, had said.

Noting how firm their habitations stood,
Broad-based and