TO A POST-OFFICE INKWELL

How many humble hearts have dipped In you, and scrawled their ma.n.u.script!

Have shared their secrets, told their cares, Their curious and quaint affairs!

Your pool of ink, your scratchy pen, Have moved the lives of unborn men, And watched young people, breathing hard, Put Heaven on a postal card.

THE CRIB

I sought immortality Here and there-- I sent my rockets Into the air: I gave my name A hostage to ink; I dined a critic And bought him drink.

I spurned the weariness Of the flesh; Denied fatigue And began afresh-- If men knew all, How they would laugh!

I even planned My epitaph....

And then one night When the dusk was thin I heard the nursery Rites begin:

I heard the tender Soothings said Over a crib, and A small sweet head.

Then in a flash It came to me That there was my Immortality!

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_And then one night_ _When the dusk was thin_ _I heard the nursery_ _Rites begin--_]

THE POET

The barren music of a word or phrase, The futile arts of syllable and stress, He sought. The poetry of common days He did not guess.

The simplest, sweetest rhythms life affords-- Unselfish love, true effort truly done, The tender themes that underlie all words-- He knew not one.

The human cadence and the subtle chime Of little laughters, home and child and wife, He knew not. Artist merely in his rhyme, Not in his life.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_The human cadence and the subtle chime_ _Of little laughters_--]

TO A DISCARDED MIRROR

[Transcriber's Note: The text below was in mirrored image in the original text].

Dear gla.s.s, before your silver pane My lady used to tend her hair; And yet I search your disc in vain To find some shadow of her there.

I thought your magic, deep and bright, Might still some dear reflection hold: Some glint of eyes or shoulders white, Some flash of gowns she wore of old.

Your polished round must still recall The laughing face, the neck like snow-- Remember, on your lonely wall, That Helen used you long ago!

TO A CHILD

The greatest poem ever known Is one all poets have outgrown: The poetry, innate, untold, Of being only four years old.

Still young enough to be a part Of Nature's great impulsive heart, Born comrade of bird, beast and tree And unselfconscious as the bee--

And yet with lovely reason skilled Each day new paradise to build; Elate explorer of each sense, Without dismay, without pretence!

In your unstained transparent eyes There is no conscience, no surprise: Life's queer conundrums you accept, Your strange divinity still kept.

Being, that now absorbs you, all Harmonious, unit, integral, Will shred into perplexing bits,-- Oh, contradictions of the wits!

And Life, that sets all things in rhyme, May make you poet, too, in time-- But there were days, O tender elf, When you were Poetry itself!

TO A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN

My child, what painful vistas are before you!

What years of youthful ills and pangs and b.u.mps-- Indignities from aunts who "just adore" you, And chicken-pox and measles, croup and mumps!

I don't wish to dismay you,--it's not fair to, Promoted now from ba.s.sinet to crib,-- But, O my babe, what troubles flesh is heir to Since G.o.d first made so free with Adam's rib!

Laboriously you will proceed with teething; When teeth are here, you'll meet the dentist's chair; They'll teach you ways of walking, eating, breathing, That stoves are hot, and how to brush your hair; And so, my poor, undaunted little stripling, By bruises, tears, and trousers you will grow, And, borrowing a leaf from Mr. Kipling, I'll wish you luck, and moralize you so:

If you can think up seven thousand methods Of giving cooks and parents heart disease; Can rifle pantry-shelves, and then give death odds By water, fire, and falling out of trees; If you can fill your every boyish minute With sixty seconds' worth of mischief done, Yours is the house and everything that's in it, And, which is more, you'll be your father's son!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _What years of youthful ills and pangs and b.u.mps_--]