Complete Poetical Works by Bret Harte Part 38

And Maud's relations, twelve in all, Were very drunk at the Judge's hall.

And when the summer came again, The young bride bore him babies twain;

And the Judge was blest, but thought it strange That bearing children made such a change;

For Maud grew broad and red and stout, And the waist that his arm once clasped about

Was more than he now could span; and he Sighed as he pondered, ruefully,

How that which in Maud was native grace In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;

And thought of the twins, and wished that they Looked less like the men who raked the hay

On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain Of the day he wandered down the lane.

And looking down that dreary track, He half regretted that he came back;

For, had he waited, he might have wed Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;

For there be women fair as she, Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.

Alas for maiden! alas for judge!

And the sentimental,--that's one-half "fudge;"

For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore, With all his learning and all his lore;

And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face For more refinement and social grace.

If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, "It might have been,"

More sad are these we daily see: "It is, but hadn't ought to be."

A GEOLOGICAL MADRIGAL

I have found out a gift for my fair; I know where the fossils abound, Where the footprints of Aves declare The birds that once walked on the ground.

Oh, come, and--in technical speech-- We'll walk this Devonian sh.o.r.e, Or on some Silurian beach We'll wander, my love, evermore.

I will show thee the sinuous track By the slow-moving Annelid made, Or the Trilobite that, farther back, In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid; Thou shalt see, in his Jura.s.sic tomb, The Plesiosaurus embalmed; In his Oolitic prime and his bloom, Iguanodon safe and unharmed.

You wished--I remember it well, And I loved you the more for that wish-- For a perfect cystedian sh.e.l.l And a WHOLE holocephalic fish.

And oh, if Earth's strata contains In its lowest Silurian drift, Or palaeozoic remains The same, 'tis your lover's free gift!

Then come, love, and never say nay, But calm all your maidenly fears; We'll note, love, in one summer's day The record of millions of years; And though the Darwinian plan Your sensitive feelings may shock, We'll find the beginning of man, Our fossil ancestors, in rock!

AVITOR

(AN AERIAL RETROSPECT)

What was it filled my youthful dreams, In place of Greek or Latin themes, Or beauty's wild, bewildering beams?

Avitor!

What visions and celestial scenes I filled with aerial machines, Montgolfier's and Mr. Green's!

Avitor!

What fairy tales seemed things of course!

The roc that brought Sindbad across, The Calendar's own winged horse!

Avitor!

How many things I took for facts,-- Icarus and his conduct lax, And how he sealed his fate with wax!

Avitor!

The first balloons I sought to sail, Soap-bubbles fair, but all too frail, Or kites,--but thereby hangs a tail.

Avitor!

What made me launch from attic tall A kitten and a parasol, And watch their bitter, frightful fall?

Avitor!

What youthful dreams of high renown Bade me inflate the parson's gown, That went not up, nor yet came down?

Avitor!

My first ascent I may not tell; Enough to know that in that well My first high aspirations fell.

Avitor!

My other failures let me pa.s.s: The dire explosions, and, alas!

The friends I choked with noxious gas.

Avitor!

For lo! I see perfected rise The vision of my boyish eyes, The messenger of upper skies.

Avitor!

THE WILLOWS

(AFTER EDGAR ALLAN POE)

The skies they were ashen and sober, The streets they were dirty and drear; It was night in the month of October, Of my most immemorial year.

Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,-- At the Nightingale,--perfectly sober, And the willowy woodland down here.

Here, once in an alley t.i.tanic Of Ten-pins, I roamed with my soul,-- Of Ten-pins, with Mary, my soul; They were days when my heart was volcanic, And impelled me to frequently roll, And made me resistlessly roll, Till my ten-strikes created a panic In the realms of the Boreal pole,-- Till my ten-strikes created a panic With the monkey atop of his pole.

I repeat, I was perfectly sober, But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,-- My thoughts were decidedly queer; For I knew not the month was October, And I marked not the night of the year; I forgot that sweet morceau of Auber That the band oft performed down here, And I mixed the sweet music of Auber With the Nightingale's music by Shear.