My other failures let me pass: 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 Titanic 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. And now as the night was senescent, And star-dials pointed to morn, And car-drivers hinted of morn, At the end of the path a liquescent And bibulous lustre was born; 'Twas made by the bar-keeper present, Who mixed a duplicate horn,-- His two hands describing a crescent Distinct with a duplicate horn. And I said: "This looks perfectly regal, For it's warm, and I know I feel dry,-- I am confident that I feel dry. We have come past the emeu and eagle, And watched the gay monkey on high; Let us drink to the emeu and eagle, To the swan and the monkey on high,-- To the eagle and monkey on high; For this bar-keeper will not inveigle, Bully boy with the vitreous eye,-- He surely would never inveigle, Sweet youth with the crystalline eye." But Mary, uplifting her finger, Said: "Sadly this bar I mistrust,-- I fear that this bar does not trust. Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly,--let us fly,--are we must!" In terror she cried, letting sink her Parasol till it trailed in the dust; In agony sobbed, letting sink her Parasol till it trailed in the dust,-- Till it sorrowfully trailed in the dust.