Proud Pallas sighed, “It will not do; Against the Muse I’ve sinned, oh!” And her torn rhymes sent flying through Olympus’s back window. Then, packing up a peplus clean, She took the shortest path thence, And opened, with a mind serene, A Sunday-school in Athens. The verses? Some in ocean swilled, Killed every fish that bit to ’em; Some Galen caught, and, when distilled, Found morphine the residuum; But some that rotted on the earth Sprang up again in copies, And gave two strong narcotics birth, Didactic verse and poppies. Years after, when a poet asked The Goddess’s opinion, As one whose soul its wings had tasked In Art’s clear-aired dominion, “Discriminate,” she said, “betimes; The Muse is unforgiving; Put all your beauty in your rhymes, Your morals in your living.” THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. Don’t believe in the Flying Dutchman? I’ve known the fellow for years; My button I’ve wrenched from his clutch, man: I shudder whenever he nears! He’s a Rip van Winkle skipper, A Wandering Jew of the sea, Who sails his bedevilled old clipper In the wind’s eye, straight as a bee. Back topsails! you can’t escape him; The man-ropes stretch with his weight, And the queerest old toggeries drape him, The Lord knows how long out of date! Like a long-disembodied idea, (A kind of ghost plentiful now,) He stands there; you fancy you see a Coeval of Teniers or Douw. He greets you; would have you take letters: You scan the addresses with dread, While he mutters his _donners_ and _wetters_,-- They’re all from the dead to the dead! You seem taking time for reflection, But the heart fills your throat with a jam, As you spell in each faded direction An ominous ending in _dam_. Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend? That were changing green turtle to mock: No, thank you! I’ve found out which wedge-end Is meant for the head of a block. The fellow I have in my mind’s eye Plays the old Skipper’s part here on shore, And sticks like a burr, till he finds I Have got just the gauge of his bore. This postman ’twixt one ghost and t’other, With last dates that smell of the mould, I have met him (O man and brother, Forgive me!) in azure and gold. In the pulpit I’ve known of his preaching, Out of hearing behind the time, Some statement of Balaam’s impeaching, Giving Eve a due sense of her crime. I have seen him some poor ancient thrashing Into something (God save us!) more dry, With the Water of Life itself washing The life out of earth, sea, and sky. O dread fellow-mortal, get newer Despatches to carry, or none! We’re as quick as the Greek and the Jew were At knowing a loaf from a stone. Till the couriers of God fail in duty, We sha’n’t ask a mummy for news, Nor sate the soul’s hunger for beauty With your drawings from casts of a Muse. CREDIDIMUS JOVEM REGNARE.