Perhaps on some enchanted breeze From Kurdistan or Araby Those Genii over unknown seas Have borne this priceless tapestry, This fabric wrought in Faery land To beautify a barren strand. ’Tis woven on the loom of time Spun from the filaments of dreams, This magic carpet. Age nor clime Can match its pattern, or the streams Of color lavish Nature spills O’er Truro’s ancient, windswept hills MY DRIFT WOOD FIRE Heap high the wood on my rusty grate As I sit enthroned like a potentate In my old arm chair, while the crackling blaze Unbars the gates, to my dazzled gaze, Of a flame bright world that my fancy weaves Though the storm may batter the creaking eaves. There is Norway pine from the Arctic’s chill From wrecks that splintered off Peaked Hill; There is stout oak fashioned by broad axe blows, And stranger wood that the jungle grows; For such is the tribute I levy, - these Are the far flung gifts of the seven seas. The surf that claws at the wind swept beach Like skeleton fingers seems to reach For my lonely shelter; but staunch it stands Though its walls resound to the rattling sands In volleys hurled by the howling blasts; - Pile on those staves and that stump of mast! Up the roaring chimney the black smoke goes But O the glory that ebbs and flows On the heat warped ceiling and buckled floor, In green and purple; with ruddy ore That glints in gold where the salt burns through Mid flames that dance in an elfin blue! My home may seem but a weathered shack Where the cold creeps in through many a crack; But my fire’s bright magic has changed all these To a castle hall where I take my ease, With the window flaunting in sparkling lines My royal crest that the frost designs. Yes, I am a king carefree and bold And I laugh at the gale and the winter’s cold. My grate? ’Tis a jewel vault of Ind. That music wild? - It is not the wind But my minstrel’s songs, for my heart’s desire I have found at last in my drift wood fire! THE SAND PIPER Quaint manikin, what bids you keep Such formal distance with your droll Divertisements, the while I stroll In solitude beside the deep? Your mannerisms first suggest A Puritan sedate and prim; Then change you by capricious whim Into a gnome with hooded crest, Or bit of animated foam, Or e’en a cloud wisp drifting by, - What region in the sea or sky Or lonely dune can you call home? Your footsteps mincing gleefully Thread in and out along the verge Embroidering the creamy surge, - Strange little old man of the sea! But in your antic frolicking, Your beak grotesque and solemn eye, Your stilt-like legs, your piping cry, And sudden ecstasies of wing,