A golden coal to crown the bowl-- My pipe and I alone,-- I sit and muse with idler views Perchance than I should own:-- It might be worse to own the purse Whose glutted bowels gripe In little qualms of stinted alms; And so I smoke my pipe. And if inclined to moor my mind And cast the anchor Hope, A puff of breath will put to death The morbid misanthrope That lurks inside--as errors hide In standing forms of type To mar at birth some line of worth; And so I smoke my pipe. The subtle stings misfortune flings Can give me little pain When my narcotic spell has wrought This quiet in my brain: When I can waste the past in taste So luscious and so ripe That like an elf I hug myself; And so I smoke my pipe. And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds, I watch the phantom's flight, Till alien eyes from Paradise Smile on me as I write: And I forgive the wrongs that live, As lightly as I wipe Away the tear that rises here; And so I smoke my pipe. RED RIDING-HOOD Sweet little myth of the nursery story-- Earliest love of mine infantile breast, Be something tangible, bloom in thy glory Into existence, as thou art addressed! Hasten! appear to me, guileless and good-- Thou are so dear to me, Red Riding-Hood! Azure-blue eyes, in a marvel of wonder, Over the dawn of a blush breaking out; Sensitive nose, with a little smile under Trying to hide in a blossoming pout-- Couldn't be serious, try as you would, Little mysterious Red Riding-Hood! Hah! little girl, it is desolate, lonely, Out in this gloomy old forest of Life!-- Here are not pansies and buttercups only-- Brambles and briers as keen as a knife; And a Heart, ravenous, trails in the wood For the meal have he must,--Red Riding-Hood! IF I KNEW WHAT POETS KNOW If I knew what poets know, Would I write a rhyme Of the buds that never blow In the summer-time? Would I sing of golden seeds Springing up in ironweeds? And of rain-drops turned to snow, If I knew what poets know? Did I know what poets do, Would I sing a song Sadder than the pigeon's coo When the days are long? Where I found a heart in pain, I would make it glad again; And the false should be the true, Did I know what poets do. If I knew what poets know, I would find a theme Sweeter than the placid flow Of the fairest dream: I would sing of love that lives On the errors it forgives; And the world would better grow If I knew what poets know. AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE An old sweetheart of mine!--Is this her presence here with me, Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory? A fair, illusive vision that would vanish into air Dared I even touch the silence with the whisper of a prayer?