As she sat facing me the other day Reading a book, while I was writing verses, Or rather trying to, for I could not Detach my gaze from her bewitching visage, Nor could my mind in rhythmic furrows flow, Pursuing thoughts to her all unrelated, When like the heaving billows that are yielding To the attracting powers of the moon, My every thought by her has been attracted. I thus bethought me: "Wherefore write I poems, When here, before me, breathes a living poem, Compared to whom, all poems are as dust Besides a sweetly smelling, blooming flower." So I lay down my pen and gazed at her. BYRON The thought of Byron wakens in my mind The vision of a solitary tree Titanic and contorted on a cliff That overhangs a wild abysmal sea. Its mighty root, a maze of tentacles, Has put a lasting clutch-hold on the rock, Much like the miser's fingers on his gold. Within its arteries the sap of life, The procreative juice in torrents flows, And gushes forth luxurious vegetation. The foliage-covered head is always raised In bold defiance of the elements. Undaunted by the tempest's fiendish rage, Calm under the concerted stare of stars, The fickle lover of a fickle moon. On balmy days or peaceful summer eves The rendezvous of master-singer birds. Perennial, rich, melodious and sad, Passionate and desolate and wild And beautiful and always beautiful. CHIAROSCURO I met a plum-hued Venus late one night, Live specimen of pure Egyptian art. The regal amplitude of tropic zones, Their rich luxuriance breathed on her face And radiated from her clothed form. Her eyes shone with that lustful brilliancy Of eyes of jungle prowlers who at night A-sniffling and a-growling hunt for mates. Her mellow, soft and sing-song voice was whisp'ring Enticing promises of untold joys To taste of in this paradise of jet. Alas! the curse of value, price and profit Indelibly was branded on her brow, The brow that ages past was of a savage. Oh! thou hast conquered glorious Christian progress. DESPONDENCY I sadly watch the hours go by, The hours, the days, the months, the years, And what's called life shall soon go by, And helpless and with fruitless rage I watch the hours of life go by. And I must curse when I would bless, And I who am all love, must hate, And I who have been born to sing Must spend myself in moans and tears. And must I perish on this rock A cruel God has bound me to? Will not some Hercules ere come And make me free? IN MEMORIAM