Brave songster, bold Canary! Thou art not of thy listeners wary, Art not timorous, nor chary Of quaver, trill, and tone, Each perfect and thine own; But renewest, shrill or soft, Thy greeting to the upper skies, Chanting thy latest song aloft With no tremor or disguise. Thine is a music that defies The envious rival near; Thou hast no fear Of the day’s vogue, the scornful critic’s sneer. Would, O wisest bard, that now I could cheerly sing as thou! Would I might chant the thoughts which on me throng For the very joy of song! Here, on the written page, I falter, yearning to impart The vague and wandering murmur of my heart, Haply a little to assuage This human restlessness and pain, And half forget my chain: Thou, unconscious of thy cage, Showerest music everywhere; Thou hast no care But to pour out the largesse thou hast won From the south-wind and the sun; There are no prison-bars Betwixt thy tricksy spirit and the stars. When from its delicate clay Thy little life shall pass away, Thou wilt not meanly die, Nor voiceless yield to silence and decay; But triumph still in art And act thy minstrel-part, Lifting a last, long pæan To the unventured empyrean. —So bid the world go by, And they who list to thee aright, Seeing thee fold thy wings and fall, shall say: “The Songster perished of his own delight!” CRABBED AGE AND YOUTH. Out, out, Old Age! aroint ye! I fain would disappoint ye, Nor wrinkled grow and learned Before I am inurned. Ruthless the Hours and hoary, That scatter ills before ye! Thy touch is pestilential, Thy lays are penitential; With stealthy steps thou stealest And life’s hot tide congealest; Before thee vainly flying We are already dying. Why must the blood grow colder, And men and maidens older? Bring not thy maledictions, Thy grewsome, grim afflictions,— Thy bodings bring not hither To make us blight and wither. When this thy frost hath bound us, All fairer things around us Seem Youth’s divine extortion In which we have no portion. “Fie, Senex!” saith a lass now, “What need ye of a glass now? Though flowers of May be springing And I my songs am singing, Thy blood no whit the faster Doth flow, my ancient Master!” Age is by Youth delighted, Youth is by Age affrighted; Blithe sunny May and joysome Still finds December noisome. Alack! a guest unbidden, Howe’er our feast be hidden, Doth enter with the feaster And make a Lent of Easter! I would thou wert not able To seat thee at our table; I would that altogether From this thy wintry weather, Since Youth and Love must leave us, Death might at once retrieve us. Old wizard, ill betide ye! I cannot yet abide ye!