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Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled

From Trinity's undaunted steeple,

Even there I heard a strange, wild strain
Sound high above the modern clamor,
Above the cries of greed and gain,

The curbstone war, the auction's hammer; And swift, on Music's misty ways,

It led, from all this strife for millions,

To ancient, sweet-to-nothing days
Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.

And as it stilled the multitude,

And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
I saw the minstrel, where he stood
At case against a Doric pillar:
One hand a droning organ played,

The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned

Like those of old) to lips that made

The reeds give out that strain impassioned.

'Twas Pan himself had wandered here

A-strolling through this sordid city,

And piping to the civic ear

The prelude of some pastoral ditty!

The demigod had crossed the seas,-

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,

And Syracusan times, to these

Far shores and twenty centuries later.

A ragged cap was on his head;

But-hidden thus-there was no doubting That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,

His gnarled horns were somewhere sprouting; His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,

Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them, And trousers, patched of divers hues,

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

Pan in Wall Street

He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,
And with his goat's-eyes looked around
Where'er the passing current drifted;
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills

The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
Even now the tradesmen from their tills,
With clerks and porters, crowded near him.

The bulls and bears together drew

From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, As erst, if pastorals be true,

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Came beasts from every wooded valley; The random passers stayed to list,

A boxer Ægon, rough and merry, A Broadway, Daphnis, on his tryst With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long

In tattered cloak of army pattern,
And Galatea joined the throng,→→
A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;
While old Silenus staggered out

From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,

And bade the piper, with a shout,

To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!

A newsboy and a peanut-girl

Like little Fauns began to caper:

His hair was all in tangled curl,

Her tawny legs were bare and taper; And still the gathering larger grew,

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And gave its pence and crowded nigher, While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew

His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating still

With throbs her vernal passion taught her,Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,

Or by the Arethusan water!

1753

New forms may fold the speech, new lands
Arise within these ocean-portals,
But Music waves eternal wands,-
Enchantress of the souls of mortals!

So thought I, but among us trod
A man in blue, with legal baton,
And scoffed the vagrant demigod,

And pushed him from the step I sat on.
Doubting I mused upon the cry,

"Great Pan is dead!"--and all the people Went on their ways:—and clear and high The quarter sounded from the steeple.

Edmund Clarence Stedman [1833-1908)

UPON LESBIA-ARGUING

My Lesbia, I will not deny,
Bewitches me completely;
She has the usual beaming eye,
And smiles upon me sweetly:
But she has an unseemly way
Of contradicting what I say.

And, though I am her closest friend
And find her fascinating,

I cannot cordially commend

Her method of debating:
Her logic, though she is divine,

Is singularly feminine.

Her reasoning is full of tricks,
And butterfly suggestions,

I know no point to which she sticks,
She begs the simplest questions;
And, when her premises are strong,
She always draws her inference wrong.

Broad, liberal views on men and things
She will not hear a word of;
To prove herself correct she brings

Some instance she has heard of;

To Anthea

The argument ad hominem
Appears her favorite strategem.

Old Socrates, with sage replies

To questions put to suit him,

Would not, I think, have looked so wise
With Lesbia to confute him;

He would more probably have bade
Xantippe hasten to his aid.

Ah! well, my fair philosopher,
With clear brown eyes that glisten

So sweetly, that I much prefer

To look at them than listen,

Preach me your sermon: have your way,
The voice is yours, whate'er you say.

Alfred Cochrane [1865

1755

TO ANTHEA, WHO MAY COMMAND HIM
ANYTHING

(NEW STYLE)

AM I sincere? I say I dote

On everything that Browning wrote;
I know some bits by heart to quote
But then She reads him.

I say and is it strictly true?-
How I admire her cockatoo;
Well! in a way of course I do:
But then She feeds him.

And I become, at her command,
The sternest Tory in the land;

The Grand Old Man is far from grand;
But then She states it.

Nay! worse than that, I am so tame,
I once admitted-to my shame-
That football was a brutal game:

Because She hates it.

My taste in Art she hailed with groans,
And I, once charmed with bolder tones,
Now love the yellows of Burne-Jones:
But then She likes them.
My tuneful soul no longer hoards
Stray jewels from the Empire boards;
I revel now in Dvorak's chords:
But then She strikes them.

Our age distinctly cramps a knight;
Yet, though debarred from tilt and fight,
I can admit that black is white,
If She asserts it.

Heroes of old were luckier men
Than I-I venture now and then
To hint-retracting meekly when

She controverts it.

Alfred Cochrane [1865

THE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK

THE days of Bute and Grafton's fame,
Of Chatham's waning prime,

First heard your sounding gong proclaim
Its chronicle of Time;

Old days when Dodd confessed his guilt, When Goldsmith drave his quill,

And genial gossip Horace built

His house on Strawberry Hill.

Now with a grave unmeaning face
You still repeat the tale,
High-towering in your somber case,
Designed by Chippendale;
Without regret for what is gone,
You bid old customs change,
As year by year you travel on
To scenes and voices strange.

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