–33–
I would have rid the earth of him
Once, in my pride! . . .
I never knew the worth of him
Until he died.
A POEM FOR
MAX NORDAU
Dun shades quiver down the lone long fallow,
And the scared night shudders at the brown owl’s cry;
The bleak reeds rattle as the winds whirl by,
And frayed leaves flutter through the clumped shrubs callow.
Chill dews clinging on the low cold mallow
Make a steel-keen shimmer where the spent stems lie;
Dun shades quiver down the lone long fallow,
And the scared night shudders at the brown owl’s cry.
Pale stars peering through the clouds' curled shallow
Make a thin still flicker in a foul round sky;
Black damp shadows through the hushed air fly;
The lewd gloom wakens to a moon-sad sallow,
Dun shades quiver down the lone long fallow.
BOSTON
My northern pines are good enough for me,
But there's a town my memory uprears—
A town that always like a friend appears,
And always in the sunrise by the sea.
And over it, somehow, there seems to be
A downward flash of something new and fierce
That ever strives to clear, but never clears
The dimness of a charmed antiquity.
I know my Boston is a counterfeit,—
A frameless imitation, all bereft
