The Student grants it thus,—but selfish trade
Along the fair inventions closely laid,
Converts the country to a cunning town,
Nothing can stand save beating prices down.
Man's temple is the market, and his God
Is money, fall of dollars Jovian nod.
Society is leagued against the poor,
Monopolies close up from most the door
To fortune, Industry has come to be
Competitive, all,—aristocracy;
Work is monotonous, a war for wealth,
The universe is plainly out of health.
See from this mountain in the dusty towns,

If in the Student's eye, this Yankee vein
Of pure utility is but pure pain,
If he shall ask for august Palace wall,
Or figured arch, or learned College hall;
If he seek Landscape gardens midst those trees,
Where hammers trip it like the hum of bees,
Instead of corn-land for the shaven Lawn,
Or one sane man who will his life adorn,
Not a dry rank of Grocers, or of shops,
Or women sometime conversant with mops,
He asks for that Wachusett does not see,
A watch-tower guarding pure utility.
Why does the Student question what there is?

It has no grandeur like the proud White Hills,
No cataract's thunder, steal no crystal rills
Like those which line the Catskills half the way,
And furnish comfort in a summer's day,
But the road up is dry as Minot's tongue,
Or city people chance together flung.
And off the summit one sees villages,
Church spires, white houses, and their belts of trees,
Plenty of farmers' clearings, and some woods,
But no remote Sierra solitudes.
I never counted up the list of towns,
That I can see spread on the rolling downs,

I like this Princeton, a most silent place,
Better than Chester, that I loved to pace
So many years ago; is stiller far,
Less people, they not caring who you are,
While Chester mortals have a certain wit,
By which they know you, or can fancy it.
In Princeton live a few good farming people,
Like spectres in a church-yard, while a steeple
Is pretty nigh the village, and one inn
Which Sam. Carr keeps, lonely and cool within,
One of the country taverns built before
Our recollection, shortly after Noah.

Life, like an overweighted shaken rose,
Falls, in a cloud of colour, to my feet;
Its petals strew my first November snows,
Too soon, too fleet!

'Twas my own breath had blown the leaves apart,
My own hot eyelids stirred them where they lay;
It was the tumult of my own bright heart
Broke them away.

The royal rose our sovereign bard bewitches;
Three roses crown his lyre;
The red is Conquest; and the yellow, Riches;
The damask rose, Desire.

But o'er the airs with which his strings are ringing,
One rose hangs out of sight;
Of the white rose he never dreams of singing,—
For Sorrow's rose is white.

I that tumble at your feet
Am a rose;
Nothing dewier or more sweet
Buds or blows.
He that plucked me, he that threw me
Breathed in fire his whole soul through me.

How the cold air is infused
With the scent!
See, this satin leaf is bruised,—
Bruised and bent.
Lift me, lift the wounded blossom,
Soothe it at your rosier bosom!

Frown not with averted eyes!
Joy's a flower,
That is born a god, and dies
In an hour.
Take me, for the summer closes,
And your life is but a rose's.

Rose, that flushing hues didst borrow
From my lute,
Pink for joy and pale for sorrow,—
Now 'tis mute,
Droop thine amber lids, and sleep
In a tide of perfume deep,
Till the sap of music creep
To thy root.

Dream; then die the death of roses
With no pain,
Till the yellowing wreck uncloses
In the rain,
And the ghost of music springs
On its dim gray moth-like wings
To my lute's neglected strings

Oh, I would kill you, that I might enjoy
Your beauty unmolested, and respire
Each perfect thing about you, till desire
Ceased from satiety. I would destroy
The sickly flame of life, so I could toy
With your sun-tingéd tresses at my will,
And quaff the rose-scent of your skin and fill
Each separate part of me with sweetness. Boy,
Thus shall delight of you without alloy
Wake in my heart; for when I kiss your face,
It shall not quiver in my fond embrace
Beset with oldtime images. Sweet and coy
Your faultless breast shall all its treasures give.

I cannot live without you, dear. . . . I pace
The haunted pathways of my bitter life;
Each spot with your sweet memory is rife,
And in each hour I find your beauty's trace.
As a meteor soaring the aërial space,
So have you shed about me everywhere
The immemorial image of your fair
And radiant youth. . . . How can my heart erase
The recollection of your seraph face,
The luminance of a love illimitable?
For like the tumult and the thunder-knell
Of sonorous seas, your spirit's celestial grace
Swept o'er me, and I fell before its tide,