For shame, it said, FITZ-GREENE, for shame! To yield thee to inglorious thrall, And leave the trophy of thy fame Without its crowning capital!
The sculptor, bard, as well may trust To shape a form for glory's shrine, If, ceasing with the breathing bust. He leave unwrought the brow divine.
How oft the lavish Muse has grieved. O'er hopes thy early years inspired, And sighed that he who much received, Forgot that much would be required.
But not too late, if heeded yet, The voice that chides thy mute repose, And bids thee pay at last the debt Thy genius to Parnassus owes.
'Tis not enough that pride may urge Thy claims to memory's grateful lore, And boast, as rapt from Lethe's surge, The Suliote and the Tuscarore.
Nay, bard, thy own land's mighty dead Deserve a nobler hymn from thee, Than bravest of the brave that bled At Laspi or Thermopylæ.
Remember, then, thy young renown, Thy country's dead, thy muse's sigh; And bid thy vigorous manhood crown What youthful genius reared so high!
Still to his task the bard applied, Unrecked, unheeded all beside; And as he closed his balance-sheet, I heard his murmuring lips repeat: 'Three hundred thousand, city rents, Item a hundred, seven per cents, Add cash, another hundred, say From bonds and notes paid off this day, And eke from drafts at sight for dues Just credited to land accrues, Whose rental stretches on and on From Aroostook to Oregon; Total, a semi-million clear Income received for one short year!' Aladdin's wealth scarce mounted faster At its spring-tide than thine, HERR ASTOR.
Lo! here is Spring again, the dainty goddess come back to see what Winter has been doing for so many months in forest and meadow, on the broad hill-side and in the valley. The old ice-king has had a merry time of it, playing with the long branches of the graceful maiden-like elm, and wrestling with the gnarled and haughty oak. You might have heard him roaring in the depths of the woods, had you been here, venerable DEIDRICH, day and night for a sevennight, apparently just for the sake of making a noise, and compelling the obeisance of the forest. Like any other demagogue, he gains attention by his blusterings. How lowly that young poplar bent before him, while the old hemlocks scarcely deigned a show of reverence! When you were in your youth, and the world seemed larger than now, did you not feel more of respect and awe for the _great man_ than you now do? Ah! well-a-day! how little is the world's esteem worthy of care! Ambition climbs the dizzy steeps of fame; the young and inexperienced, whose admiration is not worth a straw, applaud; but the wise, for whose good-will Ambition toils, look on with indifference; for they know the emptiness of human greatness. But while we stop to moralize, the reader grows a-weary; and even thou, DEIDRICH, who art so constitutionally polite, compressest thy labial muscles, and thumpest nervously the floor with thy gold-headed walking stick. What a pity that we cannot talk nonsense gracefully!