Be patient, and perhaps (who knows?)
These may be winged one day like those;
If thrushes, close-embowered to sing,
Pierced through with June’s delicious sting;
If swallows, their half-hour to run
Star-breasted in the setting sun. 
At first they’re but the unfledged proem,
Or songless schedule of a poem;
When from the shell they’re hardly dry
If some folks thrust them forth, must I? 150

But let me end with a comparison
Never yet hit upon by e’er a son
Of our American Apollo,
(And there’s where I shall beat them hollow,
If he indeed’s no courtly St. John,
But, as West said, a Mohawk Injun.)
A poem’s like a cruise for whales: 
Through untried seas the hunter sails,
His prow dividing waters known
To the blue iceberg’s hulk alone; 160
At last, on farthest edge of day,
He marks the smoky puff of spray;
Then with bent oars the shallop flies
To where the basking quarry lies;
Then the excitement of the strife,
The crimsoned waves,—­ah, this is life!

But, the dead plunder once secured
And safe beside the vessel moored,
All that had stirred the blood before
Is so much blubber, nothing more, 170
(I mean no pun, nor image so
Mere sentimental verse, you know,)
And all is tedium, smoke, and soil,
In trying out the noisome oil.

Yes, this is life!  And so the bard
Through briny deserts, never scarred
Since Noah’s keel, a subject seeks,
And lies upon the watch for weeks;
That once harpooned and helpless lying,
What follows is but weary trying. 180

Now I’ve a notion, if a poet
Beat up for themes, his verse will show it;
I wait for subjects that hunt me,
By day or night won’t let me be,
And hang about me like a curse,
Till they have made me into verse,
From line to line my fingers tease
Beyond my knowledge, as the bees
Build no new cell till those before
With limpid summer-sweet run o’er; 190
Then, if I neither sing nor shine,
Is it the subject’s fault, or mine?

AN EMBER PICTURE

How strange are the freaks of memory! 
  The lessons of life we forget,
While a trifle, a trick of color,
  In the wonderful web is set,—­

Set by some mordant of fancy,
  And, spite of the wear and tear
Of time or distance or trouble,
  Insists on its right to be there.

A chance had brought us together;
  Our talk was of matters-of-course;
We were nothing, one to the other,
  But a short half-hour’s resource.

We spoke of French acting and actors,
  And their easy, natural way: 
Of the weather, for it was raining,
  As we drove home from the play.

We debated the social nothings
  We bore ourselves so to discuss;
The thunderous rumors of battle
  Were silent the while for us.