To His Brekekekex Koax Koax

But thou dark dweller of the central rock,
Spawn'd ere avenging waves the hills o'erflow'd,

Survivor of full many an earthquake's shock,
Last of the Troglodytes, primaeval toad.
Like antique virtue, hated upon earth.
Or trampled under foot, like modest worth, —

Time was (or else our ancestors were liars)
That thou to mystic verse wert not unknown,

When witches danced around Tartarean fires,
To screech of owls and mandrake's fatal groan ;
For thou could'st drain the marrow, mad the brains.
Or foulest passion breed in chastest veins.

Most poets are great wanderers by night,
And love the moon, though sons of Phoebus call'd ;
And well we ken the small scarce-moving light
Of the she, wingless, amorous emerald,
That keeps her lone lamp burning for her mate,
Pining because he always is so late.
Unlike her kindred of the glowing zone,
That star the dark groves of the tropic even,
There the proud earth has comets of her own.
And every shoal out-fires the distant heaven,
And all the groves and underwoods unfold
A gorgeous blossoming of fire and gold.
Is it to soothe our sorrow, or deride.
That these bright insects leave both flower and tree,
And swarm upon the new-heap'd earth beside

The pit design'd for dead mortality ?
Who has not heard of death-lights on a grave ?
And these are death-lights, gay, and bright, and brave !

But who may count, with microscopic eye.
The multitudes of lives that gleam and flash
Behind the rousing keel, and multiply
In myriad millions, when the white oars dash
Through waves electric, or at stillest night
Spread round the bark becalm'd their milky white '?

Oh, had the bards that did so sweetly sing
In times of old, when poesy was young,

Known but the half, in their quick blooming spring.
Of what we know, how sweetly had they sung !
Then many a plant, that yet has not a name,
Had won a story and a deathless fame ;

And many a living thing of instinct wise.
Of form majestic, or of brightest plume.

That o'er the vast South Sea unwearied flies,
Or 'mid the broad magnolia's fiery bloom
Builds its low nest, had been beloved of men.
Like Robin Redbreast and plain Jenny Wren.