Produced by David Widger
[Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set]
Nescit vox missa reverti.—Horat. Ars Poetica.
Ab lis qua non adjuvant quam mollissime oportet pedem referre.—
Quintillian, L. VI. C. 4.
These verses have always been printed in my collected poems, and as thebest of them may bear a single reading, I allow them to appear, but in aless conspicuous position than the other productions. A chick, beforehis shell is off his back, is hardly a fair subject for severe criticism.If one has written anything worth preserving, his first efforts may beobjects of interest and curiosity. Other young authors may takeencouragement from seeing how tame, how feeble, how commonplace were therudimentary attempts of the half-fledged poet. If the boy or youth hadanything in him, there will probably be some sign of it in the midst ofhis imitative mediocrities and ambitious failures. These "first verses"of mine, written before I was sixteen, have little beyond a commonacademy boy's ordinary performance. Yet a kindly critic said there wasone line which showed a poetical quality:—
"The boiling ocean trembled into calm."
One of these poems—the reader may guess which—won fair words fromThackeray. The Spectre Pig was a wicked suggestion which came into myhead after reading Dana's Buccaneer. Nobody seemed to find it out, andI never mentioned it to the venerable poet, who might not have beenpleased with the parody. This is enough to say of these unvalued copiesof verses.
THE god looked out upon the troubled deep
Waked into tumult from its placid sleep;
The flame of anger kindles in his eye
As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky;
He lifts his head above their awful height
And to the distant fleet directs his sight,
Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest,
Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed,
And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire
Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that fire.
On rapid pinions as they whistled by
He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh
Is this your glory in a noble line
To leave your confines and to ravage mine?