It was rough on Gilson. Such was the terse, cold, but not altogether unsympathetic judgment of the better public opinion at Mammon Hill–the dictum of respectability. The verdict of the opposite, or rather the opposing, element–the element that lurked red-eyed and restless about Moll Gurney’s “deadfall,” while respectability took it with sugar at Mr. Jo. […]

A STUDY IN THE PRESENT TENSE A breezy day and a sunny landscape. An open country to right and left and forward; behind, a wood. In the edge of this wood, facing the open but not venturing into it, long lines of troops, halted. The wood is alive with them, and full of confused noises–the […]

“Do you think, Colonel, that your brave Coulter would like to put one of his guns in here?” the general asked. He was apparently not altogether serious; it certainly did not seem a place where any artillerist, however brave, would like to put a gun. The colonel thought that possibly his division commander meant good-humoredly […]

The fighting had been hard and continuous; that was attested by all the senses. The very taste of battle was in the air. All was now over; it remained only to succor the wounded and bury the dead–to “tidy up a bit,” as the humorist of a burial squad put it. A good deal of […]

“Prisoner, what is your name?” “As I am to lose it at daylight to-morrow morning it is hardly worth while concealing it. Parker Adderson.” “Your rank?” “A somewhat humble one; commissioned officers are too precious to be risked in the perilous business of a spy. I am a sergeant.” “Of what regiment?” “You must excuse […]

I CONCERNING THE WISH TO BE DEAD Two men sat in conversation. One was the Governor of the State. The year was 1861; the war was on and the Governor already famous for the intelligence and zeal with which he directed all the powers and resources of his State to the service of the Union. […]

I Captain Parrol Hartroy stood at the advanced post of his picket-guard, talking in low tones with the sentinel. This post was on a turnpike which bisected the captain’s camp, a half-mile in rear, though the camp was not in sight from that point. The officer was apparently giving the soldier certain instructions–was perhaps merely […]

‘Twas a Venerable Person, whom I met one Sunday morning,All appareled as a prophet of a melancholy sect;And in a jeremaid of objurgatory warningHe lifted up his jodel to the following effect: O ye sanguinary statesmen, intermit your verbal tusslesO ye editors and orators, consent to hear my lay!And a little while the digital and […]

What! “Out of danger?” Can the slighted DameOr canting Pharisee no more defame?Will Treachery caress my hand no more,Nor Hatred He alurk about my door?–Ingratitude, with benefits dismissed,Not close the loaded palm to make a fist?Will Envy henceforth not retaliateFor virtues it were vain to emulate?Will Ignorance my knowledge fail to scout,Not understanding what ’tis […]

Of life’s elixir I had writ, when sleep(Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!)Sealed upon my senses with so deepA stupefaction that men thought me dead.The centuries stole by with noiseless tread,Like spectres in the twilight of my dream;I saw mankind in dim procession sweepThrough life, oblivion at each extreme.Meanwhile my beard, like […]

I. I know not if it was a dream. I viewedA city where the restless multitude,Between the eastern and the western deepHad roared gigantic fabrics, strong and rude. Colossal palaces crowned every height;Towers from valleys climbed into the light;O’er dwellings at their feet, great golden domesHung in the blue, barbarically bright. But now, new-glimmering to-east, […]

I stood upon a hill. The setting sunWas crimson with a curse and a portent,And scarce his angry ray lit up the landThat lay below, whose lurid gloom appearedFreaked with a moving mist, which, reeking upFrom dim tarns hateful with some horrid ban,Took shapes forbidden and without a name.Gigantic night-birds, rising from the reedsWith cries […]

Hard by an excavated street one satIn solitary session on the sand;And ever and anon he spake and spatAnd spake again–a yellow skull in hand,To which that retrospective PioneerAddressed the few remarks that follow here: “Who are you? Did you come ‘der blains agross,’Or ‘Horn aroundt’? In days o’ ’49Did them thar eye-holes see the […]

As sweet as the look of a loverSaluting the eyes of a maid,That blossom to blue as the maidIs ablush to the glances above her,The sunshine is gilding the gladeAnd lifting the lark out of shade. Sing therefore high praises, and thereforeSing songs that are ancient as gold,Of Earth in her garments of gold;Nor ask […]

You may say, if you please, Johnny Bull, that our girlsAre crazy to marry your dukes and your earls;But I’ve heard that the maids of your own little isleGreet bachelor lords with a favoring smile. Nay, titles, ’tis said in defense of our fair,Are popular here because popular there;And for them our ladies persistently goBecause […]

In Bacon see the culminating primeOf Anglo-Saxon intellect and crime.He dies and Nature, settling his affairs,Parts his endowments among us, his heirs:To every one a pinch of brain for seed,And, to develop it, a pinch of greed.Each thrifty heir, to make the gift suffice,Buries the talent to manure the vice.

Successive bards pursue Ambition’s fireThat shines, Oblivion, above thy mire.The latest mounts his predecessor’s trunk,And sinks his brother ere himself is sunk.So die ingloriously Fame’s elite,But dams of dunces keep the line complete.

[Read at the Celebration of Independence Day in San Francisco, in 1888.] Goddess of Liberty! O thouWhose tearless eyes behold the chain,And look unmoved upon the slain,Eternal peace upon thy brow,– Before thy shrine the races press,Thy perfect favor to implore–The proudest tyrant asks no more,The ironed anarchist no less. Thine altar-coals that touch the […]

KRASLAJORSK, SIBERIA, March 29. “My eyes are better, and I shall travel slowly toward home.”DANENHOWER. From the regions of the Night,Coming with recovered sight–From the spell of darkness free,What will Danenhower see? He will see when he arrives,Doctors taking human lives.He will see a learned judgeWhose decision will not budgeTill both litigants are fleecedAnd his […]

I drifted (or I seemed to) in a boatUpon the surface of a shoreless seaWhereon no ship nor anything did float,Save only the frail bark supporting me;And that–it was so shadowy–seemed to beAlmost from out the very vapors wroughtOf the great ocean underneath its keel;And all that blue profound appeared as naughtBut thicker sky, translucent […]