Though both were English born.
I towards the night of time decline,
You mount into the morn.

Youth shall grow great and strong and free,
But age must still decay:
To-morrow for the States - for me,
England and Yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO.


XXX - A PORTRAIT


I am a kind of farthing dip,
Unfriendly to the nose and eyes;
A blue-behinded ape, I skip
Upon the trees of Paradise.

At mankind's feast, I take my place
In solemn, sanctimonious state,
And have the air of saying grace
While I defile the dinner plate.

I am "the smiler with the knife,"
The battener upon garbage, I -
Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life,
Were it not better far to die?