Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.
An Ivory MiniatureHelen Gray Cone
W
When out of town was Murray Hill,
In late deceased “old times”
Of vast, embowering bonnet shapes
And creamy-crinkled Canton crapes
And florid annual-rhymes,
Where now you see a modern street,
A monochrome of brown:
The sad “brown brown” of Dante’s dreams,
A twilight turned to stone that seems
To weight our city down.
The pillared front of his abode:
A garden girt it ’round,
Where pungent box did trim enclose
The marigold and cabbage rose,
And “pi’ny” heavy-crowned.
He most affected. Gone! but here’s
His face who loved them so
Old eyes like sherry, warm and mild;
A clear-hued cheek as cheek of child;
Sleek head, a sphere of snow.
Patrician; with which mould there goes
A disaffected view.
In those sublime, be-oratored,
Spread-eagle days, his soul deplored
So much red-white-and-blue!
He left behind him censure strong,
In stiffest phrases clothed!
But time—a pleasant jest enough!—
Has turned the tory leaves to buff,
The liberal hue he loathed!
Brief simple record. Never fade
Those everlasting flowers
That spring up wild in good men’s walks;
Opinions wither on their stalks,
And sere grow Fashion’s bowers.
His semblance sits, removed from all
Our needs and noises new;
Released from all the rent we pay
As tenants of the large To-day,
Cool, in a background blue.
Plump, squamous-pinioned, pouting-lipped,
Sleeps calm where Trinity
Points fingers dark to clouds that fleet;
A warning, seen from surging street,
A welcome seen from sea.
Shed for the dead in buried years,
The silver notes of chimes;
And there, with not unreverent hand
Though light, I lay this “greene garland,”
This woven wreath of rhymes.