Complete Poetical Works

AVITOR

     (AN AERIAL RETROSPECT)

     What was it filled my youthful dreams,
     In place of Greek or Latin themes,
     Or beauty's wild, bewildering beams?
          Avitor!

     What visions and celestial scenes
     I filled with aerial machines,
     Montgolfier's and Mr. Green's!
          Avitor!

     What fairy tales seemed things of course!
     The roc that brought Sindbad across,
     The Calendar's own winged horse!
          Avitor!

     How many things I took for facts,—
     Icarus and his conduct lax,
     And how he sealed his fate with wax!
          Avitor!

     The first balloons I sought to sail,
     Soap-bubbles fair, but all too frail,
     Or kites,—but thereby hangs a tail.
          Avitor!

     What made me launch from attic tall
     A kitten and a parasol,
     And watch their bitter, frightful fall?
          Avitor!

     What youthful dreams of high renown
     Bade me inflate the parson's gown,
     That went not up, nor yet came down?
          Avitor!

     My first ascent I may not tell;
     Enough to know that in that well
     My first high aspirations fell.
          Avitor!

     My other failures let me pass:
     The dire explosions, and, alas!
     The friends I choked with noxious gas.
          Avitor!

     For lo! I see perfected rise
     The vision of my boyish eyes,
     The messenger of upper skies.
          Avitor!