POEMS OF MANHATTAN
VII
On either side the travelled way,
Encamped along the sunny downs,
The blithesome, bold Bohemians lay;
Or hid, in quaintly-gabled towns,
At smoke-stained inns of musty date,
And spider-haunted attic nooks
In empty houses of the great,
Still smacking of their ancient state,—
Strewn round with pipes and mouldy books,
And robes and buskins over-worn,
That well become the careless scorn
And freedom of Bohemia.
VIII
For, loving Beauty, and, by chance,
Too poor to make her all in all,
They spurn her half-way maintenance,
And let things mingle as they fall;
Dissevered from all other climes,
Yet compassing the whole round world,
Where'er are jests, and jousts at rhymes,
True love, and careless, jovial times,
Great souls by jilting Fortune whirled,
Men that were born before their day,
Kingly, without a realm to sway,
Yet monarchs in Bohemia;
IX
And errant wielders of the quill;
And old-world princes, strayed afar,
In threadbare exile chasing still
The glimpses of a natal star;
And Woman—taking refuge there
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