POEMS OF MANHATTAN
The Pope himself would have come from Rome,
But Garibaldi kept him at home.
Haply these robed prelates thought
Their words were the power that tied the knot;
But another power that love-knot tied,
And I saw the chain round the neck of the bride,—
A glistening, priceless, marvellous chain,
Coiled with diamonds again and again,
As befits a diamond wedding;
Yet still 't was a chain, and I thought she knew it,
And half-way longed for the will to undo it,
By the secret tears she was shedding.
But is n't it odd, to think whenever
We all go through that terrible River,—
Whose sluggish tide alone can sever
(The Archbishop says) the Church decree,
By floating one into Eternity
And leaving the other alive as ever,—
As each wades through that ghastly stream,
The satins that rustle and gems that gleam
Will grow pale and heavy, and sink away
To the noisome River's bottom-clay;
Then the costly bride and her maidens six
Will shiver upon the banks of the Styx,
Quite as helpless as they were born,—
Naked souls, and very forlorn;
The Princess, then, must shift for herself,
And lay her royalty on the shelf;
She, and the beautiful Empress, yonder,
Whose robes are now the wide world's wonder,
And even ourselves, and our dear little wives,
Who calico wear each morn of their lives,
And the sewing girls, and les chiffonniers,
In rags and hunger,—a gaunt array,—
And all the grooms of the caravan—
Ay, even the great Don Rataplan
104
