9 2 



Where lichens made a carpet for his feet: 

 Through the transparent waves, the ruddy minkle 

 Shot up in glimmering sparks his red fin's tiny twinkle. 



There were dark cedars with loose mossy tresses, 

 White powdered dog-trees, and stiff hollies flaunting 



Gaudy as rustics in their May-day dresses, 

 Blue pelloret from purple leaves upslanting 



A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden 



Shining beneath dropt lids the evening of her wedding. 



The breeze fresh springing from the lips of morn, 



Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose 'em, 

 The winding of the. merry locust's horn, 



The glad spring gushing from the rock's bare bosom : 

 Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, 

 Oh ! 'twas a ravishing spot formed for a poet's dwelling. 



And did I leave thy loveliness, to stand 



Again in the dull world of earthly blindness? 

 Pained with the pressure of unfriendly hands, 



Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness? 

 Left I for this thy shades, where none intrude, 

 To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude? 



Yet I will look upon thy face again, 



My own romantic Bronx, and it will be 

 A face more pleasant than the face of men. 



Thy waves are old companions, I shall see 

 A well-remembered form in each old tree, 

 An hear a voice long loved in thy wild ministrelsy. 



As the last verse was being read, the verse which had been 

 cast in bronze. Miss Slyvia de Kay, a winsome maid of twelve 

 summers and a great-granddaughter of the poet, drew aside 

 the American flag and revealed those words which so pecu- 

 liarly signalize Drake as " The Bronx Poet." The setting of 

 these unveiling exercises will not be effaced from the memory 

 of those who had the good fortune to be present. The quiet 

 of the scene was broken only by the echo of the river's rapids, 

 rustling trees, and the song-notes or twitter of birds engaged 

 in the vespers of the fainting day. 



The exercises closed with a view of the Drake exhibition 

 already alluded to. 



