’TIS strange to look across the street

And feel that we no more shall greet

Our middle-aged, precise, and neat,

It seems, in his unlighted hall,

His much-prized pictures on the wall

Must miss his presence, and recall

His manner was serene and fine,

Fashioned on some Old-World design.

His wit grew keener with the wine,

And when the revelry rang high,

No one could make more apt reply;

Yet, though they sometimes marked his sigh,

He held as foolish him who dotes

On politics or petticoats;

He vowed he’d hear no talk of votes

No journeys tempted him; he swore

He held his world within his door,

And there he’d dwell till life was o’er,

“Why should I roam the world again?”

He said. “Domingo shows me Spain;

The dust of travel then were vain.

To match my Corot there! One glance

Is worth a year of actual France.

The real ne’er equals the romance,

His walls were decked with maidens fair—

A Henner with rich auburn hair;

A Reynolds with the stately air

There glanced a Greuze with girlish grace;

And yonder, with the strong, calm face,

The peasant sister of her race,

He valued most the sunny day

Because it lighted his DuprÉ,

And showed his small Meissonier

And tender was the glance he bent

Upon his missal’s ornament,

Whereon some patient monk had spent

I used to love to see him pass

His fingers o’er some rare old glass.

He never took delight en masse;

The precious bronzes from Japan,

The rugs from towered Ispahan,

His rose-tint SÈvres, his famous fan—

And so he held that Art was all;

Yet when Death made the solemn call,

Before the desk in his long hall

Within the hands clasped on his breast

An old daguerreotype was pressed—

A sweet-faced, smiling girl, and dressed

Naught of his story can we know,

Nor whose the fault so long ago,

Nor with what meed of weal or woe

Yet o’er his rare Delft mantel-tiles

Bellini’s sweet Madonna smiles

As though she knew the weary miles