Thomas Bailey Aldrich
►Romance beside his unstrung lute,
Lies stricken mute.
The old-time fire, the antique grace,
You will not find them anyplace,
Polemic, scientific air:
We strip Illusion of her veil;
We vivisect the nightingale
To probe the secret of his note.
The Muse in alien ways remote
Goes wandering.
Aldrich, a friend of Twain’s, was the author of The Story of a Bad Boy and An Old Town by the Sea.