HOMEROC UNITY.
The sacred keep of Ilion is rent
With trench and shaft; foiled waters wander slow
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went
To war with Gods and heroes long ago.
Not yet to tired Cassandra, lying low
In rich Mycenae, do the Fates relent:
The bones of Agamemnon are a show,
And ruined is his royal monument.
The dust and awful treasures of the Dead,
Hath Learning scattered wide, but vainly thee,
Homer, she meteth with her tool of lead,
And strives to rend thy songs; too blind to see
The crown that burns on thine immortal head
Of indivisible supremacy!
IN ITHACA.
"And now am I greatly repenting that ever I left
my life with thee, and the immortality thou didst
promise me."—Letter of Odysseus to Calypso.
Luciani Vera Historia.
'Tis thought Odysseus when the strife was o'er
With all the waves and wars, a weary while,
Grew restless in his disenchanted isle,
And still would watch the sunset, from the shore,
Go down the ways of gold, and evermore
His sad heart followed after, mile on mile,
Back to the Goddess of the magic wile,
Calypso, and the love that was of yore.
Thou too, thy haven gained, must turn thee yet
To look across the sad and stormy space,
Years of a youth as bitter as the sea,
Ah, with a heavy heart, and eyelids wet,
Because, within a fair forsaken place
The life that might have been is lost to thee.
DREAMS.
He spake not truth, however wise,[1] who said
"That happy, and that hapless men in sleep
Have equal fortune, fallen from care as deep
As countless, careless, races of the dead."
Not so, for alien paths of dreams we tread,
And one beholds the faces that he sighs
In vain to bring before his day lit eyes,
And waking, he remembers on his bed;
And one with fainting heart and feeble hand
Fights a dim battle in a doubtful land,
Where strength and courage were of no avail;
And one is borne on fairy breezes far
To the bright harbours of a golden star
Down fragrant fleeting waters rosy pale.
GÉRARD DE NERVAL.
Of all that were thy prisons—ah, untamed,
Ah, light and sacred soul!—none holds thee now;
No wall, no bar, no body of flesh, but thou
Art free and happy in the lands unnamed,
Within whose gates, with weary wings and maimed,
Thou still would'st bear that mystic golden bough
The Sibyl doth to singing men allow,
Yet thy report folk heeded not, but blamed.
And they would smile and wonder, seeing where
Thou stood'st, to watch light leaves, or clouds, or wind,
Dreamily murmuring a ballad air,
Caught from the Valois peasants; dost thou find
A new life gladder than the old times were,
A love as fair as Sylvie, and more kind?
IDEAL.
Suggested by a female head in wax, of unknown date,
but supposed to be either of the best Greek age, or a
work of Raphael or Leonardo. It is now in the Lille
Museum.
Ah, mystic child of Beauty, nameless maid,
Dateless and fatherless, how long ago,
A Greek, with some rare sadness overweighed,
Shaped thee, perchance, and quite forgot his woe!
Or Raphael thy sweetness did bestow,
While magical his fingers o'er thee strayed,
Or that great pupil of Verrocchio
Redeemed thy still perfection from the shade
That hides all fair things lost, and things unborn,
Where one has fled from me, that wore thy grace,
And that grave tenderness of thine awhile;
Nay, still in dreams I see her, but her face
Is pale, is wasted with a touch of scorn,
And only on thy lips I find her smile.
[1] Aristotle.
[TRANSLATIONS.]
HYMN TO THE WINDS
The winds are invoked by the winnowers of corn.
Du Bellay, 1550.
To you, troop so fleet,
That with winged wandering feet
Through the wide world pass,
And with soft murmuring
Toss the green shades of spring
In woods and grass,
Lily and violet
I give, and blossoms wet,
Roses and dew;
This branch of blushing roses,
Whose fresh bud uncloses,
Wind-flowers too.
Ah, winnow with sweet breath,
Winnow the holt and heath,
Round this retreat;
Where all the golden mom
We fan the gold o' the corn
In the sun's heat.