“It’s a long lane that knows no turnings”—
And Browning never said a thing more true,
So I know you’ll know the spirit that impels me
To send this little messenger to you.
IMMORTAL KEATS.
Matchless bard of all the ages—
Lyric sounder of the lyre—
Wake among your golden echoes—
Rise amid your latent fire—
Tell us, Master of the Muses—
Sweetest singer ever sung—
By what law of Earth or Heaven
Ye were called away so young?
By what law of God or Mammon—
By what creed of land or sea—
Was a weary World forsaken
Of the mind that harbored thee?
Ere that wondrous mind’s fruition
Scarce had grown to the tree.
If the half-fledged sapling gave us
Melodies past human praise—
If such virgin buddings crowded
Those few sad and glorious days;
If such flowers, barely opened,
Swept us in a wild amaze—
What, Oh Lord and Prince of Poesy,
Would your soul have given to men—
What the marvelous meed and measure
Of your pulsing, choral pen—
Had your numbered days been lengthened
To a three score years and ten?
As through mystic lands ye led us
O’er the paths your feet had gone:
Pipes of Pan—and fain we followed—
Glad and willing slave and pawn,
Till we reached the fields Elysian—
Till we faced the gorgeous dawn:
Till the lanes seemed filled with roses—
Roses lipped with opal dew:
Till the vales seemed filled with incense—
Incense slowly drifting through:
Till the seas seemed filled with grottoes—
Grottoes amber, gold and blue:
Till the songs of birds rang clearer
And the sunshine shone more rare,
And the moon above the meadows
Gathered love, and left it there;
And the swaying stars rose whiter—
And the World was very fair:
As your thoughts’ eternal fountains,
Shot with iridescent gleams,
Floating down through glades enchanted,
On the breast of faery streams,
To a pearl-strewn bay of beryl—
Reached the haven of our dreams.