Whose yellowing crescent down the West
Leans listening, now when every breast
Its basest or its purest heaves,
The soul that joys, the soul that grieves;—
While Fame is crowning happy brows
That day will blindly scorn, while vows
Of anguished love, long hidden, speak
From faltering tongue and flushing cheek
The language only known to dreams,
Rich eloquence of rosy themes!
While on the Beauty’s folded mouth
Disdain just wrinkles baby youth;
While Poverty dispenses alms
To outcasts, bread, and healing balms;
While old Mammon knows himself
The greatest beggar for his pelf;
While noble things in darkness grope,
The Statesman’s aim, the Poet’s hope;
The Patriot’s impulse gathers fire,
And germs of future fruits aspire;—
Now while dumb nature owns its links,
And from one common fountain drinks,
Methinks in all around I see
This Picture in Eternity;—
A marbled City planted there
With all its pageants and despair;
A peopled hush, a Death not dead,
But stricken with Medusa’s head;—
And in the Gorgon’s glance for aye
The lifeless immortality
Reveals in sculptured calmness all
Its latest life beyond recall.
THE POETRY OF CHAUCER
Grey with all honours of age! but fresh-featured and ruddy
As dawn when the drowsy farm-yard has thrice heard Chaunticlere.
Tender to tearfulness—childlike, and manly, and motherly;
Here beats true English blood richest joyance on sweet English ground.