[TRANSLATIONS]
FROM MICHAEL ANGELO
I
"Non so se s'è la desiata luce"
I know not if from uncreated spheres
Some longed-for ray it be that warms my breast,
Or lesser light, in memory expressed,
Of some once lovely face, that reappears,
Or passing rumour ringing in my ears,
Or dreamy vision, once my bosom's guest,
That left behind I know not what unrest,
Haply the reason of these wayward tears.
But what I feel and seek, what leads me on,
Comes not of me; nor can I tell aright
Where shines the hidden star that sheds this light.
Since I beheld thee, sweet and bitter fight
Within me. Resolution have I none.
Can this be, Master, what thine eyes have done?
II
"Il mio refugio"
The haven and last refuge of my pain
(A strong and safe defence)
Are tears and supplications, but in vain.
Love sets upon me banded with Disdain,
One armed with pity and one armed with death,
And as death smites me, pity lends me breath.
Else had my soul long since departed thence.
She pineth to remove
Whither her hopes of endless peace abide
And beauty dwelleth without beauty's pride,
There her last bliss to prove.
But still the living fountain of my tears
Wells in the heart when all thy truth appears,
Lest death should vanquish love.
III
"Gli occhi miei vaghi delle cose belle"
Ravished by all that to the eyes is fair,
Yet hungry for the joys that truly bless,
My soul can find no stair
To mount to heaven, save earth's loveliness.
For from the stars above
Descends a glorious light
That lifts our longing to their highest height
And bears the name of love.
Nor is there aught can move
A gentle heart, or purge or make it wise,
But beauty and the starlight of her eyes.
FROM ALFRED DE MUSSET
SOUVENIR
I weep, but with no bitterness I weep,
To look again upon thee, hallowed spot,
O dearest grave, and most of men forgot,
Where buried love doth sleep.
What witchcraft think you that this desert hath,
Dear friends, who take my hand and bid me stay,
Now that the gentle wont of many a day
Would lead me down this path?
Here are the wooded slopes, the flowering heath,
The silver footprints on the silent sand,
The loitering lanes, alive with lovers' breath,
Where first I kissed her hand.
I know these fir-trees, and this mossy stone,
And this deep gorge, and all its winding ways;
These friendly giants, whose primeval moan
Hath rocked my happy days.
My footsteps' echo in this tangled tree
Gives back youth's music, like a singing bird;
Dear haunts, fair wilderness her presence stirred,
Did you not watch for me?
I will not dry these tear-drops: let them flow,
And soothe a bitterness that yet might last,
And o'er my waking-weary eyelids throw
The shadow of the past.
My useless plainings shall not make to cease
The happy echoes of the vows we vowed:
Proud is this forest in its noble peace,
And my heart too is proud.
Give o'er to hopeless grief the bitter hours
You kneel to pray upon a brother's tomb:
Here blows the breath of love, and graveyard flowers
Not in this garden bloom.
See! The moon rides athwart a bank of cloud.
Thy veils, fair Queen of Night, still cling to thee,
But soon thou loosenest thy virgin shroud
And smilest to be free.
As the rich earth, still dank with April rain,
Beneath thy rays exhales day's captive balm,
So from my purged soul, as pure, as calm,
The old love breathes again.
Where are they gone, those ghosts of sorrow pale,
Where fled the passion that my heart defiled?
Once in the bosom of this friendly vale
I am again a child.
O might of time, O changes of the year,
Ye undo sorrow and the tears we shed,
But, touched with pity, on our blossoms sere
Your light feet never tread.
Heavenly solace, be for ever blest!
I had not thought a sword could pierce so far
Into the heart, and leave upon the breast
So sweet and dear a scar.
Far from me the sharp word, the thankless mind,
Of vulgar sorrow customary weed,
Shroud that about the corse of love they wind
Who never loved indeed.
Why, Dante, dost thou say the saddest curse
Is joy remembered in unhappy days?
What grief compelled thee to this bitter verse
In sorrow's harsh dispraise?
O'er all the worlds is light bereft of gladness
When sad eclipses cast their blight on us?
Did thy great soul, in its immortal sadness,
Speak to thee, Dante, thus?
No, by this sacred light upon me cast!
Not in thy heart this blasphemy had birth.
It is the truest happiness on earth
To have a happy past.
What! When the soul forlorn finds yet a spark
Mid the hot ashes of her stifled sighs,
And doth that flame, her only treasure, mark
With captivated eyes,
Bathing her wounds in the delicious past
That mirrors brokenly her loves again,
Thy cruel word her feeble joy would blast
And turn to bitter pain?
And couldst thou wrong thine own Francesca so,
Wrong thy bright angel with a word like this,
Her whose lips, parting to rehearse her woe,
Broke an eternal kiss?
What, righteous Heaven, is our human thought,
And to the love of truth who yet will cling,
If every pain or joy e'er shunned or sought
Turns to a doubtful thing?
How can you live, strange souls that nothing awes?
In midst of haste and passion, song and mirth,
Nor all the stars of heaven give you pause,
Nor all the sins of earth;
But when upon your fated way you meet
Some dumb memorial of a passion dead,
That little pebble stops you, and you dread
To bruise your tender feet.
You cry aloud that life is but a dream,
And, to the truth awaking, wring your hands,
And grieve your bubble but a moment stands
Upon time's foaming stream.
Poor fools! That moment when your soul could shake
The numbing fetters off that it enthrall,
That fleeting moment was your all in all—
Oh, mourn not for its sake!
But rather mourn your weight of earthly dross,
Your joyless toil, your stains of blood and mire,
Your sunless days, your nights without desire;
In these was utter loss.
What profit have you of your late lament,
And what from heaven do your murmurs crave,
The plaints you sow upon the barren grave
Of every pleasure spent?
Life is a dream, and all things pass, I know:
If some fair splendour we be charmed withal,
We pluck the flower, and at the breath we blow
Its withered petals fall.
Ay, the first kiss and the first virgin vow
That ever mortals upon earth did swear,
That whirlwind caught which strips the frozen bough
And stones to sand doth wear.
A witness to the lovers' troth was night,
With changeful skies, o'ercast with mystery,
And stars unnumbered, that an inward light
Devours unceasingly.
They saw death hush the song bird in the glade,
Blast the pale flower, and freeze the torpid worm,
And choke the fountain where the image played
Of their forgotten form.
Yet they joined hands above the mouldering clod,
Blind with love's light that flashed across the sky,
Nor felt the cold eye of the changeless God
Who watches all things die.
Fools! says the sage: thrice blest! the poet says.
What wretched joy is to the faint heart dear
Whom noise of torrents fills with weak amaze
And the wind fills with fear?
I have seen beneath the sun more beauties fail
Than white sea foam or leaves of forest sere;
More than the swallows and the roses frail
Desert the widowed year.
Mine eyes have gazed on sights of deeper woe
Than Juliet dead within the gorged tomb,
And deadlier than the cup that Romeo
Drank to his love and doom.
I have seen my love, when all I loved had perished,
Who to a whited sepulchre is turned;
Seen the thin dust of all I ever cherished
In her cold heart inurned,—
Dust of that faith which, in our bosoms furled,
The gentle night had warded well from doubt.
More than a single life, alas! a world
Was that day blotted out.
Still young I found her, and, men said, more fair;
In heaven's light her eyes could still rejoice,
And her lips opened, and a smile was there,
And sound as of a voice.
But not that gentle voice, that tender grace,
Those eyes I worshipped when they looked their prayer:
My heart, still full of her, searched, searched her face
And could not find her there.
And still I could have gone to her, and cast
My arms about that chill and lifeless stone,
And cried, Where hast thou left it, faithless one,
Where hast thou left the past?
But no: it rather seemed as if by chance
Some unknown woman had that voice and eye;
I looked up into heaven; with cold glance
I passed that statue by.
Not without pangs of shame and bitterness
I watched her smiling shadow glide away;
But what of that? Immortal nature, say,
Have I loved therefore less?
On me the gods may now their lightnings fling,
They cannot undo truth, nor kill the past.
Like a wrecked sailor to a broken mast
To my dead love I cling.
I make no question of what flowers may bloom,
What virtue from the seasons man may borrow,
What heavenly lamp may flood with light to-morrow
The vault of this great tomb.
I only say: Here at this hour, one day,
I loved, and I was loved, and she was fair.
This treasure which no death can filch away
My soul to God shall bear.
FROM THEOPHILE GAUTIER
ART
All things are doubly fair
If patience fashion them
And care—
Verse, enamel, marble, gem.
No idle chains endure:
Yet, Muse, to walk aright,
Lace tight
Thy buskin proud and sure.
Fie on a facile measure,
A shoe where every lout
At pleasure
Slips his foot in and out!
Sculptor, lay by the clay
On which thy nerveless finger
May linger,
Thy thoughts flown far away.
Keep to Carrara rare,
Struggle with Paros cold,
That hold
The subtle line and fair.
Lest haply nature lose
That proud, that perfect line,
Make thine
The bronze of Syracuse.
And with a tender dread
Upon an agate's face
Retrace
Apollo's golden head.
Despise a watery hue
And tints that soon expire.
With fire
Burn thine enamel true.
Twine, twine in artful wise
The blue-green mermaid's arms,
Mid charms
Of thousand heraldries.
Show in their triple lobe
Virgin and Child, that hold
Their globe,
Cross-crowned and aureoled.
All things return to dust
Save beauties fashioned well.
The bust
Outlasts the citadel.
Oft doth the ploughman's heel,
Breaking an ancient clod,
Reveal
A Cæsar or a god.
The gods, too, die, alas!
But deathless and more strong
Than brass
Remains the sovereign song.
Chisel and carve and file,
Till thy vague dream imprint
Its smile
On the unyielding flint.
[CONVIVIAL AND OCCASIONAL VERSES]
PROSIT NEUJAHR
Be the new year sweet and short
As the days of girl and boy are,
Full of friendship, full of sport—
Prosit Neujahr!
Be it beautiful and great
As the days of grief and joy are,
Full of wonder and of fate—
Prosit Neujahr!
FAIR HARVARD
Fair Harvard, the winter of Puritan snows
That enshrouded thy tremulous birth
Melts slowly to spring, now the south wind blows
O'er the face of this generous earth.
Thy elms are outspreading their flexible arms
Over meadows more fruitful and broad,
And soft ivy is veiling with negligent charms
The gaunt walls of the castle of God.
With freedom for heritage, reason for star,
And friendship for sojourner here,
Shall music long tremblingly sound from afar
Or genius be smothered in fear?
Where the ages may meet and the spirit may climb
To a truth that is builded on doubt,
The eternal may dwell mid the currents of time
And peace above barbarous rout,
And the just voice unlearn to be strident and sharp,
And, attuned to life's happier choir,
Join the stress of all David might shout to his harp
With all Lysis might lisp to his lyre,
And Olympia again call the strong and the fleet
To glory and art and control,
And a deathless Academy build a retreat
To ponder the things of the soul.
If to glory, young Mother, thy destiny tend,
If thy labours have honour in store,
Our loves shall not die, though their chronicle end
Nor mortals remember us more.
For once from their dreaming the man and the boy,
Fair Harvard, awoke at thy name,
And our happiest years were a part of thy joy,
And our light was a spark of thy flame.
COLLEGE DRINKING SONG
As we say good-bye at the parting ways,
Let us sing together a song of praise,
Let us drink a toast to our college days,
To the walks through a world made for you and me,
To the boisterous farce and the echoing glee,
To the wonderful A and the dreadful E,
Drink, boys, drink!
To the games we won and the games we lost,
For we could n't tell which before we tossed,
And who cares now who paid the cost?
To the woman's love that came and went,
To the good wine drunk and the money spent,
To the night-long foolish argument,
Drink, boys, drink!
To the times when men were men indeed,
To our fathers' youth and our mothers' creed,
And to every faith that may succeed,
To the after age and the later tongue
That will ring the changes we have rung
And sing the songs we have left unsung,
Drink, boys, drink!
When the eye is dull and the hand is cold,
Then should the pocket be full of gold,
For no one will love us when we 're old.
So to vulgar gold and what it gets
And an honest end to all our debts,
For an old wine softens old regrets,
Drink, boys, drink!
When we are asleep beneath grey stone,
Our children's lives shall repeat our own,
For the light remains though the days be flown.
To the opening buds of this ended May,
And to all sweet things that will not stay,
And to every dog that has had his day,
Drink, boys, drink!
SIX WISE FOOLS
Twelve had struck. Our talk subsided.
We were comrades in the schools
By the world awhile divided—
Six sententious merry fools.
And I said, "We 've talked of college,
Resurrecting callow youth.
But you since have lived; what knowledge
Have you gathered of the Truth?
And you first, most learned scholar,
Whom I 'm proud to sit beside,
Speak: does wisdom sans a dollar
Leave you wholly satisfied?
You have walked, and never wavered,
In the paths the sages took
And three publishers have favoured
With a yet unpublished book.
The soul's garden you have weeded
Which we mortals trample through,
You love much we leave unheeded.
Speak, and let us learn of you."
And the student thus proceeded,
As a gentle sigh he drew:
THE SCHOLAR
I'm thankful that as matters go
I neither toil nor spin,
But read the good old wits, heigh ho!
And live with elder kin;
That I need neither reap nor sow
Nor gather into barns,
But dwell among my books, heigh ho!
Repeating ancient yarns.
Dead things are not my science, no,
Nor fossil parts of speech,
But the great human heart, heigh ho!
That pedants never reach.
The record of man's joy and woe
Upon his sculptured face
I read by my heart's light, heigh ho!
And vanquish time and space.
I find no vice so foul and low
But nature lurks therein,
Nor any thought so high, heigh ho!
But pays the price of sin.
I feel the pity and the glow
Of truth's sublime communion,
And learn to smile at fate, heigh ho!
In friendship's happy union.
Let this but last till death's wind blow
And till my bones are rotten,
Then let the world sail on, heigh ho!
And be ray name forgotten.
"Now you, votary of pleasure,"
Turning to the next, I said,
"Count the profit of your leisure
And the cost of unearned bread.
Tell us what civilisation
Merits your impartial praise,
In what climate, in what nation
You have spent most joyous days."
Quoth he, as if in admiration
That such questions I should raise:
THE SPORT
All things are nice when they are new,
When they are old, all things are horrid.
After the storm I like the blue,
After the arctic zone the torrid.
My loves are many, brief, and true,
By mutual jealousy unworried.
I like to leave my house and home
And cross the mountains and the sea;
With one small bag on earth to roam,
That is the height of bliss for me.
To roam on earth without my bag,
That is the depth of misery.
That freedom cheats us with a word
Which sets up knaves and murders kings.
What soul is free that never stirred?
Go cut your mother's apron-strings,
And putting money in your purse,
Fly off on the express-train's wings.
I'll stay at home when I am lame,
And build a church when stuffed with gold,
I will be grave when known to fame,
I will be chaste when I am old.
Then all the angels will rejoice
That I, lost lamb, regain the fold.
"Without some evil, nothing good,"
Your subtle theologians say.
I glorify their rectitude
By straying in my artless way.
My needful sins make possible
The higher morals of the day.
This is our only chance to taste
The sweet and bitter fruits of earth.
To pluck them all, we've need of haste;
We cannot ask what each is worth.
Up, up, wise virgin; do not waste
The little time 'twixt death and birth.
Come feel the joy of changing skies,
Of rushing streams and windy weather.
Though we be bound by fortune's ties,
We' 11 to the utmost stretch the tether,
And be they gay or be they sad,
We'll go and see the sights together.
THE CRITIC
"Shall men agree?" the next man said,
"Each mind is shut within some head
(Pace the minds of all the dead)
With two eyes, seldom of a size,
And spectacles before the eyes.
Then, if men differ, what surprise?
"See the wight who wrapped in sadness
Grieves how soon this life is done,
And, disgusted with the madness
Of the way the world is run,
Scorns the hollowness of gladness
And the idiocy of fun:
Why, the spots upon the sun
Can be seen, when the ray passes
Blue eye-glasses.
"And what makes the moonlight shimmer
With the dancing of the sea
And the little stars cold glimmer
Twinkle with an inward glee
While this working-world grows dimmer
If my Mary looks with me?
Not the moon or stars or sea,
But the fickle cause, alas, is
Love's eye-glasses.
"Oh, how sad a world to cough in
Is a world once warm and fair,
And how many fallings off in
Old men's world of falling hair,
Till they think within the coffin
That there's no world anywhere.
For I fancy dead men wear
(Take your look now, lads and lasses!)
No eye-glasses."
He stopped, and with a civil look
Said to his neighbour, "You come next,"
Who had been looking at a book
And seemed a trifle bored and vexed.
He laid the book down, stretched his legs
And yawned, and, emptying his glass,
Made a grimace as if the dregs
Were bitter, and replied, "I pass."
When pressed, he shook his languid head
Until at last he hemmed and said:
THE PESSIMIST
I set my heart on being good,
Believed the Bible to the letter,
Yes, joined a Christian brotherhood
When I was young and knew no better;
And, if I sometimes sinned, I wept
That God's commandments were not kept.
As time went on, I understood
That it was wrong to be so good.
My heart I set on being wise
And passing for a clever fellow:
Reading o' nights I spoilt my eyes,
And lack of fresh air turned me yellow.
Each book I read said t' other lied,
I saw the less the more I pried,
And so I found, to my surprise,
I was a fool to be so wise.
I set my heart on making friends
Pleasant and clever, kind and witty;
They now are at the earth's four ends,
Two only have n't left the city.
The one is given up to trade,
The other in the churchyard laid.
And when youth's gone and leisure ends,
It is too late for making friends.
I set my heart upon a girl
Who chose at my approach to smile.
Did she but pat some frizzled curl,
I knew the angel free from guile.
But now a rich man owns my belle,
I find the others smile as well,
And my moustache no more I twirl,
Nor set my heart upon a girl.
I set my heart on seeing things,
And wished through every land to travel,
See Troja's ruins, Nikis' springs,
And culture's history unravel.
When many a sea had made me sick,
Men still were bipeds, houses brick.
Since nearer Truth no journey brings
I make an end of seeing things.
I set my heart on politics;
I glowed for honesty and freedom.
My earnest thoughts I tried to fix
Upon the poor, and how to feed 'em.
But the reformer cheats himself,
He serves his prejudice or pelf,
And no man's will but inward fate
Governs the fortunes of the state.
I set my heart on nothing now,
But bless the gifts of every hour,
Holding my hand beneath life's bough
To catch the fruit or falling flower.
With the world breathing at my feet,
I find the sunset stillness sweet,
And with the night wind on my brow
I set my heart on nothing now.
He scarce had done, when the last man,
Who'd listened hard to every word,
Thus, rising in his place, began
As if impatient to be heard:
THE LOVER
Oh, you men who are not married
Have n't known the joy of living,
On the margin you have tarried,
Never putting out to sea;
All your musing, all your grieving,
Is a childish thing to me.
I have done with idle moping
And have seen my manly duty.
There is no more doubt and groping,
Since I took a woman's hand,
And the loadstar of her beauty
Led me to the promised land.
For her sake my work is pleasure
And I thrive in my devotion,
Though I seek repute and treasure
But to have the gifts to give,
For my love, like River Ocean,
Rounds the world in which I live.
When I feel, in softest slumber,
Her fair head upon my pillow,
I think how the misty Humber
And the Ganges' holy stream
Send their treasures o'er the billow
To embalm my lady's dream.
Rightly did my father rear me
Close beside the village steeple,
Rightly shall my sons revere me
When they come to take my place,
For I serve my land and people
And maintain my sturdy race.
Fill your glasses up with liquor,
Drink it down while yet it bubbles.
When the heart beats quick and quicker
Love is knocking. Drink with me:
Here is death to all your troubles,
And long life, fair love, to thee!
"Yes, fill your glasses up, I pray you,"
Said I, "and make it bumpers now,
For whatsoever passion sway you
Some noble love we all avow.
"We bear a mark, an inward token,
That parts us from the common herd.
To each of us some muse has spoken
A holy, unforgotten word.
"Our stars, conjoined in youth's first season,
Whether to musing moved or strife.
Obedient to one touch of reason
Together make the round of life.
"Drink to the loves we knitted here,
A bond by distance not undone.
High thoughts outlive the wasted year;
I drink to that which makes us one."
ATHLETIC ODE
I hear a rumour and a shout,
A louder heart-throb pulses in the air.
Fling, Muse, thy lattice open, and beware
To keep the morning out.
Beckon into the chamber of thy care
The bird of healing wing
That trilleth there
Blithe happy passion of the strong and fair.
Their wild heart singeth. Do thou also sing.
How vain, how vain
The feeble croaking of a reasoning tongue
That heals no pain
And prompts no bright deed worthy to be sung
Too soon cold earth
Refuses flowers. Oh, greet their lovely birth!
Too soon dull death
Quiets the heaving of our doubtful breath.
Deem not its worth
Too high for honouring mirth;
Sing while the lyre is strung,
And let the heart beat, while the heart is young.
When the dank earth begins to thaw and yield
The early clover, didst thou never pass
Some balmy noon from field to sunny field
And press thy feet against the tufted grass?
So hadst thou seen
A spring palæstra on the tender green.
Here a tall stripling, with a woman's face,
Draws the spiked sandal on his upturned heel,
Sure-footed for the race;
Another hurls the quoit of heavy steel
And glories to be strong;
While yet another, lightest of the throng,
Crouching on tiptoe for the sudden bound,
Flies o'er the level race-course, like the hound,
And soon is lost afar;
Another jumps the bar,
For some god taught him easily to spring,
The legs drawn under, as a bird takes wing,
Till, tempting fortune farther than is meet,
At last he fails, and fails, and vainly tries,
And blushing, and ashamed to lift his eyes,
Shakes the light earth from his feet.
Him friendly plaudits greet
And pleasing to the unaccustomed ear.
Come then afield, come with the sporting year
And watch the youth at play,
For gentle is the strengthening sun, and sweet
The soul of boyhood and the breath of May.
And with the milder ray
Of the declining sun, when sky and shore,
In purple drest and misty silver-grey.
Hang curtains round the day,
Come list the beating of the plashing oar,
For grief in rhythmic labour glides away.
The glancing blades make circles where they dip,
Now flash and drip
Cool wind-blown drops into the glassy river,
Now sink and cleave,
While the lithe rowers heave
And feel the boat beneath them leap and quiver.
The supple oars in time,
Shattering the mirror of the rippled water,
Fly, fly as poets climb,
Borne by the pliant promise of their rhyme,
Or as bewitched by Nereus' loveliest daughter
The painted dolphins, following along,
Leap to the measure of her liquid song.
But the blasts of late October,
Tempering summer's paling grief
With a russet glow and sober,
Bring of these sports the latest and the chief.
Then bursts the flame from many a smouldering ember,
And many an ardent boy
Woos harsher pleasures sweeter to remember,
Hugged with a sterner and a tenser joy.
Look where the rivals come:
Each little phalanx on its chosen ground
Strains for the sudden shock, and all around
The multitude is dumb.
Come, watch the stubborn fight
And doubtful, in the sight
Of wide-eyed beauty and unstinted love
Ay, the wise gods above,
Attentive to this hot and generous fray,
Smile on its fortunes and its end prepare,
For play is also life, and far from care
Their own glad life is play.
Ye nymphs and fauns, to Bacchus dear,
That woke Cithæron with your midnight rout,
Arise, arise and shout!
Your day returns, your haunt is here.
Shake off dull sleep and long despair;
There is intoxication in this air,
And frenzy in this yelping cheer.
How oft of old the enraptured Muses sung
Olympian victors' praise.
Lo! even in these days
The world is young.
Life like a torrent flung
For ever down
For ever wears a rainbow for a crown.
O idle sigh for loveliness outworn,
When the red flush of each unfailing morn
Floods every field and grove,
And no moon wanes but some one is in love.
O wasted tear,
A new soul wakes with each awakened year.
Beneath these rags, these blood-clots on the face,
The valiant soul is still the same, the same
The strength, the art, the inevitable grace,
The thirst unquenched for fame
Quenching base passion, the high will severe,
The long obedience, and the knightly flame
Of loyalty to honour and a name.
Give o'er, ye chords, your music ere ye tire,
Be sweetly mute, O lyre.
Words soon are cold, and life is warm for ever.
One half of honour is the strong endeavour,
Success the other, but when both conspire
Youth has her perfect crown, and age her old desire.
THE BOTTLES AND THE WINE
LINES READ AT THE REUNION OF A COLLEGE CLUB
Would you have an illustration
Of the thing we fellows are?
Liken every generation
To the bottles in the bar:
Vessels full of precious liquor
Standing in their brave array,—Never
bosom friends were thicker
Or of franker heart than they,
There congenially hobnobbing,
Always ready for a bout,
As half laughing and half sobbing
The fine spirits bubble out.
We buy, break, drink, waste, decant them—
Bottles come and bottles go—
Yet there always, when you want them,
Stand the bottles in a row:
Port and sherry, rum and brandy,
Irish, Bourbon, Scotch, and rye,
Always smiling, always handy
When the heart's a trifle dry.
Though the bottles change their label
And tag on another name,
They're as welcome at the table,
For the liquor's still the same.
Days gone by saw jugs in plenty,
Now less frequently on view.
Every year some ten or twenty
Pass to fields and pastures new.
There, replenished, they grow fatter
And their bellies bulge amain,
But though full as yet of matter,
You may mark a certain drain,
For the busy world's contention
Brings the liquid down a bit,
And a small god I won't mention
Sometimes takes a pull at it.
Yet apart from some mischances,
Though not standing where they stood,
For big dinners and small dances
Our old bottles still are good.
But when once the dregs are emptied,
We throw bottles in a heap,
Not one favourite exempted,
Were its spirit fine or cheap.
They 're doled out in the back alley
By the scrawny hands of hags
When gaunt Death comes shilly-shally
Crying, "Bottles and old rags!"
What of that? While face and feature,
Manners, minds, and pleasures pass,
Mature breeds a younger creature.
Mate to what the other was,
And the sports we had forsaken,
And the fancies blown away
In the brighter souls they waken
Live for ever and a day.
The proud glories that entice us
No more fail because we pass
Than the founts of Dionysus
For the quaffing of a glass.
But what happens to the liquor?
The old bottles' fate to share,
Only that its flight is quicker
Up the vortices of air?
Is it lost as soon as tasted,
Rising upon moth-like wings
To be caught and scorched and wasted
In this foolish flame of things?
Ah, the blood of nature's spilling
Trickles back into her veins,
And her cup is ever filling
With the vintage that she strains.
For a moment she befriends us
With unsealing of our eyes,
But the light of life she lends us
Floods her everlasting skies.
The sweet wine that makes our passion
Linking heart to mortal heart
Is her ancient fire to fashion
All the marvels of her art.
It has painted woman's beauty,
It is parent to the flowers,
It has wedded joy to duty,
Portioned loves among the hours,
Built us palaces and churches,
Plucked its music from the lyre,
Lighted all the spirit's searches
Through the mazes of desire,
Yes, and scorning earthly places
And our human loves and wars
It has peopled heaven's spaces
And has gilded heaven's stars.
Drink, then, of this cup and drain it.
Let the wine renew the soul,
And all vessels that contain it,
May they long be sound and whole
To receive the boon and give it
That makes mortal joys divine.
Here's to life and all who live it,
To the bottles and the wine.
THE POETIC MEDIUM
In Chelsea dwells a Sibyl known to fame
Called Mrs. Fakir—necromantic name!
Past, present, future, open to her view
She (for ten dollars) will reveal to you.
I for less sums—the discount to the trade—
Quaff at her fount and seek her undismayed.
I found the priestess in her wonted lair
Up three steep flights of narrow dirty stair.
Chill was the darkened chamber. A thick fume
Of kerosene lent odour to the gloom.
Clothed in black weeds, pale, with delirious hair,
Rocked Mrs. Fakir in her rocking-chair.
I told my errand; with some hushed complaint
About the fee, she fell into a faint,
Thrice rolled her eyes, thrice snorted through her nose,
Thrice wrung her hands, and wriggled thrice her toes,
Then spoke. (I versify: she uttered vulgar prose.)
"You want some verse: not every poet's soul
Whose aid you crave is still in my control.
Whom would you summon? You must ask the boon
Of some frail wight that floats below the moon.
The spirits that have risen to the stars
Reck not the echoes of our earthly jars.
Their troubles past, they have forgotten ours,
And move unmoved by even magic powers.
Only weak souls entangled in the mesh
Of passion, dying, still are bond to flesh,
And hover o'er the battle-field of life
To smell their kindred blood and pine for strife.
Such I may summon, for they have no choice
Who crave to live again and find a voice."
"'T is well," I answered. "If the gods so please,
We will not call on Aristophanes,
Horace shall slumber, Juvenal be dumb.
They rest in peace. But haply Swift will come."
"Not Swift," she said, "not Swift. I cannot tell
Whether he flew to heaven or to hell,
But he is gone far from this mild, low-born,
And canting age, incapable of scorn."
"Well, summon Byron, then," I said and sighed.
"Byron is also safe," the witch replied.
"The first sin punished and the first forgiven
Is love's, the slip of climbers into heaven.
The petted passion and the shallow dream
He purged at last; the heart survived supreme."
"Byron gone too," thought I, "what wit remains
All younger sprites have water in their veins.
But, ah! might not the living help me out?
Don't phantoms of the living flit about?"
"They do, they do," quoth Chelsea's Pythoness.
"Here in my telepathic cave's recess
All that they say or think or wish or feel
I read aloud, but most what they conceal.
Whom would you plagiarise? You 're silent? Why,
Have you forgot the ages galaxy—"
I trembled as she named them one by one,
From Willy Frilly down to Spider Spun.
"Spare me," I cried. "Shall some prolific bard
Reel off bright lyrics at a cent a yard,
All about April rain, December snow,
The brook, the sunset, and the squawking crow?
Shall little Swinburnes turn a verse with ease
And sing the flaccid pleasures of disease?
Shall mimics, drunk with each Castalian rill,
Be any poet but themselves at will,
Luscious when Keats, when Spenser quaint and dull,
When Browning turgid, and Noodles null?
Shall weaklings, in thick verse and tortured prose,
Strike affectation's quintessential pose,
Sniffing the odours of a perfumed brain
Where melts a Wordsworth plus a Paul Verlaine?
When, with no art, were precious fabrics wrought,
When metaphysics with no mastering thought?
No, Mrs. Fakir, none of this small fry.
Catch me some ghost of sense, or else good-bye.
Not at my bidding shall this choir prolong
The cloying drivel of unmeaning song,
Enrich the echo, maul the note and tease,
Miauling nothing in a hundred keys.
Better Pope's squirrel eye and polished sneer
Than idiot mouthings, false without veneer.
Better Boileau's 'monotony in wire,'
Dressing good wit in periwigged attire;
For in a garden's alleys or a wood
Hung all in green, monotony is good,
And a frail stem may need a bit of wire
To keep the rose from trailing in the mire.
Never will they dig deep or build for time
Who of unreason weave a maze of rhyme,
Worship a weakness, nurse a whim, and bind
Wreaths about temples tenantless of mind,
Forsake the path the seeing Muses trod,
And shatter Nature to discover God.
He only climbs the skies and proudly sings
Whose heart, attentive, feels the pulse of things,
Masters the fact, and hails the changeless goal
That beckons, purges, and fulfils the soul."
I ceased: no ghost was willing to befriend,
And all the living useless to my end.
Meantime the hag awoke with vacant stare,
And passed her bony fingers through her hair.
I left her den and hastened back to town,
Writing the while my sad experience down.
This you have heard. 'T is little that I give,
But it makes sense. Long, masters, may you live.
YOUNG SAMMY'S FIRST WILD OATS
LINES WRITTEN BEFORE THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1900
Mid Uncle Sam's expanded acres
There's an old, secluded glade
Where grey Puritans and Quakers
Still grow fervid in the shade;
And the same great elms and beeches
That once graced the ancestral farm,
Bending to the old men's speeches,
Lend their words an echo's charm.
Laurel, clematis, and vine
Weave green trellises about,
And three maples and a pine
Shut the mucker-village out.
Yet the smoke of trade and battle
Cannot quite be banished hence,
And the air-line to Seattle
Whizzes just behind the fence.
As one day old Deacon Plaster
Hobbled to the wonted nook,
There was Doctor Wise, the pastor,
Meekly sitting with his book.
"What has happened, Brother Deacon,
That you look so hot and vexed?
Is it something I might speak on
When I preach on Sabbath next?"
"Doctor Wise," replied the other,
As he wiped the sweat away,
'T is a wicked sin, my brother,
You should preach on every day.
Cousin Sammy's gone a-tooting
To the Creole County fair,
Where the very sun's polluting
And there's fever in the air
He has picked up three young lasses,
Three mulattoes on the mart,
Who have offered him free passes
To their fortune and their heart.
One young woman he respected,
Vowed he only came to woo.
But his word may be neglected
Since he ravished the other two.
In the Porto Rican billing
And carousing, I allow
That the little minx was willing,
Though she may be sorry now.
But what came of those embraces
And that taint of nigger blood?
Now he looks on outraged faces
And can laugh, defying God:
He can stretch his hand, relieving,
And strike down a cheated slave.
Oh, if Uncle Sam were living,
This would bring him to his grave!"
Deacon Plaster ceased and, sighing,
Mopped the reeking of his brain.
Doctor Wise, before replying,
Put his goggles on again.
"Brother Plaster, to be candid,
Were I managing the farm,
I should do as the old man did—Lying
low and safe from harm,
Shoot at poachers from the hedges,
If they ventured within range,
Just round out my acre's edges,
Grow and grow, but never change.
I am old, and you are old, sir:
Old the thoughts we live among.
If the truth were to be told, sir,
None of us was ever young.
In the towns of sombre Britain—Merry
England turned about—We
were marked at birth and smitten
Whom the Lord had chosen out;
Picked to found a pilgrim nation,
Far from men, estranged, remote,
With the desert for a station
And the ocean for a moat;
To rebuke by sober living,
In the dread of wrath to come,
Of the joys of this world's giving
The abominable sum.
Yet all passion's seeds came smuggled
In our narrow pilgrim ark,
And, unwatered, grew and struggled,
Pushed for ages through the dark,
And, when summer granted pardon,
Burst into the upper air,
Till that desert was a garden
And that sea a thoroughfare.
Thus the virtue we rely on
Melted 'neath the heathen sun,
And what should have been a Zion
Came to be this Babylon.
Ignorant of ancient sorrow,
With hot young blood in their veins,
Now the prophets of the morrow
Ply the spur and hold the reins.
Can we blame them? Rather blame us,—
Us, who uttered idle things.
Our false prophecies shall shame us,
And our weak imaginings.
Liberty! delicious sound!
The world loved it, and is free.
But what's freedom? To be bound
By a chance majority.
Few are rich and many poor,
Though all minds show one dull hue.
Equality we don't secure,
Mediocrity we do.
Ah! what dreams beguiled our youth!
Brothers we had hoped to be;
But competition is the truth
Of what we called fraternity.
Can we blame them we mistaught
If now they seek another guide
And, since our wisdom comes to naught,
Take counsel of their proper pride?
Nature beckons them, inviting
To a deeper draught of fate,
And, the heart's desire inciting,
Can we stop and bid them wait?
"If old Uncle Sam were living,
This, you say, should never be:
Ah! if Uncle Sam were living,
He might weep, but he must see.
Yet he died in time, believing
In the gods that ruled his days.
We, alas! survive him, grieving
Under gods we will not praise.
The keen pleasures of December
Mean the joys of April lost;
And shall rising suns remember
All the dream worlds they have crossed?
All things mortal have their season:
Nothing lives, for ever young,
But renews its life by treason
To the thing from which it sprung,
And when man has reached immortal
Mansions, after toiling long,
Life deserts him at the portal,
And he only lives in song.
"As for Sam, the son, I wonder
If you know the fellow's heart:
There may yet be something under
Nobler than the outer part.
When he told that señorita
That he kissed and hugged her close
Like a brother, did he cheat her?
Did he cheat himself? Who knows?
That he liked her, that is certain;
That he wronged her is n't true.
On his thoughts I draw the curtain:
I don't know them, nor do you.
In her maid, the facile Rica,
We have quite another case.
Hardly did he go to seek her,
When she rushed to his embrace.
I confess it was improper,
But all flesh, alas! is flesh.
Things had gone too far to drop her;
Each was in the other's mesh.
But with that poor Filipina,
When she shrank from his caress,
His contemptible demeanour
Is n't easy to express.
First he bought her, then he kicked her;
But the truth is, he was drunk,
For that day had crowned him victor,
And a Spanish fleet was sunk.
"You perceive I do not spare him,
Nor am blinded to his motes
By the Christian love I bear him;
Yes; he's sowing his wild oats.
But you can't deny him talent;
Once his instinct is awake,
He can play the part of gallant
And of soldier and of rake.
And it's something to have spirit
Though in rashness first expressed.
Give me good blood to inherit:
Time and trial do the rest.
He's not Uncle Sam, the father,
That prim, pompous, pious man,
Yankee, or Virginian, rather:
Sammy's an American—
Lavish, clever, loud, and pushing,
Loving bargains, loving strife,
Kindly, fearless-eyed, unblushing,
Not yet settled down in life.
Send him forth; the world will mellow
His bluff youth, or nothing can.
Nature made the hearty fellow,
Life will make the gentleman.
And if Cousin Sam is callow,
It was we who did the harm,
Letting his young soul lie fallow—
The one waste spot in the farm—
Trained by sordid inventories
To scorn all he could n't buy,
Puffed with miserable glories
Shouted at an empty sky,
Fooled with cant of a past era,
Droned 'twixt dreamy lid and lid,
Till his God was a chimera
And the living God was hid.
Let him look up from his standard
To the older stars of heaven,
Seaward by whose might, and landward,
All the tribes of men are driven;
By whom ancient hopes were blasted,
Ancient labours turned to dust;
Whence the little that has lasted
Borrows patience to be just:
And beholding tribulation,
Seeing whither states are hurled,
Let him sign his declaration
Of dependence on the world."
Thus the Doctor's sermon ended;
The old Deacon shook his head,
For his conscience was offended
And his wits had lost the thread.
So have mine, but there's my fable:
Now, and when you cast your votes,
Be as lenient as you 're able
On "Young Sammy's First Wild Oats."
SPAIN IN AMERICA
When scarce the echoes of Manila Bay,
Circling each slumbering billowy hemisphere,
Had met where Spain's forlorn Armada lay
Locked amid hostile hills, and whispered near
The double omen of that groan and cheer—Haste
to do now what must be done anon
Or some mad hope of selling triumph dear
Drove the ships forth: soon was Teresa gone,
Furór, Pluton, Vizcaya, Oquendo, and Colón.
And when the second morning dawned serene
O'er vivid waves and foam-fringed mountains, dressed
Like Nessus in their robe's envenomed sheen,
Scarce by some fiery fleck the place was guessed
Where each hulk smouldered; while from crest to crest
Leapt through the North the news of victory,
Victory tarnished by a boorish jest
Yet touched with pity, lest the unkindly sea
Should too much aid the strong and leave no enemy.
As the anguished soul, that gasped for difficult breath,
Passes to silence from its house of pain,
So from those wrecks, in fumes of lurid death,
Passed into peace the heavy pride of Spain,
Passed from that aching tenement, half fain,
Back to her castled hills and windy moors,
No longer tossed upon the treacherous main
Once boasted hers, which with its watery lures
Too long enticed her sons to unhallowed sepultures.
Why went Columbus to that highland race,
Frugal and pensive, prone to love and ire,
Despising kingdoms for a woman's face,
For honour riches and for faith desire?
On Spain's own breast was snow, within it fire;
In her own eyes and subtle tongue was mirth;
The eternal brooded in her skies, whence nigher
The trebled starry host admonished earth
To shame away her grief and mock her baubles' worth.
Ah! when the crafty Tyrian came to Spain
To barter for her gold his motley wares,
Treading her beaches he forgot his gain.
The Semite became noble unawares.
Her passion breathed Hamilcar's cruel prayers;
Her fiery winds taught Hannibal his vows;
Out of her tribulations and despairs
They wove a sterile garland for their brows.
To her sad ports they fled before the Roman prows.
And the Greek coming too forgot his art,
And that large temperance which made him wise.
The wonder of her mountains choked his heart,
The languor of her gardens veiled his eyes;
He dreamed, he doubted; in her deeper skies
He read unfathomed oracles of woe,
And stubborn to the onward destinies,
Like some dumb brute before a human foe,
Sank in Saguntum's flames and deemed them brighter so.
The mighty Roman also when he came,
Bringing his gods, his justice, and his tongue,
Put off his greatness for a sadder fame,
And what a Cæsar wrought a Lucan sung.
Nor was the pomp of his proud music, wrung
From Latin numbers, half so stern and dire,
Nor the sad majesties he moved among
Half so divine, as her unbreathed desire.
Shall longing break the heart and not untune the lyre?
When after many conquerors came Christ,
The only conqueror of Spain indeed,
Not Bethlehem nor Golgotha sufficed
To show him forth, but every shrine must bleed
And every shepherd in his watches heed
The angels' matins sung at heaven's gate.
Nor seemed the Virgin Mother wholly freed
From taint of ill if born in frail estate,
But shone the seraphs' queen and soared immaculate.
And when the Arab from his burning sands
Swept o'er the waters like a heavenly flail,
He took her lute into his conquering hands,
And in her midnight turned to nightingale.
With woven lattices and pillars frail
He screened the pleasant secrets of his bower,
Yet little could his subtler arts avail
Against the brutal onset of the Giaour.
The rose passed from his courts, the muezzin from his tower.
Only one image of his wisdom stayed,
One only relic of his magic lore,—
Allah the Great, whom silent fate obeyed,
More than Jehovah calm and hidden more,
Allah remained in her heart's kindred core
High witness of these terrene shifts of wrong.
Into his ancient silence she could pour
Her passions' frailty—He alone is strong—
And chant with lingering wail the burden of her song.
Seizing at Covadonga the rude cross
Pelayo raised amid his mountaineers,
She bore it to Granada, one day's loss
Ransomed with battles of a thousand years.
A nation born in harness, fed on tears,
Christened in blood, and schooled in sacrifice,
All for a sweeter music in the spheres,
All for a painted heaven—at a price
Should she forsake her loves and sail to Ind for spice?
Had Genoa in her merchant palaces
No welcome for a heaven-guided son?
Had Venice, mistress of the inland seas,
No ships for bolder venture? Pisa none?
Was sated Rome content? Her mission done?
Saw Lusitania in her seaward dreams
No floating premonition, beckoning on
To vast horizons, gilded yet with gleams
Of old Atlantis, whelmed beneath the bubbling streams?
Or if some torpor lay upon the South,
Tranced by the might of memories divine,
Dwelt no shrewd princeling by the marshy mouth
Of Scheldt, or by the many mouths of Rhine?
Rode Albion not at anchor in the brine
Whose throne but now the thrifty Tudor stole
Changing a noble for a crafty line?
Swarmed not the Norsemen yet about the pole,
Seeking through endless mists new havens for the soul?
These should have been thy mates, Columbus, these
Patrons and partners of thy enterprise,
Sad lovers of immeasurable seas,
Bound to no hallowed earth, no peopled skies.
No ray should reach them of their ladies' eyes
In western deserts: no pure minstrel's rhyme,
Echoing in forest solitudes, surprise
Their heart with longing for a sweeter clime.
These, these should found a world who drag no chains of time.
In sooth it had seemed folly, to reveal
To stubborn Aragon and evil-eyed
These perilous hopes, folly to dull Castile
Moated in jealous faith and walled in pride,
Save that those thoughts, to Spain's fresh deeds allied,
Painted new Christian conquests, and her hand
Itched for that sword, now dangling at her side,
Which drove the Moslem forth and purged the land.
And then she dreamed a dream her heart could understand.
Three caravels, a cross upon the prow,
A broad cross on the banner and the sail,
The liquid fields of Hesperus should plough
Borne by the leaping waters and the gale.
Before that sign all hellish powers should quail
Troubling the deep: no dragon's obscene crest,
No serpent's slimy coils should aught avail,
Till ivory cities looming in the west
Should gleam from high Cathay or Araby the Blest,
Then, as with noble mien and debonair
The captains from the galleys leapt to land,
Or down the temple's alabaster stair
Or by the river's marge of silvery sand,
Proud Sultans should descend with outstretched hand
Greeting the strangers, and by them apprised
Of Christ's redemption and the Queen's command,
Being with joy and gratitude baptised,
Should lavish gifts of price by rarest art devised.
Or if (since churls there be) they should demur
To some least point of fealty or faith,
A champion, clad in arms from crest to spur,
Should challenge the proud caitiffs to their death
And, singly felling them, from their last breath
Extort confession that the Lord is lord,
And India's Catholic queen, Elizabeth.
Whereat yon turbaned tribes, with one accord,
Should beat their heathen breasts and ope their treasures' horde.
Or, if the worst should chance and high debates
Should end in insult and outrageous deed,
And, many Christians rudely slain, their mates
Should summon heaven to their direful need,
Suddenly from the clouds a snow-white steed
Bearing a dazzling rider clad in flames
Should plunge into the fray: with instant speed
Rout all the foe at once, while mid acclaims
The slaughtered braves should rise, crying, Saint James! Saint James!
Then, the day won, and its bright arbiter
Vanished, save for peace he left behind,
Each in his private bosom should bestir
Plis dearest dream: as that perchance there pined
Some lovely maiden of angelic mind
In those dark towers, awaiting out of Spain
Two Saviours that her horoscope divined
Should thence arrive. She (womanlike) were fain
Not to be wholly free, but wear a chosen chain.
That should be youth's adventure. Riper days
Would crave the guerdon of a prouder power
And pluck their nuggets from an earthly maze
For rule and dignity and children's dower.
And age that thought to near the fatal hour
Should to a magic fount descend instead,
Whose waters with the fruit revive the flower
And deck in all its bloom the ashen head,
Where a green heaven spreads, not peopled of the dead.
By such false meteors did those helmsmen steer,
Such phantoms filled their vain and vaulting souls
With divers ardours, while this brooding sphere
Swung yet ungirdled on her silent poles.
All journeys took them farther from their goals,
All battles won defeated their desire,
Barred from one India by the other's shoals,
Each sighted star extinguishing its fire,
Cape doubled after cape, and never haven nigher.
How many galleons sailed to sail no more,
How many battles and how many slain,
Since first Columbus touched the Cuban shore,
Till Aurocania felt the yoke of Spain!
What mounting miseries! What dwindling gain!
To till those solitudes, soon swept of gold,
And bear that ardent sun, across the main
Slaves must come writhing in the festering hold
Of galleys.—Poison works, though men be brave and bold.
That slothful planter, once the buccaneer,
Lord of his bastards and his mongrel clan,
Ignorant, harsh, what could he list or hear
Of Europe and the heritage of man?
No petty schemer sees the larger plan,
No privy tyrant brooks the mightier law,
But lash in hand rides forth a partisan
Of freedom: base, without the touch of awe,
He poisoned first the blood his poniard was to draw.
By sloth and lust and mindlessness and pelf
Spain sank in sadness and dishonour down,
Each in her service serving but himself,
Each in his passion striking at her crown.
Not that these treasons blotted her renown
Emblazoned higher than such hands can reach:
There where she reaped but sorrow she has sown
The balm of sorrow; all she had to teach
She taught the younger world—her faith and heart and speech.
And now within her sea-girt walls withdrawn
She waits in silence for the healing years,
While where her sun has set a second dawn
Comes from the north, with other hopes and fears.
Spain's daughters stand, half ceasing from their tears,
And watch the skies from Cuba to the Horn.
"What is this dove or eagle that appears,"
They seem to cry, "what herald of what morn
Hovers o'er Andes' peaks in love or guile or scorn?"
"O brooding Spirit, fledgling of the North,
Winged for the levels of its shifting light,
Child of a labouring ocean and an earth
Shrouded in vapours, fear the southward flight,
Dread waveless waters and their warm delight,
Beware of peaks that cleave the cloudless blue
And hold communion with the naked night.
The souls went never back that hither flew,
But sighing fell to earth or broke the heavens through.
"Haunt still thy storm-swept islands, and endure
The shimmering forest where thy visions live.
Then if we love thee—for thy heart is pure—Thou
shalt have something worthy love to give.
Thrust not thy prophets on us, nor believe
Thy sorry riches in our eyes are fair.
Thy unctuous sophists never will deceive
A mortal pang, or charm away despair.
Not for the stranger's fee we plait our lustrous hair.
"But of thy lingering twilight bring some gleam,
Memorial of the immaterial fire
Lighting thy heart, and to a wider dream
Waken the music of our plaintive lyre.
Check our rash word, hush, hush our base desire.
Hang paler clouds of reverence about
Our garish skies: laborious hope inspire
That uncomplaining walks the paths of doubt,
A wistful heart within, a mailed breast without.
"Gold found is dross, but long Promethean art
Transmutes to gold the unprofitable ore.
Bring labour's joy, yet spare that better part
Our mother, Spain, bequeathed to all she bore,
For who shall covet if he once adore?
Leave in our skies, strange Spirit passing there,
No less of vision but of courage more,
And of our worship take thy equal share,
Thou who wouldst teach us hope, with her who taught us prayer."
YOUTH'S IMMORTALITY
What, when hearts have met, shall sever
Heart from heart, though heaven fall?
They alone are dead for ever
Who have never lived at all.
Roses that have bloomed to sweetness
Never can untimely fade,
Blessed by death in their completeness
And on beauty's bosom laid,
Garnered in the breast eternal
Where all noble joys are one,
Sweet Elysium, fair and vernal,
Where they mount who face the sun.
Happy he whom men call lonely,
Whose companion is the truth,
And whose heart is ravished only
By the world's immortal youth.
Happy he whose single treasure
Is the infinite unfurled,
And whose voice has caught the measure
Of the music of the world.
When Death gathers up our ashes
And our sorry shades depart,
Lo, Life's flame, rekindled, flashes
From another mortal heart,
And Death turns about, derided
By the Life he would deride.
Vainly space and time divided
What eternity allied.
One great hope guides all our seeing,
One pure heaven lends us light.
Love is still the crown of being,
Faith the better part of sight.
The same wisdom's ancient pages
Stir again the generous soul
To the mighty task of ages
Crawling still to reason's goal.
The prophetic Muse of Story
Sings her ancient legend o'er,
And the sea, still young and hoary,
Chants along the beaten shore.
Spring yet yields her flowery treasures
To the guiltless hands of boys,
Chastening their noisy pleasures
To the depth of human joys.
One eternal passion drives us,
Zealots of the stars above,
And our better part survives us,
Living in the things we love.