“lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle.”
And yet, sometimes,
We should not mind if on our ear there fell
Some less of cunning, more of oracle.
It is Apollo shining in your face. O rare Contemporary, let us have far-off heats. Give us the subtler, the heavenlier though fleeting beauty, which passes through and through, and dwells not in the verse; even pure water, which but reflects those tints which wine wears in its grain. Let epic trade-winds blow, and cease this waltz of inspirations. Let us oftener feel even the gentle southwest wind upon our cheeks blowing from the Indian’s heaven. What though we lose a thousand meteors from the sky, if skyey depths, if star-dust and undissolvable nebulæ remain? What though we lose a thousand wise responses of the oracle, if we may have instead some natural acres of Ionian earth?
Though we know well,
“That’t is not in the power of kings [or presidents] to raise
A spirit for verse that is not born thereto,
Nor are they born in every prince’s days”;
yet spite of all they sang in praise of their “Eliza’s reign,” we have evidence that poets may be born and sing in our day, in the presidency of James K. Polk,
“And that the utmost powers of English rhyme,”
Were not “within her peaceful reign confined.”
The prophecy of the poet Daniel is already how much more than fulfilled!
“And who in time knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent,
T’ enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in th’ yet unformed occident,
May come refined with the accents that are ours.”