The shepherds upon the hills
Have trodden into the ground?
Shall not I lift thee?
The first Rossetti stanza ends with a fantastic play upon words explaining that, although the gatherers did not get the coveted apple, they
Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now,
which, although a pleasant poetical mix-up, is hardly in keeping with the dignity of the comparison, which dignity Mr. Carman has well preserved.
Another fragment made familiar by adaptation is that to Hesperus, expanded by Byron
into one of the great passages of “Don Juan.” Mr. Carman gives a more compact rendering and again brings the lines to such a close as shall render them a complete lyric. They scarcely vie in beauty with the Byron passage, which is one of the surest strokes of his hand, but have their own charm and grace:
Hesperus, bringing together
All that the morning star scattered,—