Fair, gracious, daughter of those skies,
Wherein nor star, nor angel, flies
More radiant than thy royal beauty:
To thee the Hours bring all they have
Of rich, and wonderful, and brave:
Yet do they but their natural duty.
Excelling all, thou cancellest
Their praise, and art alone the best:
Alone the theme of prayers and praises.
Wilt thou not bow thee, and be kind,
As lilies to a pleading wind,
When fragrance the wan air amazes?
The holy angels of God's court
With humble men still deign consort:
For dear love's piteous sake discarding
Their state and their celestial home,
To company poor souls, that roam
Sad and distraught, for lack of guarding.
Fair, gracious, daughter of the spheres!
Be not more proud than those thy peers,
Citizens of so high a city!
Behold the captive of thy chains:
Turn from thy palace to his pains,
And keep thy prisoner by pity.
1892.
THE CLASSICS.
To Ion Thynne.
Fain to know golden things, fain to grow wise,
Fain to achieve the secret of fair souls:
His thought, scarce other lore need solemnize,
Whom Virgil calms, whom Sophocles controls:
Whose conscience Æschylus, a warrior voice,
Enchaunted hath with majesties of doom:
Whose melancholy mood can best rejoice,
When Horace sings, and roses bower the tomb:
Who, following Caesar unto death, discerns
What bitter cause was Rome's, to mourn that day:
With austere Tacitus for master, learns
The look of empire in its proud decay: