Let us hymn thee, we, the passing, dying,
Out of bondage by a vision lifted,
Since by chance sublime, in secret places,
Goddess! we, Aktaion-like, have seen thee.
Tho’ our voice as a spent eagle’s voice is,
Let us hymn thee, while the doom is forging;
Holding, losing, thro’ one first last moment,
One mad moment worth dull life forever,
Triumphing in anguish, let us hymn thee!
Thine, beholden Beauty, thine this heart-break,
Thine, O Hope forsworn! this salutation,
Youth, ah, Youth! all men’s desire and sorrow.
THE LAST FAUN.
HOW hath he stumbled hither, in search of love and praise,
A tardy comer and goer across the world’s highways,
A kind shape from the thicket, a wanderer all his days?
He finds a rocky seat where the moiling town recedes:
The altered shepherds flout him; but O he little heeds!
Incredulous he swings there, and drones upon his reeds.
He stamps his cloven heel, and he laughs adown the wind,
With eye that wanes and waxes at doings of mankind.
Slow, slow creeps the invader upon that happy mind.
The apple breasts his fellow; doves wheel by two and three,
And ever dance in circle the shallops on the sea;
The goats and deer are many; but playmate none hath he,
Nor nymph nor child to follow upon his signals rude;
He smiles: there is no frolic; he snarls: there is no feud.
He feels his poor heart sinking at every interlude.
His shaggy ear and freakish resents the wail and din;
Earth’s rumors chill his veins with their ghostly gliding in;
He aches to slip these tethers, and be where he hath been.
Elsewhere is waking glory, and here the dream, the thrall.
Hush! hear the sunless waters, the wrestling leaves that call!
He lops the grass, and whistles; and while he cheats them all,