"Be it some comfort, in that hateful hell,
You had a lover of your love to tell."
"But he whose numbers gave you unto fame,
Lord of the lay—I need not speak his name—
Was one who felt; whose life was love or hate.
Born for extremes, he scorned the middle state,
And well he knew that, since the world began,
The heart was master in the world of man."
I have referred to the "Paradisi Gloria." This poem, with one unwisely altered line restored to its original reading, is one of the few faultless lyrics in the language; and the following stanza, with which it begins, is, I submit, as felicitous as anything Gray ever wrote, and more imaginative;
"There is a city builded by no hand,
And unapproachable by sea or shore,
And unassailable by any band
Of storming soldiery forevermore."
Less fine, perhaps, but still very beautiful is the touching "Dirge:"
"What shall we do now, Mary being dead?
Or say or write, that shall express the half?
What can we do but pillow that fair head,
And let the springtime write her epitaph?"
Each of these poems is marked by that simple and straightforward style which was the glory of Parsons at his best. But he could also handle more involved periods and a more complex cæsural music with equal skill; witness the opening lines of "La Pineta Distrutta:
"Farewell Ravenna's forest! and farewell
For aye through coming centuries to the sound,
Over blue Adria of the lyric pines
And Chiassi's bird-song keeping burden sweet
To their low moan as once to Dante's lines,
Which when my step first felt Italian ground
I strove to follow, carried by the spell
Of that sad Florentine whose native street
(At morn and midnight) where he used to dwell
My Father bade me pace with reverent feet."
From poems like these to "The Feud of the Flute-Players" is a far cry, but it argues well for the humanity of our poet that he could be merry when he would. The line,
"In a tap-room by the Tiber, at the sign of Tarquin's Head,"