“Still rule those minds on earth
At whom sage Milton’s wormwood words were hurled:
‘Truth like a bastard comes into the world
Never without ill-fame to him who gives her birth’?”
ZERMATT
TO THE MATTERHORN
(June-July, 1897)
Thirty-two years since, up against the sun,
Seven shapes, thin atomies to lower sight,
Labouringly leapt and gained thy gabled height,
And four lives paid for what the seven had won.
They were the first by whom the deed was done,
And when I look at thee, my mind takes flight
To that day’s tragic feat of manly might,
As though, till then, of history thou hadst none.
Yet ages ere men topped thee, late and soon
Thou watch’dst each night the planets lift and lower;
Thou gleam’dst to Joshua’s pausing sun and moon,
And brav’dst the tokening sky when Cæsar’s power
Approached its bloody end: yea, saw’st that Noon
When darkness filled the earth till the ninth hour.
THE BRIDGE OF LODI [290]
(Spring, 1887)
I
When of tender mind and body
I was moved by minstrelsy,
And that strain “The Bridge of Lodi”
Brought a strange delight to me.
In the battle-breathing jingle
Of its forward-footing tune
I could see the armies mingle,
And the columns cleft and hewn