Envoy.
Great God of Love, thou whom all poets praise,
Grant that the aim of rest for us be won;
Let the light shine upon our life that strays
Disconsolate within the desert maze;
Why, but because our task is yet undone?
John Payne.
DOUBLE BALLAD. OF THE SINGERS OF THE TIME.
I.
Why are our songs like the moan of the main,
When the wild winds buffet it to and fro,
(Our brothers ask us again and again),
A weary burden of hope laid low?
Have birds ceased singing or flowers to blow?
Is life cast down from its fair estate?
This I answer them, nothing mo',
Songs and singers are out of date.
II.
What shall we sing of? Our hearts are fain,
Our bosoms burn with a sterile glow.
Shall we sing of the sordid strife for gain
For shameful honour, for wealth and woe,
Hunger and luxury—weeds that throw
Up from one seeding their flowers of hate?
Can we tune our lute to these themes? ah no!
Songs and singers are out of date.
III.
Our songs should be of faith without stain,
Of haughty honour and deaths that sow
The seeds of life on the battle-plain,
Of loves unsullied and eyes that show
The fair white soul in the deeps below.
Where are they, these that our songs await,
To wake to joyance? Doth any know?
Songs and singers are out of date.