Who knows, if then our lips had met,
A greater fire we might have fanned
Whose fragrant smoke had filled the land,
But left us ashes and regret.
AVE ATQUE VALE
ZEUS! whom Prometheus first defied and failed to quell,
Once, only once I call on you that cannot hear;
Titans and monstrous Forms inspiring these with fear;
Heroes enthroned in Heaven, of whom their children tell;
Pan of the forest, fauns and dryads of the dell;
Chryselephantine gods to Art and Athens dear,
Protectors of the deme, the spindle and the spear,—
Once, only once I give you greeting and—farewell.
Proud-vested charioteers of punctual sun and moon,
Racing and wrestling in your diverse course divine,
Ye stars of peace and war, ye rivers of the sea,
Greeting! from one who will forget your name right soon;
Farewell! the while I pass, and nevermore repine
The Perfect God in Man alone constraining me.
R. M. HEWITT
(KEBLE)
ITER PERSICUM
WHEN I rode out of Ispahan
A thousand years ago,
My horse’s hoofs were shod with gold,
My turban rolled with gems untold,
And the people louted low.
My poet rode along with me
And sang of old Irán,
Of Rustem and of Rudabeh,
And whiled away the summer day
As only poets can.
But now I march the Persian road
With the devil of a pack;
The jackals howl as we go by,
And the fellows sigh and curse and cry,
And my clothes are like a sack.
And the palaces of Ispahan
Are full of owls and bats,
And the truest poet that ever I knew,
Whose roses grew in the Syrian dew,
Lies dead at Davos Platz.