Her son, and made the forest ring, Firm hand, that loftier office took, A conscious leader's will obeyed, And when men sought his word and look, With steadfast might the gathering swayed. No courtier's, toying with a sword, Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute; A chief's, uplifted to the Lord When all the kings of earth were mute! The hand of Anak, sinewed strong, The fingers that on greatness clutch; Yet, lo! the marks their lines along Of one who strove and suffered much. For here in knotted cord and vein I trace the varying chart of years; Again I see the patient brow That palm erewhile was wont to press; For something of a formless grace The love that cast an aureole Round one who, longer to endure, Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole, Yet kept his nobler purpose sure. Lo, as I gaze, the statured man, Built up from yon large hand, appears; A type that Nature wills to plan But once in all a people's years. What better than this voiceless cast Since through its living semblance passed PROVENÇAL LOVERS-AUCASSIN AND NICOLETTE ITHIN the garden of Beaucaire WITH He met her by a secret stair,— "Now, who should there in heaven be There all the droning priests are met; All the old cripples, too, are there "There are the barefoot monks and friars "Sweet players on the cithern strings, To have you with me there below," Said Aucassin to Nicolette. ARIEL IN MEMORY OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: BORN ON THE FOURTH OF AUGUST, A. D. 1792 ERT thou on earth to-day, immortal one, WERT How wouldst thou, in the starlight of thine eld, The likeness of that morntide look upon Which men beheld? How might it move thee, imaged in time's glass, Unchanged the face of one who slept Too soon, yet molders not, though seasons come and pass? Has Death a wont to stay the soul no less? And art thou still what SHELLEY was erewhile? A feeling born of music's restlessness A child's swift smile Between its sobs-a wandering mist that rose The Euganean hills among; Thy voice, a wind-harp's strain in some enchanted close? Thyself the wild west wind, O boy divine, Thou fain wouldst be -the spirit which in its breath Wooes yet the seaward ilex and the pine That wept thy death? Or art thou still the incarnate child of song Who gazed, as if astray From some uncharted stellar way, With eyes of wonder at our world of grief and wrong? Yet thou wast Nature's prodigal; the last Unto whose lips her beauteous mouth she bent An instant, ere thy kinsmen, fading fast, Their lorn way went. What though the faun and oread had fled? A tenantry thine own, Peopling their leafy coverts lone, With thee still dwelt as when sweet Fancy was not dead; Not dead as now, when we the visionless, In Nature's alchemy more woeful wise, Not ours to parley with the whispering June, The shapes that lurk in solitude, The cloud, the mounting lark, the wan and waning moon. For thee the last time Hellas tipped her hills With beauty; India breathed her midnight moan, Her sigh, her ecstasy of passion's thrills, To thee alone. Such rapture thine, and the supremer gift Which can the minstrel raise Above the myrtle and the bays, To watch the sea of pain whereon our galleys drift. Therefrom arose with thee that lyric cry, Sad cadence of the disillusioned soul Wild requiem of the heart whose vibratings, Beat through the century's dying years, [wings. While for one more dark round the old Earth plumes her No answer came to thee; from ether fell No voice, no radiant beam: and in thy youth How were it else, when still the oracle Withholds its truth? We sit in judgment; we above thy page Judge thee and such as thee,Pale heralds, sped too soon to see The marvels of our late yet unanointed age! The slaves of air and light obeyed afar Thy summons, Ariel; their elf-horns wound That music thou alone couldst rightly hear (O rare impressionist!) And mimic. Therefore still we list To its ethereal fall in this thy cyclic year. Be then the poet's poet still! for none Of them whose minstrelsy the stars have blessed Has from expression's wonderland so won The unexpressed, So wrought the charm of its elusive note To mock the pæan and the plain Of tides that rise and fall with sweet mysterious rote. Was it not well that the prophetic few, So long inheritors of that high verse, But now with foolish cry the multitude And claims thy cloudland for its own What joy it was to haunt some antique shade And thrill I knew not why, and dare to feel To lands the poet treads alone Ere to his soul the gods their presence quite reveal! Even then, like thee, I vowed to dedicate My powers to beauty; ay, but thou didst keep The burthen under which one needs must bow, My voice the notes it fain would sing For men belike to hear, as still they hear thee now. Oh, the swift wind, the unrelenting sea! They loved thee, yet they lured thee unaware To be their spoil, lest alien skies to thee Should seem more fair; |