Lacrima Musarum

3427

Of universal loveliness reclaim.

All nature is his shrine.

Seek him henceforward in the wind and sea,
In earth's and air's emotion or repose,

In every star's august serenity,

And in the rapture of the flaming rose.

There seek him if ye would not seek in vain,
There, in the rhythm and music of the Whole;
Yea, and for ever in the human soul

Made stronger and more beauteous by his strain.

For lo! creation's self is one great choir,
And what is nature's order but the rhyme
Whereto in holiest unanimity

All things with all things move unfalteringly,
Infolded and communal from their prime?
Who shall expound the mystery of the lyre?
In far retreats of elemental mind

Obscurely comes and goes

The imperative breath of song, that as the wind
Is trackless, and oblivious whence it blows.
Demand of lilies wherefore they are white,
Extort her crimson secret from the rose,
But ask not of the Muse that she disclose
The meaning of the riddle of her might:
Somewhat of all things sealed and recondite,
Save the enigma of herself, she knows.
The master could not tell, with all his lore,
Wherefore he sang, or whence the mandate sped:
Even as the linnet sings, so I, he said:
Ah, rather as the imperial nightingale,

That held in trance the ancient Attic shore,
And charms the ages with the notes that o'er
All woodland chants immortally prevail!
And now, from our vain plaudits greatly fled,
He with diviner silence dwells instead,
And on no earthly sea with transient roar,
Unto no earthly airs, he sets his sail,
But far beyond our vision and our hail
Is heard for ever and is seen no more.

No more, O never now,

Lord of the lofty and the tranquil brow,

Shall men behold those wizard locks where Time

Let fall no wintry rime.

Once, in his youth obscure,

The weaver of this verse, that shall endure

By splendor of its theme which cannot die,

Beheld thee eye to eye,

And touched through thee the hand

Of every hero of thy race divine,
Even to the sire of all the laureled line,
The sightless wanderer on the Ionian strand.
Yea, I beheld thee, and behold thee yet:
Thou hast forgotten, but can I forget?
Are not thy words all goldenly impressed
On memory's palimpsest?

I hear the utterance of thy sovereign tongue,
I tread the floor thy hallowing feet have trod;

I see the hands a nation's lyre that strung,

The eyes that looked through life and gazed on God.

The seasons change, the winds they shift and veer; The grass of yesteryear

Is dead; the birds depart, the groves decay:
Empires dissolve and peoples disappear:

Song passes not away.

Captains and conquerors leave a little dust,
And kings a dubious legend of their reign;
The swords of Cæsars, they are less than rust:
The poet doth remain.

Dead is Augustus, Maro is alive;

And thou, the Mantuan of this age and soil,
With Virgil shalt survive.

Enriching Time with no less honeyed spoil,
The yielded sweet of every Muse's hive;
Heeding no more the sound of idle praise
In that great calm our tumults cannot reach,—
Master who crown'st our immelodious days
With flower of perfect speech.

William Watson [1858

The King's Highway

3429

THE KING'S HIGHWAY

OCTOBER SIXTH, 1892

I'LL wake and watch this autumn night,
Till the slow dawn is gray;

Lest I should miss a noble sight
Upon the King's highway.

For now the far-enthroned King
To whom all flesh shall come,
A gracious message sends, to bring
His exiled minstrel home;

And I may see the guards in white
Troop round him, crowned with bay,

And many a starry torch alight,
Along the King's highway;-

May see against the ebon skies,
The banners backward blow,

And hear the io paan

About them, as they go.

What vigil would it not requite,

That glorious array,

That sure and stately march, forthright
Along the King's highway?

I heard the bells of midnight sound
From many an unseen tower,
But for the minstrel homeward bound
I could not watch one hour.

And now, how strange the growing light,
How blank the morning gray!

What stillness, after yesternight,
Broods on the King's highway!

Harriet Waters Preston [1843

TENNYSON

[WESTMINSTER ABBEY: OCTOBER TWELFTH, 1892]

GIB DIESEN TODTEN MIR HERAUS!

The men that would not suffer wrong:

The thought-worn chieftains of the mind:
Head-servants of the human kind.

Bring me my dead!

The autumn sun shall shed

Its beams athwart the bier's

Heaped blooms: a many tears

Shall flow; his words, in cadence sweet and strong, Shall voice the full hearts of the silent throng.

Bring me my dead!

And oh! sad wedded mourner, seeking still

For vanished hand-clasp: drinking in thy fill
Of holy grief; forgive, that pious theft
Robs thee of all, save memories, left:

Theocritus

Not thine to kneel beside the grassy mound
While dies the western glow; and all around
Is silence; and the shadows closer creep
And whisper softly: All must fall asleep.

3431

Thomas Henry Huxley [1825-1895]

FOR A COPY OF THEOCRITUS
[C. 270 B. C.]

O SINGER of the field and fold,
Theocritus! Pan's pipe was thine,—
Thine was the happier Age of Gold.

For thee the scent of new-turned mold,
The bee-hives, and the murmuring pine,
O Singer of the field and fold'

Thou sang'st the simple feasts of old,—
The beechen bowl made glad with wine
Thine was the happier Age of Gold.

Thou bad'st the rustic loves be told,-
Thou bad'st the tuneful reeds combine,
O Singer of the field and fold!

And round thee, ever-laughing, rolled
The blithe and blue Sicilian brine
Thine was the happier Age of Gold.

Alas for us! Our songs are cold;
Our Northern suns too sadly shine:-
O Singer of the field and fold,

Thine was the happier Age of Gold!

Austin Dobson [1840

THEOCRITUS

O SINGER of Persephone!

In the dim meadows desolate,
Dost thou remember Sicily?