From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,

Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate;—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;

Till at length in books recorded,

They, like hoarded

Household words, no more depart.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]

TO THE MUSES

WHETHER on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the Sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceased;
Whether in heaven ye wander fair,

Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air

Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea,
Wandering in many a coral grove;
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry;

How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoyed in you!

The languid strings do scarcely move,

The sound is forced, the notes are few.

William Blake [1757-1827)

"WHITHER IS GONE THE WISDOM AND THE POWER"

WHITHER is gone the wisdom and the power
That ancient sages scattered with the notes
Of thought-suggesting lyres? The music floats
In the void air; e'en at this breathing hour,

The Muses

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cell and every blooming bower
tness of old lays is hovering still:
strong soul, the self-constraining will,
ged root which bare the winsome flower
ind withered. Were we like the fays
etly nestle in the fox-glove bells,
nd murmur in the rose-lipped shells
eptune to the earth for quit-rent pays,
ght our pretty modern Philomels

our spirits with their roundelays.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1849]

THE MUSES

›ld the Muses sat on high,

nd heard and judged the songs of men; ›ne they smiled, who loitered by;

toiling ten, they slighted ten.

ey lightly serve who serve us best,
or know they how the task was done;
Muses love a soul at rest,

ut violence and toil we shun."

en say true, the Muses now
ave changed their ancient habitude,
would be served with knitted brow,
nd stress and toil each day renewed.

ach one with the other vies,

f those who weave romance or song:
à us, O Muse, bestow thy prize,
or we have striven well and long!"

yet methinks I hear the hest ome murmuring down from Helicon: ey lightly serve who serve us best, or know they how the task was done!" Edith M. Thomas [1854

THE MOODS

(AFTER READING CERTAIN OF THE IRISH POETS)

THE Moods have laid their hands across my hair:
The Moods have drawn their fingers through my heart;
My hair shall nevermore lie smooth and bright,
But stir like tide-worn sea-weed,
Shall nevermore be glad of small, sweet things,
A wild rose, or a crescent moon,-a book

and my

Of little verses, or a dancing child.

heart

My heart turns crying from the rose and brook,
My heart turns crying from the thin bright moon,
And weeps with useless sorrow for the child.
The Moods have loosed a wind to vex my hair,
And made my heart too wise, that was a child.

Now I shall blow like smitten candle-flame;
I shall desire all things that may not be:
The years, the stars, the souls of ancient men,
All tears that must, and smiles that may not be,-
Yes, glimmering lights across a windy ford,
Yes, vagrant voices on a darkened plain,
And holy things, and outcast things, and things
Far too remote, frail-bodied, to be plain.

My pity and my joy are grown alike;

my

I cannot sweep the strangeness from heart.
The Moods have laid swift hands across my

hair:

The Moods have drawn swift fingers through my heart.

Fannie Stearns Davis [18

THE PASSIONATE READER TO HIS POET

DOTH it not thrill thee, Poet,

Dead and dust though thou art,

To feel how I press thy singing

Close to my heart?

he Flight of the Goddess

at night to my pillow,
Kiss it before I sleep,

ain when the delicate morning
Beginneth to peep?

I bathe thy pages

Here in the light of the sun;

h thy leaves, as a wind among roses, The breezes shall run.

w I take thy poem

And bury within it my face,

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essed it last night in the heart of a flower, Or deep in a dearer place.

as I love thee, Poet,
A thousand love beside,
women love to press thee too
Against a sweeter side.

ou not happy, Poet?
I sometimes dream that I
ch a fragrant fame as thine
Would gladly sing and die.

ilt thou change thy glory
For this same youth of mine?
will give my days i' the sun
For that great song of thine.

Richard Le Gallienne [1866

IE FLIGHT OF THE GODDESS

y should live in a garret aloof,
ave few friends, and go poorly clad,
an old hat stopping the chink in the roof,
ep the Goddess constant and glad.

, when I walked on a rugged way,
ave much work for but little bread,
oddess dwelt with me night and day,
my table, haunted my bed.

The narrow, mean attic, I see it now!—
Its window o'erlooking the city's tiles,
The sunset's fires, and the clouds of snow,
And the river wandering miles and miles.
Just one picture hung in the room,
The saddest story that Art can tell—
Dante and Virgil in lurid gloom
Watching the Lovers float through Hell.

Wretched enough was I sometimes,
Pinched, and harassed with vain desires;
But thicker than clover sprung the rhymes
As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires.

Midnight filled my slumbers with song;
Music haunted my dreams by day.
Now I listen and wait and long,

But the Delphian airs have died away.

I wonder and wonder how it befell:
Suddenly I had friends in crowds;

I bade the house-tops a long farewell;

'Good-by," I cried, "to the stars and clouds!

"But thou, rare soul, thou hast dwelt with me, Spirit of Poesy! thou divine

Breath of the morning, thou shalt be,
Goddess! for ever and ever mine."

And the woman I loved was now my bride,
And the house I wanted was my own;
I turned to the Goddess satisfied-
But the Goddess had somehow flown.

Flown, and I fear she will never return;
I am much too sleek and happy for her,
Whose lovers must hunger and waste and burn,
Ere the beautiful heathen heart will stir.

I call-but she does not stoop to my cry;

I wait--but she lingers, and ah! so long!

It was not so in the years gone by,

When she touched my lips with chrism of song.