BIRDS OF PASSAGE. "... come i gru van cantando lor lai, DANTE. FLIGHT THE FIRST. PROMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT. F Prometheus, how undaunted On Olympus' shining bastions His audacious foot he planted, Myths are told and songs are chanted, Full of promptings and suggestions. Beautiful is the tradition Of that flight through heavenly portals, The old classic superstition Of the theft and the transmission First the deed of noble daring, All is but a symbol painted Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer; In their feverish exultations, In their triumph and their yearning, In their passionate pulsations, Shall it, then, be unavailing, All this toil for human culture? Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing, Must they see above them sailing O'er life's barren crags the vulture? Such a fate as this was Dante's, By defeat and exile maddened; But the glories so transcendent That around their memories cluster, And, on all their steps attendant, Make their darkened lives resplendent With such gleams of inward lustre ! All the melodies mysterious, Through the dreary darkness chanted; Thoughts in attitudes imperious, Voices soft, and deep, and serious, Words that whispered, songs that haunted! All the soul in rapt suspension, Ah, Prometheus! heaven-scaling! Even the faintest heart, unquailing, Might behold the vulture sailing Round the cloudy crags Caucasian ! Though to all there is not given Strength for such sublime endeavour, Thus to scale the walls of heaven, And to leaven with fiery leaven All the hearts of men for ever; Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted Honour and believe the presage, Hold aloft their torches lighted, Gleaming through the realms benighted As they onward bear the message! THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. $ AINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame! All common things, each day's events, The low desire, the base design, That makes another's virtues less; The revel of the ruddy wine, And all occasions of excess ; The longing for ignoble things; The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; |