Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

LOSS AND GAIN.

VIRTUE runs before the Muse,

And defies her skill;

She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painter's will.

Star-adoring, occupied,

Virtue cannot bend her

Just to please a poet's pride,
To parade her splendor.

The bard must be with good intent No more his, but hers;

Must throw away his pen and paint,

Kneel with worshippers.

Then, perchance, a sunny ray
From the heaven of fire,

His lost tools may overpay,
And better his desire.

13

MEROPS.

WHAT care I, so they stand the same, Things of the heavenly mind,

How long the power to give them name Tarries yet behind?

Thus far to-day your favors reach,
O fair, appeasing presences!
Ye taught my lips a single speech,
And a thousand silences.

Space grants beyond his fated road
No inch to the god of day;
And copious language still bestowed

One word, no more, to say.

THE HOUSE.

THERE is no architect

Can build as the Muse can;

She is skilful to select

Materials for her plan;

Slow and warily to choose

Rafters of immortal pine,

Or cedar incorruptible,

Worthy her design.

She threads dark Alpine forests,

Or valleys by the sea,

In many lands, with painful steps,

Ere she can find a tree.

She ransacks mines and ledges,

And quarries every rock,

To hew the famous adamant

For each eternal block.

She lays her beams in music,

In music every one,

To the cadence of the whirling world Which dances round the sun;

That so they shall not be displaced
By lapses or by wars,

But, for the love of happy souls,

Outlive the newest stars.

« AnkstesnisTęsti »