Ever the words of the gods resound; But the porches of man's ear Seldom in this low life's round Are unsealed, that he may hear.
Wandering voices in the air, And murmurs in the wold, Speak what I cannot declare, Yet cannot all withhold.
When the shadow fell on the lake,
The whirlwind in ripples wrote
Air-bells of fortune that shine and break, And omens above thought.
But the meanings cleave to the lake, Cannot be carried in book or urn; Go thy ways now, come later back, On waves and hedges still they burn.
These the fates of men forecast, Of better men than live to-day; If who can read them comes at last He will spell in the sculpture, Stay.'
MAIDEN SPEECH OF THE EOLIAN HARP.
SOFT and softlier hold me, friends!
Thanks if your genial care
Unbind and give me to the air. Keep your lips or finger-tips
For flute or spinnet's dancing chips; I await a tenderer touch,
I ask more or not so much:
Give me to the atmosphere,
Where is the wind my brother, — where?
Lift the sash, lay me within,
Lend me your ears, and I begin. For gentle harp to gentle hearts The secret of the world imparts;
And not to-day and not to-morrow Can drain its wealth of hope and sorrow; But day by day, to loving ear
Unlocks new sense and loftier cheer. I've come to live with you, sweet friends, This home my minstrel journeying ends. Many and subtle are my lays,
The latest better than the first, For I can mend the happiest days,
And charm the anguish of the worst.
A RUDDY drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs,
The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness, Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again, O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red;
All things through thee take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth,
The mill-round of our fate appears
A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair.
WAS never form and never face So sweet to SEYD as only grace Which did not slumber like a stone, But hovered gleaming and was gone. Beauty chased he everywhere,
In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. He smote the lake to feed his eye With the beryl beam of the broken wave; He flung in pebbles well to hear The moment's music which they gave. Oft pealed for him a lofty tone From nodding pole and belting zone. He heard a voice none else could hear From centred and from errant sphere. The quaking earth did quake in rhyme, Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime. In dens of passion, and pits of woe, He saw strong Eros struggling through, To sun the dark and solve the curse, And beam to the bounds of the universe. While thus to love he gave his days In loyal worship, scorning praise, How spread their lures for him in vain Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain! He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
GRACE, Beauty, and Caprice Build this golden portal;
Graceful women, chosen men,
Dazzle every mortal.
Their sweet and lofty countenance
His enchanted food;
He need not go to them, their forms Beset his solitude.
He looketh seldom in their face,
His eyes explore the ground, The green grass is a looking-glass Whereon their traits are found. Little and less he says to them, So dances his heart in his breast; Their tranquil mien bereaveth him Of wit, of words, of rest.
Too weak to win, too fond to shun The tyrants of his doom,
The much-deceived Endymion Slips behind a tomb.
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