Tax not my sloth that I

Fold my arms beside the brook ; Each cloud that floated in the sky Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;

Every aster in my hand

Goes home loaded with a thought.

There was never mystery

But 't is figured in the flowers;

Was never secret history

But birds tell it in the bowers.

One harvest from thy field

Homeward brought the oxen strong;

A second crop thine acres yield,

Which I gather in a song.

(126)

MERLIN.

I.

THY trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;

Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.

No jingling serenader's art,

Nor tinkle of piano strings,

Can make the wild blood start

In its mystic springs.

The kingly bard

Must smite the chords rudely and hard,

As with hammer or with mace;

That they may render back

Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the supersolar blaze.

Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,

Chiming with the forest tone,

When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;

Chiming with the gasp and moan

Of the ice-imprisoned flood;

With the pulse of manly hearts;

With the voice of orators;

With the din of city arts;

With the cannonade of wars;

With the marches of the brave;

And prayers of might from martyrs' cave.

Great is the art,

Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb

For his rhyme.

'Pass in, pass in,' the angels say,

'In to the upper doors,

Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise

By the stairway of surprise.'

Blameless master of the games,
King of sport that never shames,
He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song's sweet influence.
Forms more cheerly live and go,
What time the subtle mind

Sings aloud the tune whereto

Their pulses beat,

And march their feet,

And their members are combined.

By Sybarites beguiled,

He shall no task decline;

Merlin's mighty line

Extremes of nature reconciled, —

Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
And made the lion mild.
Songs can the tempest still,
Scattered on the stormy air,

Mould the year to fair increase,
And bring in poetic peace.

He shall not seek to weave,
In weak, unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes;

Wait his returning strength.

Bird, that from the nadir's floor

To the zenith's top can soar,

The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey's length.

Nor profane affect to hit

Or compass that, by meddling wit,

Which only the propitious mind

Publishes when 't is inclined.

There are open hours

When the God's will sallies free,

And the dull idiot might see

The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;

Sudden, at unawares,

Self-moved, fly-to the doors,

Nor sword of angels could reveal

What they conceal.

MERLIN.

II.

THE rhyme of the poet
Modulates the king's affairs;
Balance-loving Nature

Made all things in pairs.

To every foot its antipode;
Each color with its counter glowed;
To every tone beat answering tones,
Higher or graver ;

Flavor gladly blends with flavor;
Leaf answers leaf upon the bough;
And match the paired cotyledons.
Hands to hands, and feet to feet,
In one body grooms and brides;
Eldest rite, two married sides
In every mortal meet.
Light's far furnace shines,

Smelting balls and bars,

Forging double stars,

Glittering twins and trines.

The animals are sick with love,

Lovesick with rhyme;

Each with all propitious Time

Into chorus wove.

Like the dancers' ordered band,
Thoughts come also hand in hand;

In equal couples mated,

Or else alternated;

Adding by their mutual gage,

One to other, health and age.

Solitary fancies go

Short-lived wandering to and fro,

Most like to bachelors,

Or an ungiven maid,

Not ancestors,

With no posterity to make the lie afraid,

Or keep truth undecayed.

Perfect-paired as eagle's wings,