s: the jinglety-jink o' the chains--'Tss! 'Tss!


s: There's a wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin',


s: to hold the old gun in 'er place--'Tss! 'Tss!


s: Stand easy, you long-eared old darlin's!


s: Out drag-ropes!  With shrapnel!  Hold fast--'Tss! 'Tss!


s: For you all love the screw-guns--the screw-guns they all love


s: o' course you will know what to do--hoo! hoo!


s: You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves,


s: An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;


s: An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.


s: You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din!


s: An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind,


s: Was all the field-equipment 'e could find.


s: Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl,


s: You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been?


s: If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!"


s: An' 'e didn't seem to know the use o' fear.


s: 'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear.


s: An' watch us till the bugles made "Retire",


s: When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire!


s: With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green.


s: With a bullet where my belt-plate should 'a' been.


s: Was our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunga Din.


s: An' 'e guv me 'arf-a-pint o' water-green:


s: 'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen;


s: For Gawd's sake git the water, Gunga Din!"


s: An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean.


s: "I 'ope you liked your drink", sez Gunga Din.


s: Where it's always double drill and no canteen;


s: An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!


s: You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!


s: But it's everlastin' waitin' on a everlastin' road


s: For the commissariat camel an' 'is commissariat load.


s: O the oont, 1 O the oont, O the commissariat oont!


s: With 'is silly neck a-bobbin' like a basket full o' snakes;


s: We packs 'im like an idol, an' you ought to 'ear 'im grunt,


s: An' when we gets 'im loaded up 'is blessed girth-rope breaks.


s: Wot makes the rear-guard swear so 'ard when night is drorin' in,


s: An' every native follower is shiverin' for 'is skin?


s: It ain't the chanst o' being rushed by Paythans from the 'ills,


s: It's the commissariat camel puttin' on 'is bloomin' frills!


s: O the oont, O the oont, O the hairy scary oont!


s: A-trippin' over tent-ropes when we've got the night alarm!


s: We socks 'im with a stretcher-pole an' 'eads 'im off in front,


s: An' when we've saved 'is bloomin' life 'e chaws our bloomin' arm.


s: The 'orse 'e knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool,


s: The elephant's a gentleman, the battery-mule's a mule;


s: But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said an' done,


s: 'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one.


s: O the oont, O the oont, O the Gawd-forsaken oont!


s: The lumpy-'umpy 'ummin'-bird a-singin' where 'e lies,


s: 'E's blocked the whole division from the rear-guard to the front,


s: O the oont, O the oont, O the floppin', droppin' oont!


s: When 'is long legs give from under an' 'is meltin' eye is dim,


s: The tribes is up be'ind us, and the tribes is out in front--


s: It ain't no jam for Tommy, but it's kites an' crows for 'im.


s: So when the cruel march is done, an' when the roads is blind,


s: An' when we sees the camp in front an' 'ears the shots be'ind,


s: Ho! then we strips 'is saddle off, and all 'is woes is past:


s: 'E thinks on us that used 'im so, and gets revenge at last.


s: O the oont, O the oont, O the floatin', bloatin' oont!


s: The late lamented camel in the water-cut 'e lies;


s: We keeps a mile be'ind 'im an' we keeps a mile in front,


s: But 'e gets into the drinkin'-casks, and then o' course we dies.


s: If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back,


s: If you've ever snigged the washin' from the line,


s: If you've ever crammed a gander in your bloomin' 'aversack,


s: You will understand this little song o' mine.


s: But the service rules are 'ard, an' from such we are debarred,


s: For the same with English morals does not suit.


s: W'y, they call a man a robber if 'e stuffs 'is marchin' clobber


s: (Chorus)  Loo! loo!  Lulu! lulu!  Loo! loo!  Loot! loot! loot!


s: That's the thing to make the boys git up an' shoot!


s: Clap 'em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot!


s: An' may thank your stars an' gaiters if you didn't feel 'is knife


s: Why lootin' should be entered as a crime;


s: So if my song you'll 'ear, I will learn you plain an' clear


s: 'Ow to pay yourself for fightin' overtime.


s: Now remember when you're 'acking round a gilded Burma god


s: That 'is eyes is very often precious stones;


s: 'E's like to show you everything 'e owns.


s: When 'e won't prodooce no more, pour some water on the floor


s: Where you 'ear it answer 'ollow to the boot


s: (Chorus)  Loo! loo!  Lulu!   Loot! loot! loot!


s: For a single man gets bottled on them twisty-wisty stairs,


s: An' a woman comes and clobs 'im from be'ind.


s: When you've turned 'em inside out, an' it seems beyond a doubt


s: As if there weren't enough to dust a flute


s: Before you sling your 'ook, at the 'ousetops take a look,


s: For it's underneath the tiles they 'ide the loot.


s: You can mostly square a Sergint an' a Quartermaster too,


s: I could never keep my pickin's, but I've learned you all I knew--


s: An' now I'll bid good-bye, for I'm gettin' rather dry,


s: So 'ere's good-luck to those that wears the Widow's clo'es,


s: An' the Devil send 'em all they want o' loot!


s: In the tunic an' the mess-tin an' the boot!


s: This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps


s: Which is first among the women an' amazin' first in war;


s: An' what the bloomin' battle was I don't remember now,


s: But Two's off-lead 'e answered to the name o' Snarleyow.


s: But down in the lead with the wheel at the flog


s: Turns the bold Bombardier to a little whipped dog!


s: They was movin' into action, they was needed very sore,


s: To learn a little schoolin' to a native army corps,


s: They cut 'im loose an' left 'im--'e was almost tore in two--


s: But he tried to follow after as a well-trained 'orse should do;


s: 'E went an' fouled the limber, an' the Driver's Brother squeals:


s: "Pull up, pull up for Snarleyow--'is head's between 'is 'eels!"


s: The Driver 'umped 'is shoulder, for the wheels was goin' round,


s: 'E 'adn't 'ardly spoke the word, before a droppin' shell


s: A little right the batt'ry an' between the sections fell;


s: An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels,


s: There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead between 'is 'eels.


s: Then sez the Driver's Brother, an' 'is words was very plain,


s: "For Gawd's own sake get over me, an' put me out o' pain."


s: The Driver 'e give nothin' 'cept a little coughin' grunt,


s: But 'e swung 'is 'orses 'andsome when it came to "Action Front!"


s: An' if one wheel was juicy, you may lay your Monday head


s: The moril of this story, it is plainly to be seen:


s: You 'avn't got no families when servin' of the Queen--


s: You 'avn't got no brothers, fathers, sisters, wives, or sons--


s: If you want to win your battles take an' work your bloomin' guns!


s: But down in the lead with the wheel at the flog


s: Turns the bold Bombardier to a little whipped dog!


s: She 'as ships on the foam--she 'as millions at 'ome,


s: There's 'er mark on the medical stores--


s: An' 'er troopers you'll find with a fair wind be'ind


s: The men an' the 'orses what makes up the forces


s: We 'ave bought 'er the same with the sword an' the flame,


s: An' we've salted it down with our bones.


s: (Poor beggars!--it's blue with our bones!)


s: For the Kings must come down an' the Emperors frown


s: (Poor beggars!--we're sent to say "Stop"!)


s: To the Lodge that we tile with the rank an' the file,


s: For 'er sentries we stand by the sea an' the land


s: (Poor beggars!--an' don't we get blown!)


s: An' flop round the earth till you're dead;


s: But you won't get away from the tune that they play


s: 'Ere's all they desire, an' if they require


s: (Poor beggars!--they'll never see 'ome!)


s: There was a row in Silver Street that's near to Dublin Quay,


s: Between an Irish regiment an' English cavalree;


s: It started at Revelly an' it lasted on till dark:


s: The first man dropped at Harrison's, the last forninst the Park.


s: For it was:--"Belts, belts, belts, an' that's one for you!"


s: An' it was "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's done for you!"


s: There was a row in Silver Street--the regiments was out,


s: They called us "Delhi Rebels", an' we answered "Threes about!"


s: That drew them like a hornet's nest--we met them good an' large,


s: The English at the double an' the Irish at the charge.


s: There was a row in Silver Street--an' I was in it too;


s: We passed the time o' day, an' then the belts went whirraru!


s: I misremember what occurred, but subsequint the storm


s: A Freeman's Journal Supplemint was all my uniform.


s: There was a row in Silver Street--they sent the Polis there,


s: The English were too drunk to know, the Irish didn't care;


s: But when they grew impertinint we simultaneous rose,


s: Till half o' them was Liffey mud an' half was tatthered clo'es.


s: There was a row in Silver Street--it might ha' raged till now,


s: But some one drew his side-arm clear, an' nobody knew how;


s: 'Twas Hogan took the point an' dropped; we saw the red blood run:


s: There was a row in Silver Street--but that put down the shine,


s: Wid each man whisperin' to his next: "'Twas never work o' mine!"


s: We went away like beaten dogs, an' down the street we bore him,


s: There was a row in Silver Street--it isn't over yet,


s: For half of us are under guard wid punishments to get;


s: 'Tis all a merricle to me as in the Clink I lie:


s: There was a row in Silver Street--begod, I wonder why!


s: But it was:--"Belts, belts, belts, an' that's one for you!"


s: An' it was "Belts, belts, belts, an' that's done for you!"


s: When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East


s: 'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,


s: An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased


s: Now all you recruities what's drafted today,


s: You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,


s: An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:


s: First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts,


s: For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts--


s: Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts--


s: An' it's bad for the young British soldier.


s: When the cholera comes--as it will past a doubt--


s: Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout,


s: For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,


s: An' it crumples the young British soldier.


s: But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead:


s: You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said:


s: If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead,


s: An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.


s: If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,


s: Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;


s: Be handy and civil, and then you will find


s: That it's beer for the young British soldier.


s: Now, if you must marry, take care she is old--


s: A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told,


s: For beauty won't help if your rations is cold,


s: If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath


s: To shoot when you catch 'em--you'll swing, on my oath!--


s: Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er:  that's Hell for them both,


s: An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.


s: When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,


s: Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,


s: Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck


s: When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,


s: She's human as you are--you treat her as sich,


s: An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.


s: When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine,


s: Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine,


s: If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,


s: So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,


s: When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,


s: And the women come out to cut up what remains,


s: Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains


s: By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,


s: There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;


s: For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:


s: Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?


s: An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!


s: 'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,


s: An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat--jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,


s: An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,


s: An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:


s: Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!


s: With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek


s: We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.


s: Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!


s: But that's all shove be'ind me--long ago an' fur away,


s: An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;


s: An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:


s: An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;


s: I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,


s: An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;


s: Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,


s: An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?


s: I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!


s: With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!


s: An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!


s: Troopin', troopin', troopin' to the sea:


s: 'Ere's September come again--the six-year men are free.


s: O leave the dead be'ind us, for they cannot come away


s: To where the ship's a-coalin' up that takes us 'ome today.


s: For I'll marry you yit on a fourp'ny bit


s: The Malabar's in 'arbour with the Jumner at 'er tail,


s: An' the time-expired's waitin' of 'is orders for to sail.


s: Ho! the weary waitin' when on Khyber 'ills we lay,


s: But the time-expired's waitin' of 'is orders 'ome today.


s: They'll turn us out at Portsmouth wharf in cold an' wet an' rain,


s: They'll kill us of pneumonia--for that's their little way--


s: But damn the chills and fever, men, we're goin' 'ome today!


s: Troopin', troopin', winter's round again!


s: See the new draf's pourin' in for the old campaign;


s: Ho, you poor recruities, but you've got to earn your pay--


s: What's the last from Lunnon, lads?  We're goin' there today.


s: Troopin', troopin', give another cheer--


s: 'Ere's to English women an' a quart of English beer.


s: The Colonel an' the regiment an' all who've got to stay,


s: Gawd's mercy strike 'em gentle--Whoop! we're goin' 'ome today.


s: Gawd 'elp 'em if they blunder, for their boots'll pull 'em under,


s: There's the river low an' fallin', but it ain't no use o' callin'


s: We're marchin' on relief over Injia's sunny plains,


s: A little front o' Christmas-time an' just be'ind the Rains;


s: Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed,


s: There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road;


s: An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last;


s: Oh, there's them Injian temples to admire when you see,


s: There's the peacock round the corner an' the monkey up the tree,


s: An' there's that rummy silver grass a-wavin' in the wind,


s: An' the old Grand Trunk a-trailin' like a rifle-sling be'ind.


s: At half-past five's Revelly, an' our tents they down must come,


s: Like a lot of button mushrooms when you pick 'em up at 'ome.


s: But it's over in a minute, an' at six the column starts,


s: While the women and the kiddies sit an' shiver in the carts.


s: Oh, then it's open order, an' we lights our pipes an' sings,


s: An' we talks about our rations an' a lot of other things,


s: It's none so bad o' Sunday, when you're lyin' at your ease,


s: To watch the kites a-wheelin' round them feather-'eaded trees,


s: So 'ark an' 'eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin' sore,


s: There's worser things than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnpore;


s: An' if your 'eels are blistered an' they feels to 'urt like 'ell,


s: We're marchin' on relief over Injia's coral strand,


s: Eight 'undred fightin' Englishmen, the Colonel, and the Band;


s: Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed,


s: There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road;


s: An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last;


s: 'Twill have the heart out of your breast;


s: 'Twill take your thoughts and sink them far,


s: And there, from whence we both were ta'en,


s: Where else could you trust him to sleep?


s: When mothers and sweethearts are sighing


s: The wind with the plumes will be playing,


s: The girls will stand watching them wave,


s: The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers


s: Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,


s: The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.


s: Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May.


s: There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,


s: May will be fine next year as like as not:


s: Oh ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.


s: Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled


s: Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed


s: Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.


s: To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,


s: Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave.


s: My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;


s: We want the moon, but we shall get no more.


s: If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours


s: The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours


s: Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.


s: The troubles of our proud and angry dust


s: Bear them we can, and if we can we must.


s: Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.


s: Though both are foolish, both are strong,


s: "Wheels on the road most like, or thunder:


s: My friends are up and dressed and dying,


s: "Reach me my belt and leave your prattle:


s: Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town.


s: One, two, three, four, to market-place and people


s: He stood and counted them and cursed his luck;


s: And then the clock collected in the tower


s: The rain, it streams on stone and hillock,


s: Let's home; and now, my lad, good-night,


s: Good-night, my lad, for nought's eternal;


s: And breed the land that reared your prime


s: The thoughts of friends keep watch and ward,


s: 'Tis mute, the word they went to hear on high Dodona mountain


s: When winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled,


s: And mute's the midland navel-stone beside the singing fountain,


s: And echoes list to silence now where gods told lies of old.


s: That she and I should surely die and never live again.


s: They sought and found six feet of ground,


s: West and away the wheels of darkness roll,


s: Day's beamy banner up the east is borne,


s: Spectres and fears, the nightmare and her foal,


s: Safe to the Indies has the earth conveyed


s: The vast and moon-eclipsing cone of night,


s: See, in mid heaven the sun is mounted; hark,


s: The belfries tingle to the noonday chime.


s: Has crossed the nadir, and begins to climb.


s: These, in the day when heaven was falling,


s: They stood, and earth's foundations stay;


s: What stranger's feet may find the meadow


s: As I am taught by my muse, carefully sort them in plots:


s: Fertile branches, whose product is golden fruit of my lifetime,


s: Set here in happier years, tended with pleasure today.


s: Nothing to fear. Freely pluck, whosoever would eat.


s: One of those criminals comes, squinting out over my garden,


s: Using the stake which so red rises there at your loins.


s: Tell me ye stones and give me O glorious palaces answer.


s: Speak O ye streets but one word. Genius, art thou alive?


s: ROMA eternal. For me, only, are all things yet mute.


s: Can't I divine yet the paths through which over and over


s: To her and from her I'll go, squandering valuable time?


s: Visiting churches and palaces, all of the ruins and the pillars,


s: I, a responsible man, profit from making this trip.


s: With my business accomplished, ah, then shall only one temple,


s: AMOR's temple alone, take the initiate in.


s: World would not be the world, Rome would cease to be Rome.


s: More than ever I dreamed, I have found it: my happy good fortune!


s: Cupid sagaciously led past those palazzos so fine.


s: He of course knows very well (and I have also discovered)


s: What, beneath tapestries rich, gilded boudoirs conceal.


s: Clever Cupid, too well! O, incorruptible god!


s: We were by no means inveigled to enter façades so majestic;


s: Somber cortilé we passed, balcony high and gallant,


s: Hastening onward until an humble but exquisite portal


s: Offered a refuge to both, ardent seeker and guide.


s: Each day that passes he spreads freshly plucked roses for me.


s: --Isn't that heaven on earth? Say, beautiful Lady Borghese,


s: What would you give to me more? --You, Nipotina, what yours?


s: These but deprive my sweet boy of his most opportune times.


s: Finery, haughtiness do not entice me. Does one not lift a


s: Gown of the finest brocade just as one lifts common wool?


s: If she's to press in comfort a lover against that soft bosom,


s: Doesn't he want her to be free from all brooches and chains?


s: All of it come off entire, if he's to learn how she feels?


s: At but a lover's mere touch, tumbles in folds to the floor.


s: Just as a nursemaid might, playfully up to her bed.


s: Large is this room where the bed offers its comfort for two.


s: Jupiter's welcome to more from his Juno if he can get it;


s: Let any mortal find rest, softer, wherever he can.


s: We are content with Cupid's delights, authentic and naked--


s: And with the exquisite creak /crack of the bed as it rocks.


s: High society's lords, ladies so groomed and refined.


s: "Lotte, oh where did she live, Werther's only true love?"


s: How many times have I cursed those frivolous pages that broadcast


s: Out among all mankind passions I felt in my youth!


s: Were he my brother, why then I 'd have murdered poor Werther.


s: Yet his despondent ghost couldn't have sought worse revenge.


s: Down to Livorno from France, thence from Livorno to Rome,


s: All of the way into Naples and then, should he flee on to Madras,


s: Happily now I've escaped, and my mistress knows Werther and Lotte


s: Not a whit better than who might be this man in her bed:


s: Who beyond mountains and snow, dwelt in a house made of wood.


s: Do not, beloved, regret that you yielded to me so quickly:


s: I entertain no base, insolent thoughts about you.


s: Arrows of Cupid work divers effects. Some do but scratch us:


s: Slow and insidious these poison our hearts over years.


s: Pierce to the marrow, inflame rapidly there our blood.


s: When gods and goddesses in days of heroes made love, then


s: Lust followed look and desire, with no delay, was indulged.


s: When, in Idean grove, Anchises caught her eye.


s: Nor did Luna delay about kissing that beautiful dreamer--


s: Jealous Aurora had else hastily wakened the lad.


s: At the loud banquet Hero regarded Leander--then promptly


s: Into dark waters he plunged, ardently swam toward his love.


s: When Rhea Silvia, princess and virgin, came down to the Tiber


s: Just to fetch water, a god seized her and that is the way


s: Mars begat himself sons, a pair of twins whom a she wolf


s: Suckled. Today a proud Rome claims to be queen of the world.


s: We are so pious, we lovers. Discreetly we worship all powers,


s: Hoping for favor from each god and each goddess as well.


s: We are like you, ye victorious Romans, in this:  for we offer


s: Gods of all peoples and tribes, over the whole world, a home--


s: Or from the marble a Greek, form them charming and white--


s: Yet the eternal ones do not object to particularism


s: Therefore we gladly confess to singling a special immortal


s: And our devotions each day pledging but solely to her.


s: Mischievous celebrants we at these mysteries gay, and so solemn:


s: Silence exactly befits rites at which we're adepts.


s: Rather onto our heels by horrible deeds the Erinyes


s: We would allure, even Zeus' punishment sooner we'd dare--


s: Under that rock, or bound to a tumbling wheel we'd endure it--


s: Than we'd withdraw our hearts from the delights of her cult.


s: Sweet Opportunity, that is her name. You should meet her.


s: Often will she turn up, ever in a new form.


s: Daughter of Proteus might well she be whom he sired upon Thetis.


s: In metamorphoses they've many a hero deceived.


s: So now the daughter beguiles the naive and bedazzles the foolish,


s: Teases you while you're asleep; when you awaken, she's flown.


s: Eagerly yields herself up to the quick, to the active man only.


s: He discovers she's tame, playful and tender and sweet.


s: Once she appeared to me, too: a dark-skinned girl, tumbling


s: Over her forehead the hair down in waves heavy and dark.


s: Round about a delicate neck curled short little ringlets;


s: Up from the crown of her head crinkled the unbraided hair.


s: When she dashed by me I seized her, mistaking her not. Lovingly


s: Kiss and embrace she returned, knowing and teaching me how.


s: O how enraptured I was! Ah, say now no more. It's a bygone.


s: But, O pigtails of Rome, still I'm entrammled in you.


s: Happily now on classical soil I feel inspiration.


s: Voices from present and past speak here evocatively.


s: Heeding ancient advice, I leaf through the works of the Ancients


s: With an assiduous hand. Daily the pleasure's renewed.


s: If erudition is halved, rapture is doubled that way.


s: Form, and the line of her hips stroke with my hand? I acquire,


s: As I reflect and compare, my first understanding of marble,


s: See with an eye that feels, feel with a hand that sees.


s: While my beloved, I grant it, deprives me of moments of daylight,


s: She in the nighttime hours gives compensation in full.


s: And we do more than just kiss; we prosecute reasoned discussions


s: In her embrace--it's by no means unusual--I've composed poems


s: And the hexameter's beat gently tapped out on her back,


s: Air from deep in her breast penetrates mine and there burns.


s: For the triumvirs he similar service performed.


s: "Can you be cruel enough to sadden me thus with reproaches?


s: Germans speak, I suppose, bitterly when they're in love.


s: Or am I not? But, alas, all of my guilt was with you.


s: Clothes that you've given bear witness for envious neighbors


s: That the poor widow no more grieves for her husband alone.


s: Did you not thoughtlessly visit me in the disguise of a cleric,


s: Muffled all up in a cloak, hair all rounded behind?


s: Who was it chose that gray monk if not you? Well then a prelate


s: Now is my lover--Ah, who is my prelate but you?


s: Never, incredible as it may sound in this clerical city,


s: Has any cleric brought me--swear it I will--to his bed.


s: I was sufficiently poor, sad to say. I was young. The seducers


s: Noted it well. Falconier ogled me often enough.


s: One of the pimps for Albani with billets doux very impressive


s: Called me to Ostia once. Quattro Fontani next time.


s: Hated with all of her heart stockings both violet and red.


s: So said my father although--Mother was not much impressed.


s: You don't believe your own words. They're your excuse to escape.


s: Go, then. Unworthy of women are men. We, who carry your children


s: Next to our hearts, in these hearts loyalty we bear you, too.


s: And your desires dissipate, love with them passes away."


s: Presses it close to her heart, kisses it, tears in her eyes.


s: I'm now so very ashamed of myself for having permitted


s: Gossip of neighbors to spoil picture so eloquent.


s: Water dashed on the coals suddenly smothers their glow.


s: Rapidly then renewed heat overcomes those lowering vapors,


s: Sends up a flame that anew bright and more powerful gleams.


s: How very happy I am here in Rome when I think of the bad days


s: Far back there in the north, wrapped in a grayish light.


s: Over my head there the heavens weighed down so dismal and gloomy;


s: Colorless, formless, that world round this exhausted man lay.


s: Seeking myself in myself, an unsatisfied spirit, I brooded,


s: Spying out pathways dark, lost in dreary reflection.


s: Here in an æther more clear now a luster encircles my forehead.


s: Phoebus the god evokes forms, clear are his colors by day.


s: And the glow of the moon, brighter than northern sun.


s: What blessedness mortals may know! Am I now dreaming? Or welcomes


s: Jupiter, Father, as guest--me, to ambrosial halls?


s: Hospitality's god, Jupiter Xenius! Hear:


s: How I am come to this place I no longer can say--I was


s: Seized up by Hebe.  'Twas she led to this sacred hill.


s: Did you command her a hero to seek and deliver before you?


s: May be she erred. Then forgive. Let her mistake profit me!


s: After the manner of girls, yield to each passing whim?


s: You, O hospitable god, will by no means now banish a stranger


s: From your Olympian heights back to the base earth again.


s: "Poet, come to your senses!"--Forgive me, Jupiter, is not


s: Rome's Capitoline Hill second Olympus to you?


s: Suffer me, Jupiter, here and let Hermes guide me at last then


s: Past Cestius' Tomb gently to Orkus below.


s: Even your mother find praise--and I believe it--


s: Till you grew bigger, developing quietly over the years. I


s: Picture you to myself as an unusual child.


s: Although the fruit when it's ripe pleases both mankind and gods.


s: Kindling autumnal fire in a rustic, convivial fireplace


s: (How the sticks crackle and spew flames and glittering sparks!)


s: Dies away into coals, coals then to ashes decline,


s: Making a festival where lovers will warm up the night.


s: Rouse adroitly the flames out from their ashes anew.


s: Cupid has lent to her above others the gift of cajoling


s: Up from the ashes desire, just when slumber's begun.


s: All of those greats: Alexander, Caesar and Henry and Fredrick,


s: Gladly would share with me half of their hard fought renown,


s: But the poor wretches are held stark in cold Orkian grip.


s: Until cold Lethe anoints, captures your foot in its flight.


s: They are for you, O ye graces, just a few leaves by a poet


s: Onto your pure altar laid, buds of the rose beside,


s: So as to make for a space Pantheon-like in decor:


s: Jupiter lowers that godly brow while his Juno looks upward;


s: Phoebus takes forward strides, shaking his curly head;


s: While phlegmatic Minerva peers down on us, frivolous Hermes


s: Seems to be looking askance, roguish, though tender as well.


s: But it's to Bacchus, the sensuous dreamer, Cythera sends glances


s: Bathed in sweetest desire--even in marble they're damp.


s: Shouldn't our glorious son here at our side stand erect?


s: Can't you hear voices, beloved, out on the Via Flamina?


s: Reapers are now going home, back from harvesting grain.


s: They had journeyed to Rome from afar, and here plaited for Ceres


s: Wreaths which the Romans today scorn to make for themselves.


s: Festivals no longer celebrate Ceres, the nourishing goddess


s: Who replaced acorns of old, giving man golden wheat.


s: Let us commemorate her then ourselves in festival private


s: (Two constitute a whole tribe, when they are two in love).


s: Followed victorious troops back from Eleusis to Rome?


s: Even within Roman walls: "Come to the sanctified night."


s: Waiting in garments of white, symbol of all that is pure.


s: Then the initiates must aimlessly wander about through the eerie


s: Circles of figures as if pilgriming through their own dreams.


s: Caskets securely locked, richly wreathéd with grain.


s: Impatient acolytes wait, anxiously hoping for light.


s: Not until after many a testing and trial did they discover


s: What, within sacred ring, secretive image concealed.


s: What was this mystery other than this:   that Demeter, goddess,


s: Once upon a time had to a hero been kind.


s: It was to Jason, powerful king of the Cretans, she granted


s: Of her immortal self hidden sweet parts to explore.


s: That made the fortune of Crete! The marital bed of the goddess


s: Soon grew pregnant with grain, heavy her bounteous fields.


s: As for the rest of the world, it languished away, while Ceres,


s: Derelict of her true task, dalliance offered in love.


s: Turned and beckoned their loves--love, do you comprehend?


s: See there the sacred shade beneath that bushy-boughed myrtle?


s: Our satisfaction will there scarcely endanger a world.


s: I have the best of intentions toward you who have now dedicated--


s: I recognize it with thanks--life and writings to me.


s: Here in this far away land pleasing to such an old friend.


s: Every traveller I've ever known has complained of poor treatment:


s: He whom I recommend treatment delicious receives.


s: Cultivated your eye, sensing each hallowéd space.


s: How you've revered the formative will of those ancient artists!


s: In their own ateliers often I 've visited them.


s: Not. Oh come now, admit what I am saying is true.


s: Where is invention's glow now? Where is the color all gone?


s: Yet remains open.  Its gates, years have not closed them to you.


s: I am eternally young, and as teacher I still love the young ones.


s: Wisdom that comes with old age pleases me not. Listen here:


s: Wasn't antiquity young when those fortunate Ancients were living?


s: Happy then be your life, too: in it antiquity lives.


s: As for a style truly grand, love can alone give you that."


s: I am wont to obey, when my commander decrees.


s: While he is stealing my time, potency, presence of mind.


s: Gazing into her eyes, holding hands, giving kisses, exchanging


s: Syllables sweet and those words lovers alone understand,


s: Murmuring our conversations we stutter in sweet oratory.


s: Hymns of such sort pass away, wanting prosodical tact.


s: Goddess of morning, Aurora, as friend of my muse I once knew you.


s: Has the unprincipled god, Cupid, seduced you now too?


s: His festive altar again, where I must celebrate him?


s: Pressing my arm as it's bent, so as to pillow her neck.


s: What a delicious condition, if only these few tranquil moments


s: Could in my memory fix firmly that image of joy


s: From my side turns, as she goes leaving her hand in my hand.


s: Only returning desire knows oscillation or change.


s: Into my own eyes. No--don't. Let my thoughts rest on your form!


s: All too soon of the joy quiet reflection affords.


s: Had Ariadne lain thus, Theseus never had fled.


s: Only a single kiss for these lips and then, O Theseus, leave her;


s: Look at her eyes--she's awake! Now you're eternally bound.


s: Until the curfew shall ring, full half an hour must pass."


s: Lamplight, console me till then, harbinger warm of the night.


s: Poets of old in chorus cried out against those two serpents,


s: Making them horrible names, hated in all of the world:


s: Python the one, the other the Hydra of Lerna. These monsters


s: Both have now been destroyed, thanks to the deeds of the gods.


s: Fire-breathing, venomous once, they no longer now depredate our


s: Flocks and meadows and woods, fields of golden grain.


s: How is it then that some spiteful god in his wrath has


s: Raised from the poisonous slime offspring so monstrous again?


s: There's an insidious viper creeps into the loveliest gardens,


s: Lying in wait to attack all who seek pleasure therein.


s: Noble Hesperian dragon, I call you courageous and forthright.


s: Boldly defending your own beautiful apples of gold.


s: As for this worm, why he is not guarding at all, for his presence


s: Sullies both garden and fruit, till they deserve no defense.


s: Turning to poisonous drool Cupid's lifegiving dew.


s: Happy Lucretius knew how in his day to forego love completely,


s: Fearing not to enjoy pleasure in anyone's arms.


s: From the Aventine Hill, from Tarpeia's grove.


s: Cynthia then, when driving you out of such unchaste embraces,


s: Found you unfaithful, it's true, but she did find you whole.


s: Who would today dare attempt to escape from fidelity's ennui?


s: Love does not hold one back--only concern for one's health.


s: Even the woman we love may afford us uncertain enjoyment;


s: Nowhere can feminine lap safely encouch a man's head.


s: Matrimonial bed's insecure and so's fornication;


s: Husband, lover and wife pass to each other the hurt.


s: Think of those ages of gold when Jupiter followed his urges,


s: Chose Callisto one day, turned to Semel the next.


s: It was important to him to find thresholds of temples so sacred


s: Pure when, enamoured, he sought powerful entry to them.


s: Can you imagine the ragings of Juno if in love's skirmish


s: Poisonous weapons on her by her own spouse had been turned?


s: But we neo-pagans may not after all be abandoned entirely:


s: Yet there is speeding a god mercifully over the earth,


s: Quick and assiduous. Everyone knows him and ought to adore him,


s: Herald of Zeus: Hermes, the healing god.


s: Although his father's temple be fallen, and though of its pillars


s: Scarcely a pair yet records ancient glory adored,


s: Nevertheless the son's place of worship still stands, and forever


s: Will there the ardent requests alternate with the thanks.


s: Only one favor I beg of you, Graces (I ask it in secret--


s: Fervent my prayer and deep, out of a passionate breast):


s: My little garden, my sweet one, protect it and do not let any


s: Evil come near it nor me. Cupid will hold out his hand:


s: O, and entrusting myself to the rascal, I beg you please may I


s: Do so in pleasure with no danger or worry or fear.


s: I cannot think I'd have gone with Julius Caesar to Britain;


s: To the Popina right here, Florus would tug me with ease.


s: Fogs of the dreary north remain a more baleful remembrance


s: Than in the kitchens of Rome tribes of assiduous fleas.


s: After today, I'll remember you even more kindly, tavernas,


s: You osterias, as you are called, aptly by those here in Rome.


s: That was the place I encountered my mistress today with the uncle


s: Whom she so often deceives, so that she can have me.


s: Here's where I sat at a table surrounded by good-natured Germans;


s: Over on that side the girl, finding a seat for herself


s: Nicely for me to perceive profile and curve of her neck;


s: Significant glance as she pours--misses the glass with the wine


s: So that it spills on the table, and she with a delicate finger


s: Over its surface can draw circles in damp arabesque:


s: Her name entwining in mine, while my eyes most eagerly follow


s: All that her fingertip writes. She is of course well aware


s: That I am watching, so finally makes the V of the Roman


s: Five, with a virgule before. Quickly, as soon as I've seen,


s: She interlaces the circles, reducing them all to ornatest


s: Patterns--but still the sweet IV stood as engraved in my eye.


s: I sat there mutely and biting my passionate lips almost bloody


s: Half from delight at the ruse, partly from stifled desire:


s: Such a long time until dark, then another four hours of waiting.


s: --Sun, who tarries on high, contemplating Rome:


s: Greater never you've nor shall you in future see greater


s: Than Rome, O sun, as your priest, Horace, enraptured foretold.


s: Tarry no longer today. Go seek other realms beneath heaven.


s: Sooner depart and leave Rome's seven famed hills to me.


s: Please do the poet a favor and shorten the glorious hours


s: Which the painter devours, eagerly filling his eyes.


s: Cupolas, pillars, and--last--up at the obelisks. Then


s: Hastily plunge to the ocean. Come view all the sooner tomorrow


s: That which, for centuries now, gods have let you enjoy:


s: Italy's shoreline so long overgrown with moist reeds, elevations


s: Somberly rising to shades cast by the bushes and trees.


s: Nations enlivening hills teeming with fortunate thieves.


s: All earth's remaining orb scarcely was worthy of note.


s: And from those ruins yet arise world again greater, perhaps.


s: O may I long by your light now behold this Rome. May the Parcæ


s: Spin the fine thread of my life slowly, taking great care.


s: O but come rushing the moment my love designated so sweetly.


s: Thus, my dear muses, again you've beguiled the monotony for me.


s: Of this long interval while I was apart from my love.


s: All of you now, farewell! I'll be going now--don't be offended.


s: As I had promised I would, long I awaited you there.


s: Stealthily I slipped away." --Alas, what a misapprehension!


s: You saw the scarecrow, that's all. Nothing else drove you away.


s: Reeds and some discarded garments all hastily cobbled together--


s: I helped to make it myself: diligent in my own grief.


s: Left on this day unscathed nice little garden and niece."


s: While there is many an unpleasant sound, I hate to hear barking


s: Worse than anything else. Bellowing dogs split my ears.


s: Nevertheless I do like to hear, and take pleasure in listening


s: To the loud howl of the dog raised from a pup next door.


s: That is the dog that so bayed one time at my girl that he almost


s: Gave our secret away (when she was visiting me).


s: Now, when I hear the dog barking I think my beloved is coming--


s: Or I remember the time, when long awaited she came.


s: I can tell not only about a discomfort far greater than others,


s: But of a horror besides, thinking of which will arouse


s: Every fiber in me to revulsion. My friends, I confess it:


s: Great displeasure I take lying alone in my bed.


s: But it's a horror to fear on the pathways of love you'll discover


s: Snakes and their venom beneath roses of eager desire--


s: Right at my head as it droops, hissing disease may approach.


s: That's why Faustina as my companion in bed makes me happy:


s: Loving she always remains faithful, as I am to her.


s: I prefer to go slow, savoring pleasures secure.


s: Is it not bliss to exchange tender kisses containing no dangers,


s: Sucking into our lungs, carefree, our partner's own life?


s: Morning begins to dawn, we expect from these hours approaching


s: Blossoms that will adorn festive the coming new day.


s: First and the last, be vouchsafed all of mankind by the god.


s: Ah, to uphold one's respectable name is not easy. The Lady


s: Fame has an ancient foe: Cupid, my master and lord.


s: It's an old story, I think--Let me just tell it again.


s: Powerful ever the goddess, but nevertheless to her fellows


s: Overbearing and rude, quite unendurable. She


s: Yelling with brassiest voice orders to great and to small.


s: Once, in her arrogance even maintained that she had subjected


s: To her own will, as her slave, Jove's most illustrious son.


s: "One of these days, O father of deities," cried she in triumph,


s: "I shall be bringing you my--Hercules, as if new born.


s: His adulation of me makes him now god upon earth.


s: Piously toward your knees. Hardly. He's looking for me.


s: Worthiest man! O the vision of winning my favor makes easy


s: Hitherto unexplored paths, under that powerful foot.


s: I do my part, for I meet him halfway and proclaim his adventures


s: Praising his name in advance, even before he's begun.


s: One day you'll wed me to Hercules.  Hero who Amazons conquered


s: That day will overwhelm me. Happily I'll call him:  spouse."


s: Lest in a pique she devise vengeance against one of them.


s: Artlessly conquering by--force of a beautiful girl,


s: Afterward decked out his couple in mute masquerade:  lionskin


s: Over her shoulders, the club leaned (by much toil) at her side;


s: Wiry stiff hair of the hero larded with blossoms, a distaff


s: Laid in his fist, to conform strength to the dalliance of love.


s: For all Olympus to hear: "Come, see these glorious deeds!


s: Heaven and Earth and the Sun on his indefatigable journey


s: Over that infinite path never did witness the like!"


s: Everyone hastened, gulled by the dissolute boy, who feigning


s: Earnest, had summoned them all (Fame by no means lagged behind).


s: Which of the gods will now smile in sweet condescension on Cupid?


s: --Juno! delighted, of course, seeing a man humbled so.


s: I know my hero too well to be fooled by disguises of actors."


s: Soon, though, in pain she perceived: Hercules, none but he.


s: Under his meshes ensnared, caught with his own lusty friend,


s: Lying just as the wiles of the net at the most crucial moment


s: Deftly embraced their embrace, trapping their instant of joy.


s: Sweet must be the repose, lying on bosom so fine


s: Of this magnificent woman. They turned to Vulcan entreating:


s: "Do not release them just yet. Let us inspect them once more."


s: As for poor Fame, in all haste, burning with wrath she must flee.


s: Let her but favor a man, hot in pursuit is the boy.


s: He whom Fame honors most can least defend against Cupid,


s: And her most dang'rous attacks strike the most morally proud.


s: Yes, he will offer you girls--if like a fool you despise


s: Heat of man's love for man, ardent desires toward beasts.


s: For those ashamed of him Cupid reserves the bitterest passions,


s: Mingling for hypocrites their pleasure in vice and remorse.


s: Should find him with you, ill disposed will she be:


s: Into the worst of repute houses he's known to frequent.


s: Jealously she seeks me out, sweet secret love to expose.


s: I will submit to the ancient law and in silence revere her,


s: For, when great lords fall out, I like the Greeks must atone.


s: However comely be strength, or free and undaunted comportment,


s: Secrecy is for a man most important of all.


s: Mighty subduer of cities, Discretion, O princess of nations,


s: Goddess whom I adore, safely you've led me thus far.


s: --Cupid, the scamp--opens lips hitherto sealed so well.


s: Difficult is it, alas, to conceal the shame of a monarch;


s: Hide it can neither his crown, nor a tight Phrygian cap:


s: Midas has asses ears! the first servant discovers--O horror!


s: Shame of this secret so weighs, Midas unburdens his heart.


s: Into the earth for safekeeping the servant must bury the story,


s: Easing in this way the king:  earth must conceal the tale.


s: Reeds in a trice are sprouting and rustling in murmuring breezes:


s: "Midas, o Midas the King--bears the ears of an ass!"


s: Mine is a secret more pleasant, but even more difficult keeping:


s: Out of abundance of heart eagerly speaketh my mouth.


s: Nor any gentleman friend, lest he be rival to me.


s: Rapture proclaim to the grove, to the echoing cliffs perorate it?


s: One can do that if one's young, or if one's lonely enough.


s: I to hexameters tell, in pentameters I will confide it:


s: During the day she was joy, happiness all the night long.


s: Courted by so many suitors, avoided the snares that were set her


s: Now by one bolder than I, now by another in guile,


s: Comes to her lover's embrace, where he so eagerly waits.


s: Breezes, rustle the leaves: muffle the sound of her feet.


s: And as for you, little poems, o grow and flower, your blossoms


s: One happy couple in love, and their sweet secret, at last.


s: I in the back of the garden, the last of the gods, in a corner,


s: Ineptly formed, must I stand. Evil the inroads of time.


s: Cucumber vines grow entwining about this primeval lingam,


s: Cracking it almost in two under the weight of the fruit.


s: Which I so hate for the crows settling then down on my head,


s: Empty their bowels and show insolent, naked behinds.


s: Filth, above and below! I was clearly in danger of turning


s: Into filth myself, toadstool, rotten wood!


s: Now, by your efforts, O noblest of artists, I shall recover


s: With fellow gods my just place. And it's no more than my due.


s: Jupiter's throne, so dishonestly won, it was I who secured it:


s: Color and ivory, marble and bronze, not to mention the poems.


s: Now, all intelligent men look upon me in kindness. They like to


s: Form their own image of me, just as the poet has done.


s: None finds me ugly today, though I am monstrously strong.


s: Half a foot long, as reward, your glorious rod (dear poet)


s: Artful positions the great poet Philainis describes.


s: For now, it is enough to say that among Schiller's examples for


s: self-revealment than were poets of twenty years ago.


s: Apparent futility of verse dealing with the poet.--Its


s: justification.--The poet's personality the hidden theme of all


s: verse,--The poet's egotism.--Belief that his inspirations are


s: View that genius results from a happy combination of physical


s: conditions.--The poet's reluctance to embrace such a theory.--His


s: body.--Poetic beauty.--Features expressing alert and delicate


s: senses.--Contrary conception of poet rapt away from sense.--


s: habitat.--Vogue of romantic solitude.--Savage environment.--Its


s: The classic conception.--Love as a disturbing factor in


s: composition.--The romantic conception.--Love the source of


s: inspiration.--Fusion of intense passion with repose essential to


s: content.--Aspiration the poetic attitude.--Abstract love-poetry,


s: Reticence of great geniuses regarding inspiration.--Mystery of


s: reason.--Belief in infallibility of inspirations.--Limitations of


s: certain soldier poets in Plato's charge.--Poetry as an amusement


s: liberty.--Denial of the war-poet's charge.--Poets the authors of


s: Most of us, mere men that we are, find ourselves caught in some


s: Christopher North has been much upbraided by a hero-worshiping


s: Shakespeare unlocked his heart. Once more


s: _Did_ Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he.


s: self-obliterating splendor of his genius:


s: Though there are many angels round his throne,


s: Mighty and beauteous, while his face is hid.


s: Now while we are sadly meditating our inability to batter our way


s: Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shrowd.


s: And the first object he looked upon, that object he became.


s: Like him who met his own eyes in the river,


s: That meets him through the changing nights and days


s: From out great Nature; all her waters quiver


s: His own heart to his ears: by trackless ways


s: His wild thoughts tend to him in long endeavor.


s: His dreams are far among the silent hills;


s: His vague voice calls him from the darkened plain;


s: With winds at night vague recognition thrills


s: His lonely heart with piercing love and pain;


s: He knows again his mirth in mountain rills,


s: His weary tears that touch him in the rain.


s: representation of life. Since we have quoted Browning's apparent


s: "Art," says Aristotle, "is an imitation of life." "_L'art, mes


s: enfants_," says the modern poet, speaking through the lips of


s: Verlaine, "_c'est d'être absolument soi-même_." Of course if one


s: language, with men of all callings whatever. He feels himself,


s: A man that's proud--vile groveller in the dust,


s: Again they declare that the poet should be


s: Self-reading, not self-loving, they are twain,


s: Go, little book, and with thy little thoughts,


s: Immortal be the verse, forgot the author's name.


s: Large revelations round your earliest sense,


s: Nor bright because God's glory shines for you.


s: composition, else he will not go to the trouble of recording and


s: Fling a bold stave to the old bald Time,


s: Who thinks to rase thee from my heart or rhyme,


s: Whereof to one because thou life hast given,


s: The other yet shall give a life to thee,


s: Such as to gain, the prowest swords have striven,


s: or Yeats' lines _Of Those Who Have Spoken Evil of His Beloved_,


s: wherein he takes pride in the reflection:


s: Weigh this song with the great and their pride;


s: Their children's children shall say they have lied.


s: That an internal brightness is vouchsafed


s: Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive


s: Exterior. I will tell you what to say of me.


s: Robert Silliman Hillyer, _Poor Faltering Rhymes_.] Self-assertion


s: and in _The Rivals,_ where he boasts over a bird,


s: If one were concerned only with this "not marble nor the gilded


s: monuments" theme, the sixteenth century would quite eclipse the


s: I, now thirty-seven years old, in perfect health, begin,


s: Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited


s: itself (the great pride of man in himself)


s: The sense that he was greater than his kind


s: Had struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind


s: Henceforth I shall be God, for consciousness


s: And share, enthroned, the Almighty's might.


s: Chatterton._] Of another poet-hero one of his friends declares,


s: You would be arrogant, boy, you know, in hell,


s: Are on a par with kings, nor would exchange


s: Stephen Phillips is unique in his disposition to ridicule such an


s: Shakespeare Ode_; Eugene Field, _Poet and King_.] betraying a


s: No!--still too proud to be vindictive, I


s: Have pardoned princes' insults, and would die.


s: He, from above descending, stooped to touch


s: The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as though


s: Have been its slave, an outcast exiled far


s: From the fair things my faith has merited.


s: It characteristically stings Ezra Pound to expletive:


s: Great God! if we be damned to be not men but only dreams,


s: Then let us be such dreams the world shall tremble at,


s: And know we be its rulers, though but dreams.


s: Of course it is not till we come to Byron that we meet the most


s: I have not loved the world, nor the world me;


s: I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed


s: With terror now he froze the cowering blood,


s: And now dissolved the heart in tenderness,


s: Yet would not tremble, would not weep, himself,


s: Dark, sullen, proud, gazing contemptuously


s: On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.


s: alternately represented his public cackling and barking at him.


s: Will they be touched with the verisimilitude?


s: Do not set about to procure me an audience.


s: Again he instructs his poems, when they meet the public,


s: Salute them with your thumbs to your noses.


s: It is very curious, after such passages, to find him pleading, in


s: Fame is the thirst of youth,--but I am not


s: So young as to regard men's frown or smile


s: Loves only song--seeks for love's sake alone


s: Shy Poesie, whose dearest bowers, unknown


s: To feudaries of fame, are known to thee.


s: But as one entering bright halls, where all


s: In _Sordello,_ again, Browning analyzes the desire for fame:


s: Coerced and put to shame, retaining will,


s: Care little, take mysterious comfort still,


s: If others judge their claims not urged in vain,


s: And say for them their stifled thoughts aloud.


s: Emerson's Saadi is one who does not despise fame,


s: With times we live in,--evermore too great


s: And trundles back his soul five hundred years.


s: No living poet ever arrived at the fullness of his fame; the


s: jury which sits in judgment upon a poet, belonging as he does to


s: all time, must be composed of his peers.


s: And like an unruly child the public struggled against the dose.


s: Whereupon the poet was likely to lose his temper, and declare, as


s: On a tongue that's fur, and a palate--paste!


s: A magnum for friends who are sound: the sick--


s: I'll posset and cosset them, nothing loath,


s: Carnation,_ which poked fun at the mannerisms of the 1890 poets.


s: Who does not wholly give himself to art,


s: Who has about him nothing marked or strange,


s: But tries to suit himself to all the world


s: Of these states the poet is the equable man,


s: Not in him but off him things are grotesque, eccentric,


s: From whence the blood dropped to their feet.


s: represents even him as suffering triple punishment,--flogging,


s: imprisonment and exile,--for his offense against Sir Thomas Lucy,


s: A hundred lane-fed curs bark down Fame's


s: And smiled. The spoilers tempt no second blow,


s: They fawn on the proud feet that laid them low.


s: They hounded on to death's untimely doom.


s: Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free


s: There cannot be confusion of sound forgot,


s: A single soul that lacks a sweet crystalline cry.


s: Elsewhere he disposes of the forms of social intercourse:


s: These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk


s: Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast night.


s: He points out the idiosyncrasy of the poet:


s: With this weak human heart and yearning blood,


s: Lonely as God, than mate with barren souls.


s: More brave, more beautiful than myself must be


s: The man whom I can truly call my friend.


s: If men must rise and stamp with fury blind


s: On his pure name who loves them--thou and I,


s: Sweet friend! can look from our tranquillity


s: Like lamps into the world's tempestuous night,--


s: Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by,


s: That burn from year to year with inextinguished light.


s: comradeship of Elizabethan poets.[Footnote: Keats' _Lines on the


s: unreserved enjoyment even of his fellows' society. Tennyson's and


s: Friends! hear the words my wandering thoughts would say,


s: And cast them into shape some other day;


s: Southey, my friend of forty years, is gone,


s: And shattered with the fall, I stand alone.


s: Such friendships, like happy love-affairs, are too infrequent and


s: Skylark_, he pictures the poet "hidden in the light of thought."


s: He lived, he died, he sung, in solitude.


s: He alone of men, though he travel to the pit, picks   up no


s: company by the way; but has a contrivance to avoid scripture,


s: and find a narrow road to damnation. Indeed, if the majority


s: of men go to the nether abodes, 'tis the most hopeful argument


s: I know of his salvation, for 'tis inconceivable that he should


s: I who can scarcely speak my fellows' speech,


s: Love their love or mine own love to them teach,


s: Spares but the cloudy border of his base


s: Such is the self-perpetuating principle which appears to insure


s: Apparently the problem of heredity is too involved to stir him to


s: qualities derived from more remote ancestors.


s: otherworldliness and unusual spiritual sensitiveness.


s: A tall, gaunt woman, with great burning eyes,


s: And white hair blown back softly from a face


s: To thee, born in the purple of the throne,


s: What have poets to say on the larger question of their social


s: inheritance? This is a subject on which, at the beginning of the


s: Then, though I drudge through dub and mire


s: Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll


s: Of his forbears? Did they beget his soul?


s: us so repeatedly that their souls are aliens upon earth,


s: Clothed in flesh to suffer: maimed of wings to soar.


s: And hath in it the more of heavenly light,


s: For of the soul the body form doth take,


s: For soul is form, and doth the body make.


s: Desires what it hath not, the beautiful?[Footnote: _The Sensitive


s: Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind


s: Either by chance, against the course of kind,


s: Or through unaptness of the substance found,


s: Which it assumed of some stubborn ground


s: That will not yield unto her form's direction,


s: But is preformed with some foul imperfection.


s: Violet-weaving, pure, sweet-smiling Sappho.


s: A pale, plain-favored face, the smile where-of


s: Is beautiful; the eyes gray, changeful, bright,


s: Where-in a mighty spirit wakes or sleeps.


s: The gloriole of his flame-coloured hair,


s: To carry that swift soul of fire and air;


s: The long, thin flanks, the broad breast, and the grand


s: He's lame,--but Lord Byron was lame, Love,


s: Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street


s: For my heavy body, cock eye, and rolling walk,


s: Here the idea, all in this mystic handful wrapped,


s: It is obnoxious in Alexander Smith's portrait of his hero,


s: With dainty cheeks, and ringlets like a girl's.


s: How should I gage what beauty is her dole,


s: Who cannot see her countenance for her soul,


s: As birds see not the casement for the sky.


s: heaven-eyed" [Footnote: Wordsworth, _On the Death of James Hogg_]


s: With haunted eyes, like starlit forest pools


s: Before the sovran-thought of his own mind.


s: But the poet sometimes goes farther, making it his ideal to


s: He saw, but blasted with excess of light,


s: How piercing was the light within thy soul.


s: Then, pre-eminently, verse on Homer is characterized by such an


s: There is a triple sight in blindness keen.


s: The one with brighter hues and darker curls


s: Clustering and purple as the fruit of the vine,


s: Seemed like that Summer-Idol of rich life


s: Whom sensuous Greece, inebriate with delight


s: From orient myth and symbol-worship wrought.


s: Bold brow and wanton mouth were not all lust.


s: (The delicate nostril swerving wide and fine,


s: A sharp and restless lip, so well combine


s: With that calm brow) a soul fit to receive


s: Nature has broadly severed from her mass


s: deliberately blinding himself to the facts. What of the father of


s: Chaucer's woe lest his avoirdupois may affect Madame Eglantine


s: philosophically. James Thomson allowed the stanza about himself,


s: interpolated by his friends into the _Castle of Indolence_, to


s: A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems.


s: proclamation of himself, "Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating and


s: disorders upon his gift, [Footnote: See _As I Sit Writing Here_.]


s: Broad were his shoulders, ample was his chest,


s: Compact his frame, his muscles of the best.


s: against the Crepuscular Spirit in Modern Poetry_.] finds himself


s: unable to keep up the pose, and so resorts to the complaint,


s: Reflect; if art be in truth the higher life,


s: And none can stand a tip-toe in that place


s: He cannot stand in with two stable feet.


s: In fact, as a noted painter once said to me: These


s: semi-invalids neither need nor deserve our commiseration,


s: for in reality the beggars have the advantage


s: of us. _Their_ nerves are always sensitive and keyed


s: to pitch, while we husky chaps have to flog ours up to


s: the point. We must dig painfully through the outer


s: layers of flesh before we can get at the spirit, while the


s: That such a belief had no lack of support from facts in the last


s: Too long had sickness left her pining trace


s: With slow still touch on each decaying grace;


s: Untimely sorrow marked his thoughtful mien;


s: Despair upon his languid smile was seen.


s: We can never know. But with Shelley, it becomes evident that


s: Death and love are yet contending for their prey,


s: anti-tuberculosis campaign drove it out of existence.


s: Than the soft star that in the azure East


s: Trembles with pity o'er bright bleeding day


s: Arnold, likewise, in _Thyrsis_, follows the poetic tradition in


s: thus vaguely accounting for Clough's death:


s: He knew, which made him droop, and filled his head.


s: He went, his piping took a troubled sound


s: Of storms that rage outside our happy ground.


s: He could not wait their passing; he is dead.


s: The calm, white brow, as calm as earliest morn,


s: The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn,


s: The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell,


s: The almond face that Giotto drew so well,


s: The weary face of Dante.[Footnote: _Ravenna._]


s: Rossetti repeats the tradition that the composition of the


s: Has crisped his beard and singed his cheek.


s: And lo! that hair is blanched with travel-heats of hell.


s: genius into ill health. Prince Athanase is


s: Had grown quite weak and gray before his time.


s: In _Alastor_, too, we see the hero wasting away until


s: His limbs were lean; his scattered hair,


s: Sered by the autumn of strange suffering,


s: Sung dirges in the wind: his listless hand


s: Hung like dead bone within his withered skin;


s: Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone


s: Appeal to Christina Rossetti_, _New Year's Eve_, _Dedication to


s: feminists have been only embittered by their brothers' praise.


s: nineteenth century is the considerate one that while women lack a


s: Nurses the stream, unsought and oft unseen;


s: And if it flow not through the tide of art,


s: Nor win the glittering daylight--you may ween


s: It slumbers, but not ceases, and if checked


s: The egress of rich words, it flows in thought,


s: Whate'er affection to its banks hath brought.


s: You give us doting mothers, and perfect wives,


s: Which proves a certain impotence in art.


s: Daemon_.]--it is obvious that these gentlemen were in no literal


s: sense expressing their views on the poet's habitat. It was hardly


s: Wyoming_, made his bard an Indian, and commented on his songs,


s: So finished he the rhyme, howe'er uncouth,


s: That true to Nature's fervid feelings ran


s: (And song is but the eloquence of truth).


s: To most of us, this conception of the poet is familiar because of


s: If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach


s: My heart their beautiful parts of speech,


s: And the natural art they say these with,


s: Have sung in their love, or dreamed in their lore.


s: Flying from something that he dreads, than one


s: For early didst thou leave the world, with powers


s: Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;


s: Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt


s: Which much to have tried, in much been baffled brings.


s: Could wring the woman riches out of thee,


s: The coy muse, with me she would not live


s: and the American romanticist, Emerson, said of the poet,


s: In the most loathsome man that blasts the sight


s: Than in the broad expanse of sea and shore.


s: I frolicked, poor of purse but light of heart.


s: Curse on ungrateful man that can be pleased


s: And yet can starve the author of the pleasure.


s: You need not weep for and sigh for and saint me


s: After you've starved me and driven me dead.


s: Friends, do you hear? What I want is bread.


s: A poet! a poet forsooth! Fool! hungry fool!


s: Would you know what it means to be a poet?


s: The Devil himself scarce trusts his patented


s: Gold-making art to any who makes rhymes,


s: When bones are crazed, and blind is thin


s: Shelley, too, eschews wealth, declaring, in _Epipsychidion_,


s: Our simple life wants little, and true taste


s: Hires not the pale drudge luxury to waste


s: Later poetry is likely to take an even exuberant attitude toward


s: poverty. [Footnote: See especially verse on the Mermaid group, as


s: One cell there is, concealed from vulgar eye,


s: Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess,


s: is accepted quite literally by later writers. Emerson's theory of


s: His learning should be deep and large,--


s: His flesh should feel, his eyes should read


s: It may appear doubtful to us whether the poet has painted ideal


s: conditions for the nurture of genius in his picture of the poet's


s: In a large percentage of cases, the poet's natural frailty of


s: For I had the share of life that might have filled a century,


s: Before its fourth in time had passed me by.


s: Dashed with sun and splashed with tears,


s: this richness of experience is not inevitably bound up with


s: They live not long of thy pure fire composed;


s: Earth asks but mud of those that will endure.


s: Whose souls are never to the tempest given.


s: More significant is a different note which is sometimes heard. In


s: And came with all his youth and unblown hopes


s: On the world's heart, and touched it into tears.


s: or in Francis Thompson's _The Cloud's Swan Song_:


s: I thought of Keats, that died in perfect time,


s: In predecease of his just-sickening song,


s: Of him that set, wrapped in his radiant rhyme,


s: Sunlike in sea. Life longer had been life too long.


s: And strikes the rock and finds the vein,


s: Greater significance attaches to the fact that some of the


s: Canst make, as once, its fountains play;


s: The last of life for which the first was made,


s: 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore.


s: I count it strange and hard to understand


s: That nearly all young poets should write old.


s: Such have not settled long and deep enough


s: In trance to attain to clairvoyance, and still


s: The memory mixes with the vision, spoils


s: Will sing at dawn,--and yet we do not take


s: The chaffering swallow for the holy lark.


s: Coinciding with this feeling is Rossetti's sentiment:


s: But for one sweet-strung soul the wires prolong


s: Even through all age the indomitable song.


s: In me thou seest the glowing of such fire


s: and conversely it seems fitting that a _De Senectute_ should come


s: White-bearded and with eyes that look afar


s: From their still region of perpetual snow,


s: Beyond the little smokes and stirs of men.


s: Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see


s: Except the straggling green that hides the wood.


s: My solitude is sublime,--for, instead of what I have


s: described (_i.e._, domestic bliss) there is sublimity


s: to welcome me home; the roaring of the wind is my wife; and


s: the stars through the windowpanes are my children; the


s: mighty abstract idea of beauty in all things, I have,


s: stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness.


s: Borne aloft by his admiration for this passage, the non-lover may


s: theorist sees fit to give us. In _Youth and Art_, the non-lover


s: And I can love nothing,--and this dull truth


s: Has come at last: but sense supplies a love


s: Encircling me and mingling with my life.


s: I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better than the poet's


s: To drift with every passion till my soul


s: Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,


s: Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?


s: Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll


s: Which do but mar the secret of the whole.


s: Surely there was a time I might have trod


s: The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance


s: Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God.


s: Is that time dead? Lo, with a little rod


s: While thou dost breathe, that pourest into my verse


s: All sing it now, all praise its artless art,


s: But ne'er the one for whom the song was made,


s: Rookh_, Mrs. Browning's _Lady Geraldine's Courtship_, and


s: Coventry Patmore's _The Angel in the House_, all depend for plot


s: self-evident to most critics of our time.


s: But the real question of inspiration by love goes deeper and is


s: Artfully sought and ordered though it be,


s: Can wake the listless pulse to livelier speed.


s: To touch the heart or fire the blood at will?


s: Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill.


s: Seize the great thought, ere yet its power be past,


s: And bind, in words, the fleet emotion fast.


s: Accordingly, our poets have not been slow to remind us of their


s: In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,


s: Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,


s: Cut to his heart again with the keen knife


s: The very imitative hero of Praed's _The Troubadour_, after


s: The joys that wound, the pains that bless,


s: A passion burns from basement to the cope.


s: The bard who yields to flesh his emotion


s: Made to be loved, and every sluggish sense


s: Whence danger is; therefore I seek him out


s: So with pure thought and care of things divine


s: To touch his soul that it partake the gods.


s: Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;


s: Wet roofs, beneath the lamplight; the strong crust


s: Of friendly bread; and many tasting food;


s: Rainbows, and the blue bitter smoke of wood.


s: That it can rob both sense and reason blind?


s: Why do not then the blossoms of the field,


s: Which are arrayed with much more orient hue


s: And to the sense most daintie odors yield,


s: Work like impression in the looker's view?


s: Oh, if she cease to smile, as thy looks say,


s: What if? I shall have drained my splendor down


s: To the last flaming drop! Then take me, darkness,


s: Despairs that raven where no camp-fire is,


s: Like the wild beasts. I shall be even blest


s: For all my days as all thy days from birth


s: Fire, and not all the fountains of the sea


s: Have waves enough to quench it; nor on earth


s: While day sows night, and night sows day for seed.


s: Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;


s: Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;


s: Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,


s: Cling, and are borne into the night apart,


s: The laugh dies with the lips, "Love" with the lover.


s: That we should live and loathe the sterile sun,


s: And with the moon wax paler as she wanes,


s: And pulse by pulse feel time grow through our veins?


s: Her ways are birth, fecundity and death,


s: Creatures of mind and melody, whose forms


s: Are wrought of loveliness without decay,


s: And on the wings of these shall I, I, Sappho!


s: Even when ten thousand blooms of men and maidens


s: A mighty hunger yearned within her heart,


s: conceives of her much as does Swinburne, who calls her,


s: Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song,


s: Song's priestess, mad with pain and joy of love.


s: But having made me, me he shall not slay:


s: Nor slay nor satiate, like those herds of his,


s: Who laugh and love a little, and their kiss


s: Teasdale's _Sappho_ she describes herself,


s: When tides come in to ease the hungry beach,


s: And running, running till the night was black,


s: Would fall forspent upon the chilly sand,


s: And quiver with the winds from off the sea.


s: Whose waves are stinging kisses, but to me


s: Love brought no peace, nor darkness any rest.


s: To thee, God's daughter, powerful as God,


s: It is that thou hast made my life too sweet


s: I sing for her who falls asleep to hear.]


s: I would my love could kill thee: I am satiated


s: With seeing thee alive, and fain would have thee dead.


s: I would find grievous ways to have thee slain,


s: To wring thy very spirit through the flesh.


s: Called to her, saying "Turn to me, O my Sappho,"


s: Yet she turned her face from the Loves, she saw not


s: Tears or laughter darken immortal eyelids....


s: Only saw the beautiful lips and fingers,


s: Full of songs and kisses and little whispers,


s: Newly fledged, her visible song, a marvel


s: Made of perfect sound and exceeding passion,


s: Sweetly shapen, terrible, full of thunders,


s: While we thus lightly dismiss sensual love as unpoetical, we must


s: Although by fits so dense a cloud of smoke


s: Puffs from his sappy and ill-seasoned oak,


s: Yet, as the spirit of the dream draws near,


s: Remembered loves make Byron's self sincere.


s: The puny heart within him swells to view,


s: is likewise the motive of Rossetti's _Heart's Compass_,


s: Sometimes thou seemest not as thyself alone,


s: But as the meaning of all things that are;


s: A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar


s: Some heavenly solstice, hushed and halcyon,


s: Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;


s: Whose eyes the sungates of the soul unbar,


s: The evident heart of all life sown and mown.


s: Thus also Mrs. Browning says of her earlier ideal loves,


s: Their songs, their splendors (better, yet the same,


s: Reflection of this sort almost inevitably leads the poet to the


s: Thee from myself, neither our love from God.


s: identifies her lover with her Christian faith:


s: Whose doctrine is that each one should select


s: Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend,


s: And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend


s: True love in this differs from gold and clay,


s: Love is like understanding, that grows bright


s: Narrow the heart that loves, the brain that contemplates,


s: The life that wears, the spirit that creates


s: One object and one form, and builds thereby


s: These last lines suggest, what many poets have asserted, that the


s: And they were dead. They did not know it.


s: The feeling that Aphrodite is leading them a merry chase through


s: When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,--


s: So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,


s: My much praised, but not altogether satisfactory lady.


s: Last year when I loved Atthis, and this year


s: In Mackaye's _Sappho and Phaon_, when Alcaeus pleads for the love


s: When Alcaeus protests, "But not with passion!" she rejoins,


s: That breathes to her is passion, love itself


s: How should they know that Sappho lived and died


s: Faithful to love, not faithful to the lover,


s: Never transfused and lost in what she loved,


s: I asked for something greater than I found,


s: And every time that love has made me weep


s: I have rejoiced that love could be so strong;


s: For I have stood apart and watched my soul


s: With baffled wings against the dusty whirlwind


s: Struggles and frees itself to find the sky.


s: I saw thee by the maidens when they danced,


s: I looked at Cercolas and saw thine eyes,


s: I love thee to the depth and breadth and height


s: My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight


s: I love you, I give you my light to keep.


s: And the deepest place but reached its chin.


s: innocence makes him easy prey of a notorious woman:


s: As in dark pools the mirrored stars will gleam,


s: Clasped in the bitter grave of that sweet clay,


s: Yet, ere he went, he strove once more to trace


s: Deep in her eyes, the loveliness he knew,


s: Then--spat his hatred in her smiling face.


s: idealizing the outcast, which dates back at least to Rossetti's


s: Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine


s: There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed


s: Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;


s: And I was desolate and sick of an old passion;


s: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.


s: Marlowe, in Josephine Preston Peabody's drama, distributes his


s: admiration more equally between his two loves. One stimulates the


s: June paled when she was born. Indeed no star,


s: No dream, no distance, but a very woman,


s: Wise with the argent wisdom of the snake;


s: Fair nurtured with that old forbidden fruit


s: ... I would eat, and have all human joy,


s: But, for the Evening Star, I have it there.


s: I would not have it nearer. Is that love


s: To be forgotten. But of all things, far,


s: How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?


s: A shade, in which to sing, of palm or pine?


s: A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.


s: To follow the process of elimination, we may first dispose of the


s: Its note is sweet as the coo of the dove,


s: But 'tis only one note, and the note is love.


s: But when once you have paired and built your nest,


s: And can brood thereon with a settled breast,


s: You will sing once more, and your voice will stir


s: All hearts with the sweetness gained from her.


s: Let us not forget Shelley's expression of his need for his wife:


s: Patmore's _The Angel in the House_; likewise of the poet in J. G.


s: She, being all my world, had left no room


s: In the warm atmosphere which I had breathed.


s: The silence of a heart that sang its songs


s: When youth and beauty made a summer morn,


s: Silence of love that cannot sing again.]


s: The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate


s: But ours is bottomless and hath no shore.


s: And this! this lute and song, loved yesterday,


s: Because thy name moves right in what they say.]


s: Richard Realf in _Advice Gratis_ satirically depicts the lady's


s: It would strike fresh heat in your poet's verse


s: If you dropped some aloes into his wine,


s: To poets who do not subscribe to Emerson's belief in one-sided


s: attachments, Alexander Smith's _A Life Drama_ is a treasury of


s: suggestions as to devices by which the poet's lady may be kept at


s: There is no other barrier that so elevates love as does death.


s: Two passions dwelt at once within his soul,


s: Like eve and sunset dwelling in one sky.


s: Eve higher lifts her front of trembling stars


s: And from its death the other drew fresh life,


s: The mystic merging of Beatrice into ideal beauty is, of course,


s: The ascent in love for beauty, as Plato describes it, [Footnote:


s: _Symposium._] might be expected to mark at every step an increase


s: From star to star, upward, all heavens above,


s: Though glorified, their love was human love,


s: But very few of our poets have felt their genius burning at its


s: The Athenian guessed that when our souls descend


s: From some lost realm (sad aliens here to be),


s: Dim broken memories of the state before,


s: Of all those memories which to parent skies


s: Mount struggling back--(as to their source, above,


s: In upward showers, imprisoned founts arise:)


s: Oh, is not Love the strongest and the clearest?


s: In that long-memoried world whence souls set forth.


s: That every lovely thing escapes the heart


s: Unclasp thy lips; yield me thy close embrace;


s: So shall thy thoughts once more to heaven climb,


s: Their music linger here, the joy of men.


s: Agathon resolves to cleave to him, but at this point Anteros,


s: The waste desire be his, and sightless fate,


s: Him light shall not revisit; late he knows


s: The love that mates the heaven weds the grave.


s: The twisted serpent ringing woe obscene,


s: Let not dejection on thy heart take hold


s: That nature hath in thee her sure effects,


s: And beauty wakes desire. Should Daphne's eyes,


s: Leucothea's arms, and clinging white caress,


s: The arch of Thetis' brows, be made in vain?


s: From heavenly fountains, the glad energy


s: That broke on chaos, and the outward rush


s: The hero more than men, not more than man,


s: Through love that breathes the spirit's fire.


s: We may fittingly conclude a discussion of the poet as lover with


s: The _Epipsychidion_ I cannot bear to look at. I think


s: one is always in love with something or other; the


s: error, and I confess it is not easy for spirits cased in


s: flesh and blood to avoid it, consists in seeking in a


s: mortal image the likeness of what is perhaps eternal.


s: She met me, robed in such exceeding glory


s: She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way


s: Into the dreary cone of our life's shade.


s: The breath of her false mouth was like sweet flowers,


s: What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep,


s: Blotting that moon, whose pale and waning lips


s: Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse.


s: The winged words on which my soul would pierce


s: Are chains of lead around its flight of fire;


s: Still, is it not well to follow a forlorn hope? Among the less


s: Ion may arouse hope in the breasts of us, the humblest readers of


s: Unto the fullness of their great content


s: Like moths into the grass with folded wings.


s: Discrowned and timid, thoughtless, worn,


s: A cripple of God, half-true, half-formed.


s: curiosity as to his nature in moments of soaring. By continual


s: straggling branches.] This, however, is Emerson in a singularly


s: To your provinces far away!  There, at my own good time


s: Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine?


s: Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art,


s: Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.


s: The average artist is probably inclined to quarrel with this last


s: Purged with high thoughts and infinite desire


s: Received between my lips the sacred fire,


s: Another writer stresses the efficacy of longing no less strongly;


s: Which at once mocks and makes all poesy.


s: Two states of the recipient artist-soul;


s: One forward, personal, wanting reverence,


s: And know that when indeed our Joves come down,


s: We all turn stiller than we have ever been.


s: As the romantic movement progresses, one meets with more lyrical


s: O thou, my Muse, guid auld Scotch drink!


s: Whether through wimplin' worms thou jink,


s: Sing cheerily but when the throat is moist.


s: The vine is nature's poet: from his bloom


s: The air goes reeling, typsy with perfume,


s: And when the sun is warm within his blood


s: It mounts and sparkles in a crimson flood,


s: Peabody [Footnote: See _Marlowe_.] writers on the Elizabethan


s: Humming a song upon the old black settle,


s: Whatso he drinks that has an antic in it,


s: He's wondering what's to pay on his insides.


s: A thought comes streaming like a blazing ship


s: A terror and a glory! Shocked with light,


s: She parts the whispering leaves of thought


s: She comes like the hush and beauty of the night.


s: And Richard Watson Gilder's mood is the same:


s: Darkness to happy dawn? How doth the night


s: Various as are these accounts which poets give of their inspired


s: Think you I choose or that or this to sing?


s: Dreaming among green fields its summer dream,


s: Which takes whate'er the gracious hours will bring


s: To the same effect is a somewhat prosaic poem, _Accident in Art_,


s: What poet has not found his spirit kneeling


s: Strange verses staring from his manuscript,


s: Written, he knows not how, but which will sound


s: Doubtless it is a very natural result of his resignation to this


s: Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,


s: Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--


s: Now lending splendor, where from secret springs


s: The source of human thought its tribute brings


s: Again, in _The Defense of Poetry_ he says,


s: The mind in creation is a fading coal, which some invisible


s: influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory


s: brightness; this power arises from within, like the color of a


s: flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the


s: conscious portions of our nature are unprophetic either of its


s: With which it communed. An auxiliary light


s: Came from my mind which on the setting sun


s: Plunges in fury, when the internal fires


s: Have reached and pricked her heart, and throwing flat


s: The marts and temples, the triumphal gates


s: And towers of observation, clears herself


s: "Ever when slept the poet his dreams were music," [Footnote: _The


s: And through his sleep, and o'er each waking hour


s: Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,


s: Were driven within him by some secret power


s: Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar,


s: Like lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower.


s: Alchemist Memory turned his past to gold,


s: Athanase_. For Matthew Arnold's views, see _Self Deception_.]


s: Are these wild thoughts, thus fettered in my rhymes,


s: Indeed the product of my heart and brain?


s: The sweet streams throng into my breast.


s: Down through long links of death and birth,


s: I have thought, sometimes, when I have tried


s: To work his will, the hand that moved my pen


s: Was mine and yet--not mine. The bodily mask


s: Is mine, and sometimes dull as clay it sleeps


s: With old Musaeus. Then strange flashes come,


s: And the mask moves, not of itself, and sings.


s: Were once thy starry nature given to mine,


s: My voice would melt, my voice be lost in thine;


s: Of thought that has not ripened into speech.


s: To hear in silence Truth and Beauty sing


s: For thus the poet at the last shall reach


s: His own soul's voice, nor crave a brother's string.


s: _My Songs._] If the poet feels that his genius comes from a power


s: My thought and aspiration, like the stops


s: My pipers, and if, sooth, you did not play,


s: Would no sound come? Or is the music mine;


s: As a man's voice or breath is called his own,


s: apologetically. The usual tone is that of Andrew Lang, when he


s: confesses, apropos of the departure of his poetic gift:


s: There is no invention in him (the poet) until he has been


s: inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer


s: in him: when he has not attained to this state he is


s: powerless and unable to utter his oracles. [Footnote:


s: There is a ... kind of madness which is a possession of the


s: Muses; this enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and


s: there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric and all other


s: numbers.... But he who, not being inspired, and having no


s: touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks


s: he will get into the temple by the help of art, he, I say,


s: and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at


s: all when he enters into rivalry with the madman. [Footnote:


s: Poetry implies either a happy gift of nature, or a strain of


s: madness. In the one case, a man can take the mold of any


s: character; in the other he is lifted out of his proper self.


s: Leonora_.] Helen Hunt Jackson, [Footnote: See _The Singer's


s: Woodberry, [Footnote: See _He Ate the Laurel and is Mad_.] concur


s: But at the end Tasso's faith is troubled, and he ponders,


s: Whose eyes God touched with vision of the life


s: Whether they comprehended what they saw.]


s: Such a view has been a boon to literary critics. Shakespeare


s: We speak a lesson taught, we know not how,


s: The hearer better than the utterer knows.


s: It goes without saying that this is a romantic conception, wholly


s: All pictures that's painted with sense and with thought


s: Are painted by madmen as sure as a groat.


s: Some demon stole my pen (forgive the offense)


s: Confuse their brains in college classes!


s: By dint of Greek.[Footnote: _Epistle to Lapraik_.]


s: Whom men call science--for he knew full well


s: All she had told, or still might live to tell


s: And lookers-on at life. But mine--ah! Mine


s: The fount of life itself, the burning fount


s: There could be no more telling blow against the poet's view of


s: Is what I dare not--though some royal blood


s: With sense of power and ache,--with imposthumes


s: False poems, like the rest, and thought them true


s: Because myself was true in writing them.]


s: Emerson suggests a test, in a poem by that name. He avers,


s: enthusiast, his own ecstasy is an all-sufficient evidence.


s: In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants;


s: It would fall to the ground if you came in.


s: The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;--


s: composition. See also, Bayard Taylor, _Ad Amicos_, and _Proem


s: Dedicatory_; Edward Dowden, _The Singer's Plea_; Richard Gilder,


s: Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke.


s: Soil so quick receptive,--not one feather-seed,


s: Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke


s: Vitalizing virtue: song would song succeed


s: Sudden as spontaneous--prove a poet soul!


s: Rock's the song soil rather, surface hard and bare:


s: Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage


s: Vainly both expend,--few flowers awaken there:


s: Quiet in its cleft broods--what the after-age


s: Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage.


s: It may be that the latter view seems truer to us only because we


s: Our untempered speech descends--poor heirs!


s: Grimy and rough-cast still from Babel's brick-layers;


s: Strong but to damn, not memorize a spirit!


s: Speech is the twin of my vision: it is unequal to measure itself;


s: "Walt, you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?"


s: Accordingly there is nothing more common than verse bewailing the


s: Is, "Don't be long," and "Don't be hard."


s: And wreak them on the verse that thou dost weave.


s: But in the moments of impassioned thought.


s: And leave the generous flames to shape themselves.


s: When the embrace has failed, the rapture fled,


s: Not he, not he, the wild sweet witch is dead,


s: The babe most strangely born from out her death,


s: Some tender trick of her it hath, maybe,


s: How much my will transcends my feeble powers,


s: As one with blind eyes feeling out in flowers


s: unquenchable is his desire for a new and fuller revelation.


s: It cannot, however, be maintained that England is unique in her


s: _Republic_, "Poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of


s: Much of the inconsistency in the poet's exhibitions of his moral


s: Into his verse. The dimmest window panes


s: Let in the morning light, and in that light


s: Our faces shine with kindled sense of God


s: And his unwearied goodness, but the glass


s: Its chill and grime beyond the power of light


s: Was not a fitting place for psalms like his


s: To dwell in overlong, while wanting words.


s: But from thy feet now death hath washed the mire,


s: philistines quarrel over technical points in their conceptions of


s: There is no doubt that poets, as a class, have acknowledged the


s: untemptable," [Footnote: Ezra Pound, _Tensone._] it is easy to


s: Whatever its justification, the excuse for the poets flaunting an


s: Virtue, the creaming honey-wine; quick squeeze


s: Vice, like a biting serpent, from the lees


s: Of life! Together let wrath, hatred, lust,


s: autobiographical poetry,--the lyrics, _Childe Harold_ and _Don


s: There's ae wee faut they whiles lay to me,


s: In the van of the recoil against Byronic morals one finds Crabbe,


s: There will be fools that in the name of art


s: Will wallow in the mire, crying, "I fall,


s: I fall from heaven!" fools that have only heard


s: From earth, the murmur of those golden hooves


s: Whittier's, Bryant's strength of character has frequently been


s: But first in all thy learning, learn to be.


s: They are like angels, but some angels fell.


s: Your humming birds may sip the sweet they need


s: From every flower, and why not humming poets?


s: The poets are not lesser men, but greater,


s: And so should find unworthy of themselves


s: A word, a deed, that makes them seem less worthy.


s: Of all my deeds. The wind that fills my sails


s: Raise in your soul a pure immortal flame,


s: Adorn your life, and consecrate your fame.


s: With pureness in youth and religion in age.


s: since he conceives as the function of poetry


s: To raise and purify the grovelling soul,


s: And the whole man with lofty thoughts to fill.


s: subscription to the old Platonic doctrine of the trinity,--the


s: fundamental identity of the good, the true and the beautiful.


s: The harmony of things--this hard decree,


s: This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree


s: feeling."] Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats was unflinching in this


s: particular. The Brownings subscribed to the doctrine. Tennyson's


s: O singing heart, think not of aught save song,


s: Oh, blessed are the pure; for they shall hear


s: Where others hear not; see where others see


s: To write a poem, a man should be as pure


s: Only recently a writer has pictured the poet as one who


s: Fearless he was, and scorning all disguise.


s: What he dared do or think, though men might start


s: typically bourgeois respectability. In Mrs. Browning's _Aurora


s: Likewise, in _The Angel in the House_, the poet follows a most


s: conventional standards poets merit every consideration, being


s: The uncompassed sea, founder in starless night.


s: He is convinced that the public, far from sympathizing with such


s: And never miss one; no, no miser of them,


s: Away from blessing that they prate about,


s: And know not how to long for with desire.


s: Is more to God than thy lean life is whole.


s: Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast


s: And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest.


s: Naught of ill his heart could understand,


s: A voice of right amidst a world's foul wrong,


s: For souls besotted with earth's sensual wine.


s: Shoe_. In this poem we find Nash describing to the Mermaid group


s: Dead for a phial of paint, a taffeta gown.


s: A child's heart, packed with splendid hopes and dreams.


s: Untamed, adventurous, but still innocent,


s: when she expressed an infatuation for him, then


s: As in dark pools the mirrored stars will gleam,


s: And all that God had meant to wake one day


s: By candle-light, and cried, "The Sun, the Sun."


s: At last, holding him wrapped in her hair, the woman attempted to


s: Pale, innocent, just the clear face of that boy


s: Who walked to Cambridge, with a bundle and stick,


s: The little cobbler's son. Yet--there I caught


s: My only glimpse of how the sun-god looked--


s: Mourning for his death, the great dramatists agree that


s: His were, perchance, the noblest steeds of all,


s: And from their nostrils blew a fierier dawn


s: Had learned to quell them, he was dashed to earth.


s: His cherub soul has passed to its eclipse,


s: These star-wide souls beneath their poles


s: But invariably, whatever a poet hero's failings maybe, the author


s: No age should come on me ere youth was spent,


s: Drink!--for once dead you never shall return,


s: Thou has conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has


s: We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the


s: fullness of death,[Footnote: _Hymn to Proserpine_.]


s: That would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all


s: On his tense chords all strokes are felt,


s: Will the day's journey take the whole long day?


s: If in my youth I have been pure in heart,


s: If, mingling with the world, I am content


s: With my own modest pleasures, and have lived


s: The world shall bow to me conceiving all


s: Man's life, who see its blisses, great and small


s: Be mine mere consciousness: Let men perceive


s: Which now shall prove, whate'er they are, or seek


s: Life's rule from passion craved for passion's sake,


s: As was the case in their attack upon the poet's morals, so in the


s: Such a conclusion the poet denies. The philosopher, to whom a


s: To that gaudy tangle of what gardens, after all, are meant


s: to produce, in the decay of time, as we may think at first


s: sight, the systematic, logical gardener put his meddlesome


s: hand, and straightway all ran to seed; to _genus_ and


s: _species_ and _differentia_, into formal classes,


s: under general notions, and with--yes! with written labels


s: fluttering on the stalks instead of blossoms--a botanic or


s: physic garden, as they used to say, instead of our


s: flower-garden and orchard. [Footnote: _Plato and


s: Witnessed by every dead and living thing;


s: Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:


s: There is no God; no fiend with name divine


s: Made us and tortures us; if we must pine


s: Vain is his voice in whom no longer dwells


s: Hunger that craves immortal bread and wine.


s: Very dim, indeed, it may be, the sense is, yet in almost every


s: present, even Carl Sandburg cannot escape the conclusion that his


s: Arnold's mind Wordsworth's concern with the flower which brought


s: "thoughts which do often lie too deep for tears" was ridiculously


s: I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,


s: Little flower--but if I could understand