Still to the proprietor; Silver to silver creep and wind, And kind to kind. Nor less the eternal poles There need no vows to bind Whom not each other seek, but find.' No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns, - When each the other shall avoid, Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves The soothing lapse of morn to mirk, Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond, Not to scatter bread and gold, THE APOLOGY THINK me not unkind and rude That I walk alone in grove and glen; I go to the god of the wood To fetch his word to men. Tax not my sloth that I Fold my arms beside the brook; Each cloud that floated in the sky Writes a letter in my book. Chide me not, laborious band, For the idle flowers I brought; Every aster in my hand Goes home loaded with a thought. There was never mystery But 't is figured in the flowers; Was never secret history But birds tell it in the bowers. One harvest from thy field Homeward brought the oxen strong; A second crop thine acres yield, Which I gather in a song. MERLIN I THY trivial harp will never please Or fill my craving ear; Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, Free, peremptory, clear. No jingling serenader's art, Nor tinkle of piano strings, Can make the wild blood start In its mystic springs. The kingly bard Must smite the chords rudely and hard, As with hammer or with mace; That they may render back Artful thunder, which conveys Secrets of the solar track, Sparks of the supersolar blaze.' Merlin's blows are strokes of fate, Chiming with the forest tone, When boughs buffet boughs in the wood; Chiming with the gasp and moan Of the ice-imprisoned flood; With the pulse of manly hearts; With the voice of orators; With the din of city arts; With the cannonade of wars; With the marches of the brave; And prayers of might from martyrs' cave. Great is the art, Great be the manners, of the bard. He shall not his brain encumber But, leaving rule and pale forethought, For his rhyme. Pass in, pass in,' the angels say, In to the upper doors, Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise By the stairway of surprise.' ' I Blameless master of the games, Sings aloud the tune whereto Their pulses beat, And march their feet, And their members are combined. By Sybarites beguiled, He shall no task decline; |