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 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; Merlin's mighty line Extremes of nature reconciled,- And made the lion mild. Songs can the tempest still, He shall not seek to weave, Wait his returning strength. Bird that from the nadir's floor To the zenith's top can soar, The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey's length. Nor profane affect to hit Or compass that, by meddling wit, Which only the propitious mind Publishes when 't is inclined. There are open hours When the God's will sallies free, And the dull idiot might see The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;— Sudden, at unawares, Self-moved, fly-to the doors, Nor sword of angels could reveal What they conceal. II THE rhyme of the poet To every foot its antipode; Each color with its counter glowed; To every tone beat answering tones, Flavor gladly blends with flavor; Smelting balls and bars, Forging double stars, Glittering twins and trines. The animals are sick with love, Lovesick with rhyme; Each with all propitious Time Into chorus wove. Like the dancers' ordered band, Thoughts come also hand in hand; In equal couples mated, Adding by their mutual gage, One to other, health and age.' Solitary fancies go Short-lived wandering to and fro, Most like to bachelors, Or an ungiven maid, Not ancestors, With no posterity to make the lie afraid, Perfect-paired as eagle's wings, Trade and counting use And Nemesis, Who with even matches odd, The partial wrong, Fills the just period, And finishes the song. Subtle rhymes, with ruin rife, BACCHUS BRING me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffer no savor of the earth to scape. Let its grapes the morn salute From a nocturnal root, Which feels the acrid juice Of Styx and Erebus; And turns the woe of Night, By its own craft, to a more rich delight. We buy ashes for bread; We buy diluted wine; Give me of the true, Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled Among the silver hills of heaven Draw everlasting dew; Wine of wine, Blood of the world, Form of forms, and mould of statures, That I intoxicated, And by the draught assimilated, May float at pleasure through all natures; |