"Procul este, profani!"
A Poet o'er his glowing lyre
A wild and careless hand had flung.
The base, cold crowd, that nought admire,
Stood round, responseless to his fire,
With heavy eye and mocking tongue.
"And why so loudly is he singing?"
('Twas thus that idiot mob replied,)
"His music in our ears is ringing;
But whither flows that music's tide?
What doth it teach? His art is madness!
He moves our soul to joy or sadness.
A wayward necromantic spell!
Free as the breeze his music floweth,
But fruitless, too, as breeze that bloweth,
What doth it profit, Poet, tell?"
POET.--Cease, idiot, cease thy loathsome cant!
Day-labourer, slave of toil and want!
I hate thy babble vain and hollow.
Thou art a worm, no child of day:
Thy god is Profit--thou wouldst weigh
By pounds the Belvidere Apollo.
Gain--gain alone to thee is sweet.
The marble is a god! ... what of it
Thou count'st a pie-dish far above it--
A dish wherein to cook thy meat!
MOB.--But, if thou be'st the Elect of Heaven,
The gift that God has largely given,
Thou shouldst then for our good impart,
To purify thy brother's heart.
Yes, we are base, and vile, and hateful,
Cruel, and shameless, and ungrateful--
Impotent and heartless tools,
Slaves, and slanderers, and fools.
Come then, if charity doth sway thee,
Chase from our hearts the viper-brood;
However stern, we will obey thee;
Yes, we will listen, and be good!
POET.--Begone, begone! What common feeling
Can e'er exist 'twixt ye and me?
Go on, your souls in vices steeling;
The lyre's sweet voice is dumb to ye:
Go! foul as reek of charnel-slime,
In every age, in every clime,
Ye aye have felt, and yet ye feel,
Scourge, dungeon, halter, axe, and wheel.
Go, hearts of sin and heads of trifling,
From your vile streets, so foul and stifling,
They sweep the dirt--no useless trade!
But when, their robes with ordure staining,
Altar and sacrifice disdaining,
Did e'er your _priests_ ply broom and spade?
'Twas not for life's base agitation
That _we_ were born--for gain nor care--
No--we were born for inspiration,
For love, for music, and for prayer!
* * * * *
The ballad entitled "The Black Shawl" has obtained a degree of
popularity among the author's countrymen, for which the slightness of
the composition renders it in some measure difficult to account. It may,
perhaps, be explained by the circumstance, that the verses are in the
original exceedingly well adapted to be sung--one of the highest merits
of this class of poetry--for all ancient ballads, in every language
throughout the world, were specifically intended to be sung or chanted;
and all modern productions, therefore, written in imitation of these
ancient compositions--the first lispings of the Muse--can only be
successful in proportion as they possess the essential and
characteristic quality of being capable of being sung. Independently of
the highly musical arrangement of the rhythm, which, in the original,
distinguishes "The Black Shawl," the following verses cannot be denied
the merit of relating, in a few rapid and energetic measures, a simple
and striking story of Oriental love, vengeance, and remorse:--