IV

The civil world will much forgive

To bards who from its maxims live,

But if, grown bold, the poet dare

Bend his practice to his prayer

And following his mighty heart

Shame the times and live apart,--

_Vae solis!_ I found this,

That of goods I could not miss

If I fell within the line,

Once a member, all was mine,

Houses, banquets, gardens, fountains,

Fortune's delectable mountains;

But if I would walk alone,

Was neither cloak nor crumb my own.

And thus the high Muse treated me,

Directly never greeted me,

But when she spread her dearest spells,

Feigned to speak to some one else.

I was free to overhear,

Or I might at will forbear;

Yet mark me well, that idle word

Thus at random overheard

Was the symphony of spheres,

And proverb of a thousand years,

The light wherewith all planets shone,

The livery all events put on,

It fell in rain, it grew in grain,

It put on flesh in friendly form,

Frowned in my foe and growled in storm,

It spoke in Tullius Cicero,

In Milton and in Angelo:

I travelled and found it at Rome;

Eastward it filled all Heathendom

And it lay on my hearth when I came home.

V

Mask thy wisdom with delight,

Toy with the bow, yet hit the white,

As Jelaleddin old and gray;

He seemed to bask, to dream and play

Without remoter hope or fear

Than still to entertain his ear

And pass the burning summer-time

In the palm-grove with a rhyme;

Heedless that each cunning word

Tribes and ages overheard:

Those idle catches told the laws

Holding Nature to her cause.

God only knew how Saadi dined;

Roses he ate, and drank the wind;

He freelier breathed beside the pine,

In cities he was low and mean;

The mountain waters washed him clean

And by the sea-waves he was strong;

He heard their medicinal song,

Asked no physician but the wave,

No palace but his sea-beat cave.

Saadi held the Muse in awe,

She was his mistress and his law;

A twelvemonth he could silence hold,

Nor ran to speak till she him told;

He felt the flame, the fanning wings,

Nor offered words till they were things,

Glad when the solid mountain swims

In music and uplifting hymns.

Charmed from fagot and from steel,

Harvests grew upon his tongue,

Past and future must reveal

All their heart when Saadi sung;

Sun and moon must fall amain

Like sower's seeds into his brain,

There quickened to be born again.

The free winds told him what they knew,

Discoursed of fortune as they blew;

Omens and signs that filled the air

To him authentic witness bare;

The birds brought auguries on their wings,

And carolled undeceiving things

Him to beckon, him to warn;

Well might then the poet scorn

To learn of scribe or courier

Things writ in vaster character;

And on his mind at dawn of day

Soft shadows of the evening lay.

* * *

Pale genius roves alone,

No scout can track his way,

None credits him till he have shown

His diamonds to the day.

Not his the feaster's wine,

Nor land, nor gold, nor power,

By want and pain God screeneth him

Till his elected hour.

Go, speed the stars of Thought

On to their shining goals:--

The sower scatters broad his seed,

The wheat thou strew'st be souls.

I grieve that better souls than mine

Docile read my measured line:

High destined youths and holy maids

Hallow these my orchard shades;

Environ me and me baptize

With light that streams from gracious eyes.

I dare not be beloved and known,

I ungrateful, I alone.

Ever find me dim regards,

Love of ladies, love of bards,

Marked forbearance, compliments,

Tokens of benevolence.

What then, can I love myself?

Fame is profitless as pelf,

A good in Nature not allowed

They love me, as I love a cloud

Sailing falsely in the sphere,

Hated mist if it come near.

For thought, and not praise;

Thought is the wages

For which I sell days,

Will gladly sell ages

And willing grow old

Deaf, and dumb, and blind, and cold,

Melting matter into dreams,

Panoramas which I saw

And whatever glows or seems

Into substance, into Law.

For Fancy's gift

Can mountains lift;

The Muse can knit

What is past, what is done,

With the web that's just begun;

Making free with time and size,

Dwindles here, there magnifies,

Swells a rain-drop to a tun;

So to repeat

No word or feat

Crowds in a day the sum of ages,

And blushing Love outwits the sages.

Try the might the Muse affords

And the balm of thoughtful words;

Bring music to the desolate;

Hang roses on the stony fate.

But over all his crowning grace,

Wherefor thanks God his daily praise,

Is the purging of his eye

To see the people of the sky:

From blue mount and headland dim

Friendly hands stretch forth to him,

Him they beckon, him advise

Of heavenlier prosperities

And a more excelling grace

And a truer bosom-glow

Than the wine-fed feasters know.

They turn his heart from lovely maids,

And make the darlings of the earth

Swainish, coarse and nothing worth:

Teach him gladly to postpone

Pleasures to another stage

Beyond the scope of human age,

Freely as task at eve undone

Waits unblamed to-morrow's sun.

By thoughts I lead

Bards to say what nations need;

What imports, what irks and what behooves,

Framed afar as Fates and Loves.

And as the light divides the dark

Through with living swords,

So shall thou pierce the distant age

With adamantine words.

I framed his tongue to music,

I armed his hand with skill,

I moulded his face to beauty

And his heart the throne of Will.

For every God

Obeys the hymn, obeys the ode.

For art, for music over-thrilled,

The wine-cup shakes, the wine is spilled.

Hold of the Maker, not the Made;

Sit with the Cause, or grim or glad.

That book is good

Which puts me in a working mood.

Unless to Thought is added Will,

Apollo is an imbecile.

What parts, what gems, what colors shine,--

Ah, but I miss the grand design.

Like vaulters in a circus round

Who leap from horse to horse, but never touch the ground.

For Genius made his cabin wide,

And Love led Gods therein to bide.

The atom displaces all atoms beside,

And Genius unspheres all souls that abide.

To transmute crime to wisdom, so to stem

The vice of Japhet by the thought of Shem.

He could condense cerulean ether

Into the very best sole-leather.

Forbore the ant-hill, shunned to tread,

In mercy, on one little head.

I have no brothers and no peers,

And the dearest interferes:

When I would spend a lonely day,

Sun and moon are in my way.

The brook sings on, but sings in vain

Wanting the echo in my brain.

He planted where the deluge ploughed.

His hired hands were wind and cloud;

His eyes detect the Gods concealed

In the hummock of the field.

For what need I of book or priest,

Or sibyl from the mummied East,

When every star is Bethlehem star?

I count as many as there are

Cinquefoils or violets in the grass,

So many saints and saviors,

So many high behaviors

Salute the bard who is alive

And only sees what he doth give.

Coin the day-dawn into lines

In which its proper splendor shines;

Coin the moonlight into verse

Which all its marvel shall rehearse,

Chasing with words fast-flowing things; nor try

To plant thy shrivelled pedantry

On the shoulders of the sky.

Ah, not to me those dreams belong!

A better voice peals through my song.

The Muse's hill by Fear is guarded,

A bolder foot is still rewarded.

His instant thought a poet spoke,

And filled the age his fame;

An inch of ground the lightning strook

But lit the sky with flame.

If bright the sun, he tarries,

All day his song is heard;

And when he goes he carries

No more baggage than a bird.

The Asmodean feat is mine,

To spin my sand-heap into twine.

Slighted Minerva's learnèd tongue,

But leaped with joy when on the wind

The shell of Clio rung.