The following experiment in English alcaics was suggested by
conversations with Mr. Brown and J. A. Symonds on metrical forms,
followed by the despatch of some translations from old Venetian
boat-songs by the former after his return to Venice.
_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [April 1881]._
MY DEAR BROWN,--Nine years I have conded them.
Brave lads in olden musical centuries
Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,
Sat late by alehouse doors in April
Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising:
Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,
Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables;
Spring scents inspired,[35] old wine diluted;
Love and Apollo were there to chorus.
Now these, the songs, remain to eternity,
Those, only those, the bountiful choristers
Gone--those are gone, those unremembered
Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.
So man himself appears and evanishes,
So smiles and goes; as wanderers halting at
Some green-embowered house, play their music,
Play and are gone on the windy highway;
Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory
Long after they departed eternally,
Forth-faring tow'rd far mountain summits,
Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.
Youth sang the song in years immemorial;
Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful;
Bird-haunted, green tree-tops in springtime
Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing;
Youth goes, and leaves behind him a prodigy--
Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian
Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,
Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.
Please, my dear Brown, forgive my horrid delay. Symonds overworked and
knocked up. I off my sleep; my wife gone to Paris. Weather
lovely.--Yours ever,