Classic Poem

Hail thee, Rhyme, to bonds committed
By quick-witted
Troubadours with careful art:
But thou sprightly, rushest lightly,
Gushest brightly
Sparkling from the people's heart.

Oh, 'twixt kiss and kiss how gladly,
Where most madly
Whirl the dancers, lips let fly
Thee, who in two turns at latest
Deftly matest
Hope with Memory, sigh with sigh!

Oh, how gaily wert thou floated
By full-throated
Voices after hours of toil,
As the triple reaper-chorus
With sonorous
Triple note stamped on the soil!

Dreadful down the breeze, when shouted
O'er the routed,
Roared thy voice on stricken fields,
While the blood-stained javelins rattle
Hurled in battle
'Gainst the serried iron shields.

Roland's sword thou heardest shatter
Rocks and batter
Roncival: come night, come morn,
Highland echoes unto lowland
‘Roland, Roland’
When thou windest his great horn.

Then of black Bavieca singing
Rod'st thou, clinging
To his rough mane, gallant, free;
Where the Cid's gay pennon glances,
All Romance is
Mounted on his horse with thee.

Then in Rhone's swift torrent plunging,
There expunging
From thy hair its dust-stained hues,
Thou, sweet nightingales outvying,
Flittest sighing
Through the orchards of Toulouse.

Thou Love's pilot wast in feudal
Times, when Rudel
Sailed forth in his ship of ships:
Bearer of the burning kisses,
Which he presses,
Dying, on his lady's lips.

Turn, return; grave Dante calls thee
And installs thee
By his side: with thee he trod
Other paths through realms infernal,
Clomb th' eternal
Mountain and thence soared to God.

Empress, who o'er metre bearest
Rule, O fairest
Queen of Latin poetry,
Lo, a rebel, long disloyal,
Craves thy royal
Grace and pays thee homage free.

Rhyme, among our sires renownèd,
Courted, crownèd,
Thee I too will venerate.
Fare thee well: with flowers salute my
Friends, but shoot thy
Arrows against those I hate.