Classic Poem

TO " TRAVEL SCENES "

I stand with roses beside the highway,
I pour you beakers of foaming wine;
On every path and on every by-way
I rouse the tambour to rapture fine.

No vapid fictions of dream I bring you,
No empty visions for your behoof;
The world of beauty I fain would sing you
My own five senses have put to proof.

Ye learned sages, ye over-cunning,
The wares I have to your taste are few.
You, heart of twenty with blood warm-running,
My song will surely accord with you.

Come, heart that thrills in its every fibre,
That loves a tale when 't is briefly told;
Follow to Brent, yea, and to the Tiber,
Whenever the North may seem too cold.

Yon land in truth is an Eden Garden,
Where kindly summer abides for aye,
Save that no surly old angel-warden
Drives happy sinners from bliss away.

Come, let's be off then, come, let's be flying,
Hasting the snows from our feet to shake.
Soon, on a hillside of Como lying,
You'll see the rainbow above the lake.

Hark to the organ's reverberation
Poured forth from Milan's cathedral fane!
But thank God also with jubilation
For freedom won on Magenta's plain.

Let no suggestion of sorrow menace,
Though joy now visits not Brent at all.
Free is Milan, free will be Venice
When freedom's red seed again shall fall.

Pass on to Rome then, the ancient mother,
But do not gaze there on barren space;
Nay, mid the ruins devise another
And better Capitol in its place.

Those antique earthen and golden vases,
Of what real use is their musty lore?
The sword that now at Caprera blazes
Can teach a lesson that's worth far more.

Let connoisseurs make imposing stories
Of torso this or group that again.
I saw in streets there the old-time glories
In living women and living men.

In praising statues I'll rival no man —
From most an arm or a leg is gone; —
I only know that the fairest woman
Is one that was never wrought in stone.

Though not a guide or an antiquary,
I know where one in warm smiles may bask;
By Naples' groves in the moonlight tarry, —
For favors there you need hardly ask.

You'll see Vesuvius, high upsending
Its clouds of smoke in the bright blue air;
With sunburnt girls, who the vines are tending,
Wash down your surplus of knowledge there.

Ay, let us hasten there, let us spring there
Like wanton colts filled with pure delight!
Hark! flutes invisible pipe and sing there
From breeze, from billow, from dale and height.

Ah, what my poor heart has suffered! — Fie on
Dress coats and nonsense and vanity!
Leap out, leap out from your cage, my lion,
And smite around you with savage glee.

Ay, let's be joyous, our heart-beats hushing
Where roses fade in the twilight gray;
Though one next morning must needs be blushing
For godlike blisses of yesterday.

To-day it may be a few will heed me,
Although my tenor be weak and thin;
But soon a stronger will supersede me
And I shall cease when his notes begin.

To-morrow men may forget completely
My little poem, whose melody
Like a small fountain is playing sweetly
In sunlit confident ecstasy.

Come pluck my roses beside the highway,
And lean your lips to my foaming wine!
On every path and on every by-way
I rouse my tambour to rapture fine.