Classic Poem

I. Upon A L IST OF N AMES OF THE H EROINES OF THE O LD F RENCH R OMANCES

(Alcaics)

Names, sweet as sleep shed softly on slumberous
Eyelids, of queens long dead and ensepulchred,
Who once by lone sea-casements sorrowed,
Hearing the perilous seas beneath them;

And leaning forth, saw reaches mysterious,
Highways of moonlight, endlessly glimmering,
Saw too the sweet, still stars and trembled,
Knowing again the unuttered longing;

Or haply, night-long sleeplessly pondering,
Wrought sweetest music out of their loneliness,
With skill to mate each word with lute-strings
Wondrously smitten to dulcet quirings:

Names lost in dust now, save when some yellowing
Moth-shredded parchment, stirred from oblivion,
Yields once again names such as these names,
Sweeter than light to an Eastern diver.

II T O C AIULLUS

(Hendecasyllabics)

Once before the unspeeding feet o'ertake me,
Once before the alluring arms enfold me,
Or the finger of silence seals my eyelids,
Stands my hope to behold thy haunt, Catullus,
Sirmio, which nor earth nor water
Ever utterly yields, but ever sunlight
Wakes on showering flights of foam, and foam-lights
All night fall on enchanted shores save only
Where the land with reluctant hope retains them
So, once, Death in the midst of song set round thee
Streams impassable, girt with barren rushes,
Vain of bloom or of any earthly fruitage,
Steeped in tears as in dew and watched by dead men.
Yet still Life with reluctance gazes after,
Holds thy songs to her heart and haply weeping
Shades her tears with the light of laughing eyelids;
Half smiles, knowing not all of thee can perish,
Half smiles, knowing that neither Death nor Silence,
Time, nor ruinous season shod with hoar-frost,
Vexed with ravening teeth of winds and hail-blight,
Change, nor shadowy touch of halt Oblivion
Dares dissever thy songs from her forever.