Classic Poem

Advents we greet of great and small;
Much we extol that may not live;
Yet to the new-born Type we give
No care at all!

This year,—three centuries past,—by age
More maimed than by L EPANTO ' S fight,—
This year C ERVANTES gave to light
His matchless page,

Whence first outrode th' immortal Pair,—
The half-crazed Hero and his hind,—
To make sad laughter for mankind;
And whence they fare

Throughout all Fiction still, where chance
Allies Life's dulness with its dreams,—
Allies what is, with what but seems,—
Fact and Romance:—

O Knight of fire and Squire of earth!—
O changing give-and-take between
The aim too high, the aim too mean,
I hail your birth—

Three centuries past—in sunburned Spain .
And hang, on Time's P ANTHEON wall,
My votive tablet to recall
That lasting gain!