Classic Poem

Green growths of mosses drop and bead
Around the granite brink;
And 'twixt the isles of water-weed
The wood-birds dip and drink.

Slow efts about the edges sleep;
Swift-darting water-flies
Shoot on the surface; down the deep
Fast-following bubbles rise.

Look down. What groves that scarcely sway!
What " wood obscure, " profound!
What jungle! — where some beast of prey
Might choose his vantage-ground!

*****

Who knows what lurks beneath the tide? —
Who knows what tale? Belike,
Those " antres vast " and shadows hide
Some patriarchal Pike; —

Some tough old tyrant, wrinkle-jawed,
To whom the sky, the earth,
Have but for aim to look on awed
And see him wax in girth; —

Hard ruler there by right of might;
An ageless Autocrat,
Whose " good old rule " is " Appetite,
And subjects fresh and fat; " —

While they — poor souls! — in wan despair
Still watch for signs in him;
And dying, hand from heir to heir
The day undawned and dim,

When the pond's terror too must go;
Or creeping in by stealth,
Some bolder brood, with common blow,
Shall found a Commonwealth.

*****

Or say, — perchance the liker this! —
That these themselves are gone;
That Amurath in minimis , —
Still hungry, — lingers on,

With dwindling trunk and wolfish jaw
Revolving sullen things,
But most the blind unequal law
That rules the food of Kings; —

The blot that makes the cosmic All
A mere time-honoured cheat; —
That bids the Great to eat the Small,
Yet lack the Small to eat!

*****

Who knows! Meanwhile the mosses bead
Around the granite brink;
And 'twixt the isles of water-weed
The wood-birds dip and drink.