Classic Poem

'T was Schliemann back from Troy,
With relics bronze and gold:
Where other eyes saw violets,
He saw the city old.

And, fondling a brown skull, —
— My learned friend, — said he,
— Tells me that this a maiden's was,
In Troy beyond the sea;

And from these angles here
Of brow and cheek-bone fine,
He judges that my maiden was
A creature quite divine.

— Ah, yes! — he added low,
— Virchow was right just there,
For all the maidens of old Troy
Were beautiful and rare. —

By summer chance we met,
And sat in chatting mood:
Said one, — How noble Jesus — word
In that Beatitude! —

— Ah, yes! — chimed in a friend,
— You speak it truly there,
For all that Jesus said or was,
Was right beyond compare. —

— And Paul, — one said, — was wrong;
How far from light he trod! — —
— But then, you know, — my lady chirped,
— 'T is all the Word of God.
—
The artlessness the same!
And why should tears half-start
Over the fabled beauty gone, —
Poem of German heart;

While, with half-angry thought,
I smile away the creed
Of fabled beauty they would fain
Persuade me that I need?

Angry! who know their creeds
Were poems, too, — that died;
That all the world's old dogmas are
Its poems petrified.