Classic Poem

I.

For many a year the master wrought,
And wisdom deepened slow with years;
Guest-chambers of his inmost thought
Were filled with shapes too stern for tears; —
Yet Joy was there, and murmuring Love,
And Youth that hears with hastened breath,
But, throned in peace all these above,
The unrevealing eyes of Death.

II.

Faces there were which won him yet,
Fair daughters of an iron age:
In iron truth pourtrayed he set
Warrior and statesman, bard and sage.
From hidden deeps their past he drew,
The ancestral bent of stock and stem;
More of their hearts than yet they knew
Thro' their own gaze looked out on them.

III.

Yet oftenest in the past he walked,
With god or hero long gone by,
Oft, like his pictured Genius, talked
With rainbow forms that span the sky:
Thereto his soul hath listed long,
When silent voices spake in air, —
Hath mirrored many an old-world song
Remote and mystic, sad and fair.

IV.

For here the Thracian, vainly wise,
Close on the light his love has led; —
Oh hearken! her melodious cries
Fade in the mutter of the dead: —
" Farewell! from thy embrace I pass,
Drawn to the formless dark alone:
I stretch my hands, — too weak, alas!
And I no more, no more thine own. "

V.

And here is she whom Art aflame
Smote from the rock a breathing maid;
Calm at the fiery call she came,
Looked on her lover unafraid;
Nor quite was sure if life were best,
And love, till love with life had flown,
Or still with things unborn to rest,
Ideal beauty, changeless stone.

VI.

Ah! which the sweeter? she who stands,
A soul to woe that moment born, —
Regretfully her aimless hands
Drooping by Psyche's side forlorn? —
Woke with a shock the god unknown,
And sighing flushed, and flying sighed:
Grey in the dawning stands alone
His desolate and childly bride.

VII.

Or she whose soft limbs swiftly sped
The touch of very gods must shun,
And, drowned in many a boscage, fled
The imperious kisses of the sun?
Mix, mix with Daphne, branch and frond,
O laurel-wildness, laurel-shade!
Let Nature's life, — no love beyond, —
Make all the marriage of the maid!

VIII.

Or she who, deep in Latmian trees,
Stoops from the height her silver sheen?
Dreams in a dream her shepherd sees
The crescent car, the bending queen.
One kiss she gives; the Fates refuse
A closer bond or longer stay:
The boy sleeps still; her orb renews
Its echoless unmated way.

IX.

All these some hope unanswered know,
Some laws that prison, fates that bar;
Baffled their spirit-fountains flow
Toward things diviner and afar.
Such dole at heart their painter felt,
Within, without, such sights to see;
Who in our monstrous London dwelt,
And half remembered Arcady.

X.

Ah, sure, those springs of joy and pain
By some remote recall are stirred;
His ancient Guardians smile again,
And touch a colour, speak a word.
Not' all asleep thy gods of Greece
Lie tumbled on the Coan shore: —
O painter! thou that knew'st their peace
Must half remember evermore!

XI.

So gazed on Phidias Warrior-maid,
Methinks, Ægina's kingly boy: —
She stood, her Gorgon shield displayed,
Too great for love, too grave for joy.
All day her image held him there;
This world, this life, with day grew dim;
Some glimmering of the Primal Fair
Pre-natal memories woke in him.

XII

Then as he walked, like one who dreamed,
Thro' silent highways silver-hoar,
More wonderful that city seemed,
And he diviner than before: —
A voice was calling, All is well;
Clear in the vault Selene shone,
And over Plato's homestead fell
The shadow of the Parthenon.