The Poetical Works of George Barlow In Ten [Eleven] Volumes |
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TWO SONNETS
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 | The Poetical Works of George Barlow |  |
210
TWO SONNETS
To Stephen Phillips
I. “TIME'S FLOWERS AND FRUIT”
This chance Life gives thee,—proudly seize it, friend:
The chance to sound once more in English ears
The trumpet dropped when Shakespeare and his peers
Saw their long line of mighty triumphs end.
Lift once again the trumpet, and extend
The line of triumph. Make man's hopes and fears
Thine own, the pangs and passions of the years
That glimmer in the past, or still impend.
The chance to sound once more in English ears
The trumpet dropped when Shakespeare and his peers
Saw their long line of mighty triumphs end.
Lift once again the trumpet, and extend
The line of triumph. Make man's hopes and fears
Thine own, the pangs and passions of the years
That glimmer in the past, or still impend.
Yes, England needs a singer. She requires
No mere frail chanting, no sweet childish lute,
But some strong soul, equal to man's desires;
Through whom strange histories, dark and sad and mute,
May wail their anguish, hurl their pent-up fires,
That we may garner Time's lost flowers and fruit.
No mere frail chanting, no sweet childish lute,
But some strong soul, equal to man's desires;
Through whom strange histories, dark and sad and mute,
May wail their anguish, hurl their pent-up fires,
That we may garner Time's lost flowers and fruit.
211
II. “INTERPRETERS SUPREME”
Interpreters supreme thine Art will find.
Not in fair France, though flower-crowned France may be
Art's soft-voiced slave, could women range round thee
So purely fair as those by heaven designed
To make thy song a garland for mankind
But chiefliest for this land that, ringed by sea,
Must ever even in Art divinely free
Abide, love-guarded, watched by wave and wind.
Not in fair France, though flower-crowned France may be
Art's soft-voiced slave, could women range round thee
So purely fair as those by heaven designed
To make thy song a garland for mankind
But chiefliest for this land that, ringed by sea,
Must ever even in Art divinely free
Abide, love-guarded, watched by wave and wind.
This all who sing, bay-wreathed in other lands,
Phillips, our English bard, may wildly long,
In vain, to win—that souls so sweet and strong
And such sweet eyes, such lips and such white hands,
Should speak their verses and expound their song:—
The woman who looks the part, she understands.
Phillips, our English bard, may wildly long,
In vain, to win—that souls so sweet and strong
And such sweet eyes, such lips and such white hands,
Should speak their verses and expound their song:—
The woman who looks the part, she understands.
Feb. 11, 1902.
| The Poetical Works of George Barlow | |