 | Collected poems |  |
“MORE POETS YET!”
The dedicatory initials of this rondeau stand for “John
Leicester Warren” (afterwards Lord De Tabley). He
was so kind as to read the proofs of the volume in which
it appeared; and I remember that, years after, at one of our
rare meetings, he pleasantly—and with perfect accuracy—
recalled the fact that the Homeric epithet “many-buttoned,”
applied to the page in A Nightingale in Kensington Gardens
had been suggested by himself. This suggestion by no means
exhausts my debt to his fine scholarship and fastidious taste.
When, some months before his death in 1895, he sent me his
last book, I returned him a few verses of acknowledgment.
As they pleased him—and as, moreover, Mr. Edmund
Gosse has been good enough to give them the currency
of his delightful Critical Kit-Cats—I may perhaps be pardoned
if I reproduce them here:—
“Still may the muses foster thee, O Friend,
Who, while the vacant quidnuncs stand at gaze,
Wond'ring what Prophet next the Fates may send,
Still tread'st the ancient ways;
Still climb'st the clear-cold altitudes of Song,
Or ling'ring “by the shore of old Romance,”
Heed'st not the vogue, how little or how long,
Of marvels made in France.
Still to the summits may thy face be set,
And long may we, that heard thy morning rhyme,
Hang on thy noon-day music, nor forget
In the hushed even-time!”
The dedicatory initials of this rondeau stand for “John Leicester Warren” (afterwards Lord De Tabley). He was so kind as to read the proofs of the volume in which it appeared; and I remember that, years after, at one of our rare meetings, he pleasantly—and with perfect accuracy— recalled the fact that the Homeric epithet “many-buttoned,” applied to the page in A Nightingale in Kensington Gardens had been suggested by himself. This suggestion by no means exhausts my debt to his fine scholarship and fastidious taste. When, some months before his death in 1895, he sent me his last book, I returned him a few verses of acknowledgment. As they pleased him—and as, moreover, Mr. Edmund Gosse has been good enough to give them the currency of his delightful Critical Kit-Cats—I may perhaps be pardoned if I reproduce them here:—
Who, while the vacant quidnuncs stand at gaze,
Wond'ring what Prophet next the Fates may send,
Still tread'st the ancient ways;
Or ling'ring “by the shore of old Romance,”
Heed'st not the vogue, how little or how long,
Of marvels made in France.
And long may we, that heard thy morning rhyme,
Hang on thy noon-day music, nor forget
In the hushed even-time!”
Arming his heavy hand to slay;—
“Despite my skill and ‘swashing blow,’
They seem to sprout where'er I go;—
I killed a host but yesterday!”
Your task 's, at best, a Hydra-fray;
And though you cut, not less will grow
More Poets yet!
The first blind motions of the May?
Who shall out-blot the morning glow?—
Or stem the full heart's overflow?
Who? There will rise, till Time decay,
More Poets yet!
| Collected poems | |