University of Virginia Library

XXXII.
TO THE QUERULOUS POETS.

Throw by the trappings of your tinsel rhyme!
Hush the crude voice, whose never-ending wail
Blights the sweet song of thrush, or nightingale,—
Set to the treble of our querulous time;
Is earth grown dim? Hath heaven her grace sublime,
Her pomp of clouds, and winds, and sunset showers
Merged in the twilight of funereal hours,
And Time's death-signal struck its iron chime?
O! false, frail dreamer! not one tiniest note
From yonder green-girt copse, but whispers “shame!”—
Love, beauty, rapture, swell the warbler's throat.—
The self-same joy, the passion blithe and young.
Thrilled by the force of whose immaculate flame,
The first glad stars, the stars of morning, sung!