Poems Real and Ideal By George Barlow |
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FOR VICTOR HUGO'S EIGHTY-FIRST
BIRTHDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1883. |
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 | Poems Real and Ideal |  |
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VI. FOR VICTOR HUGO'S EIGHTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1883.
The skies have had their poets, and the flowers
Have had their poets, and the sea has heard
Passionate singing louder than of bird
Who chants amid the night's dim throbbing bowers.
Poets have sung of love's absorbing hours,
And battle has put in its fiery word,
And sorrow itself to sweetest song has spurred;—
The storms have had their singers, and the showers.
Have had their poets, and the sea has heard
Passionate singing louder than of bird
Who chants amid the night's dim throbbing bowers.
Poets have sung of love's absorbing hours,
And battle has put in its fiery word,
And sorrow itself to sweetest song has spurred;—
The storms have had their singers, and the showers.
But only one great soul has sung the whole
Of Nature and of Man, commensurate
With both of these, and touched song's loftiest goal;
One man has challenged Time and conquered Fate:
Hugo—who saw the century's sunrise glow,
Eighty and one majestic years ago.
Of Nature and of Man, commensurate
With both of these, and touched song's loftiest goal;
One man has challenged Time and conquered Fate:
Hugo—who saw the century's sunrise glow,
Eighty and one majestic years ago.
| Poems Real and Ideal | |