 | The bells |  |
109
THE LACHRYMOSE.
“Beauty still walketh on the earth and air,
Our present sunsets are as rich in gold
As ere the Iliad's music was out-rolled.”
Our present sunsets are as rich in gold
As ere the Iliad's music was out-rolled.”
This World's as beautiful to-day as when
It dropped fresh from the fingers of a God!
The Philomel makes heavenly the night,
And Roses bring a blush to earth's great cheeks
Each summer time. The sun has not grown dim.
The same wild breezes sweep our Southern vales,
And wake rough music on th' Atlantic's wave
That brushed the dew-drop from the crocus leaf
In Eden's solitude. I cannot see
That earth is tired out, and wrinkled like
An aged face; that it has fallen in
The “sere and yellow leaf.” I think that it
Is vastly young, and destined yet to swing
Some thirty thousand centuries in air!
Perdition catch these lachrymosic bards
That moan forever about weary earth
And sea! as if their dismal dactyles could
Improve it much. There is one poet who
Has risen up like a great rocket with
A burst of stars, he's going to “tinker” it!
Kind heaven help him! 'twere a pretty job!
For my own part I am content if I
Can tinker joy, making it water-proof
To keep out Tears! As to all theories
And schism and the like, I do bequeath
Them unto learned heads. A Poet can
Do much by writing purely, but far more
By living as he writes. Who would reform
The world, let him reform himself, teaching
By example more than precept.
It dropped fresh from the fingers of a God!
The Philomel makes heavenly the night,
And Roses bring a blush to earth's great cheeks
Each summer time. The sun has not grown dim.
The same wild breezes sweep our Southern vales,
And wake rough music on th' Atlantic's wave
That brushed the dew-drop from the crocus leaf
In Eden's solitude. I cannot see
That earth is tired out, and wrinkled like
An aged face; that it has fallen in
The “sere and yellow leaf.” I think that it
Is vastly young, and destined yet to swing
Some thirty thousand centuries in air!
110
That moan forever about weary earth
And sea! as if their dismal dactyles could
Improve it much. There is one poet who
Has risen up like a great rocket with
A burst of stars, he's going to “tinker” it!
Kind heaven help him! 'twere a pretty job!
For my own part I am content if I
Can tinker joy, making it water-proof
To keep out Tears! As to all theories
And schism and the like, I do bequeath
Them unto learned heads. A Poet can
Do much by writing purely, but far more
By living as he writes. Who would reform
The world, let him reform himself, teaching
By example more than precept.
Now I,
Who am no Bard, but a mere poetling,
A “ballad monger” stringing fancies on
A thread of rhyme, a literary bee
Humming round the world and drawing sweetness
From it, I—a poet be it written
Of the ephemeral sort, who, dying,
Would be missed about as much as yonder
Butterfly—do not think myself better
Than my neighbor, but I've faith enough to
Trust the unseen hands that toss the ocean
Up, those hands that garner whirlwinds i' the air,
With tinkering this leaky world!
Who am no Bard, but a mere poetling,
A “ballad monger” stringing fancies on
A thread of rhyme, a literary bee
Humming round the world and drawing sweetness
From it, I—a poet be it written
Of the ephemeral sort, who, dying,
Would be missed about as much as yonder
Butterfly—do not think myself better
111
Trust the unseen hands that toss the ocean
Up, those hands that garner whirlwinds i' the air,
With tinkering this leaky world!
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