University of Virginia Library

II.

Yet what is there to say,
Even on this proud day,
This day of days, that hath not oft been said?
What song is there to sing
That hath not oft been sung?
What laurel can we bring
That ages have not hung
A thousand times above their glorious dead?
What crown to crown the living
Is left us for our giving,
That is not shaped to other brows
That wore it long ago?
Our very vows but echo vows
Breathed centuries ago!
Earth has no choral strain,
No sweet or sad refrain,
No lofty pæan swelling loud and clear,
That Virgil did not know,
Or Danté, wandering slow
In mystic trances, did not pause to hear!
When gods from high Olympus came
To touch old Homer's lips with flame,
The morning stars together sung
To teach their raptures to his tongue.
For him the lonely ocean moaned;
For him the mighty winds intoned
Their deep-voiced chantings, and for him
Sweet flower-bells pealed in forests dim.
From earth and sea and sky he caught
The spell of their divinest thought,
While yet it blossomed fresh and new
As Eden's rosebuds wet with dew!
Oh! to have lived when earth was young,
With all its melodies unsung!
The dome of heaven bent nearer then
When gods and angels talked with men—
When Song itself was newly born,
The Incarnation of the Morn!
But now, alas! all thought is old,
All life is but a story told,
And poet-tongues are manifold;
And he is bold who tries to wake,
Even for God or Country's sake,
In voice, or pen, or lute, or lyre,
Sparks of the old Promethean fire!