Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus: By Wilfred Austin Gill: With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds |
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 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems |  |
XXXVIII
A STORY OF AURELIUS
With foliage gathered from the sacred bough
Young Marcus worshipped where the Salii dwell
Before the warrior-god he served so well,
What time they flung their garlands, striving how
They best might crown the statue's head. And now
A strange thing happened (so the chroniques tell)—
The other chaplets missed their aim, and fell:
Only the boy's wreath lighted on the brow.
And was the god or passive or displeased?
I think Parnassus joins Olympus here:
O hearts of youth, so brightly frankly true,
To gods and bards alike your praise is dear;
Though wreaths from adult hands be all unseized,
Our crowns are crowns indeed if thrown by you!
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems | |