 | Collected poems of Herman Melville |  |
346
III
[_]
Opening with a fervent little lyric which, if obscure in purport or anyway questionable to a Hyperborean professor of Agnostic Moral Philosophy, will nevertheless to readers as intelligently sympathetic as our honest narrator, be transparent enough and innocent as the Thirty Thousand Virgins of Cologne.
“Name me, do, that dulcet Donna
Whose perennial gifts engaging
Win the world to dote upon her
In meridian never ageing!
Whose perennial gifts engaging
Win the world to dote upon her
In meridian never ageing!
Look, in climes beyond the palms
Younger sisters bare young charms—
She the mellower graces!
Ripened heart maturely kind,
St. Martin's summer of the mind,
And pathos of the years behind—
More than empty faces!”
Younger sisters bare young charms—
She the mellower graces!
Ripened heart maturely kind,
St. Martin's summer of the mind,
And pathos of the years behind—
More than empty faces!”
Who sings? Behold him under bush
Of vintner's ivy nigh a porch,
His rag-fair raiment botched and darned
But face much like a Delphic coin's
New disinterred with clinging soil.
Tarnished Apollo!—But let pass.
Best here be heedful, yes, and chary,
Sentiment nowadays waxeth wary,
And idle the ever-cooked Alas.
Of vintner's ivy nigh a porch,
His rag-fair raiment botched and darned
But face much like a Delphic coin's
New disinterred with clinging soil.
Tarnished Apollo!—But let pass.
Best here be heedful, yes, and chary,
Sentiment nowadays waxeth wary,
And idle the ever-cooked Alas.
| Collected poems of Herman Melville | |