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ORPHEUS.
Our hearts no longer hear the chimesOf the old stirring strain,
And in these prosy modern times
Sweet Orpheus sings in vain.
For no one courts the gentle sound,
Though it shall ever last,
Which made all earth the holy ground
In the dear golden Past.
Our ears are deaf with other notes
That drown the highest dreams,
Our eyes see nothing but the motes
Within the brightest beams.
And while our Orpheus lingers on
With the same lovely voice
And haunts each broken Parthenon,
Who now in him rejoice?
Though moving is his magic yet
As it has always been,
Our souls to baser tunes are set,
He walks and sings unseen.
Another lyrist in his stead
Has come and cannot save,
Whose playing only lulls the dead
More deeply in their grave.
The wooden head and flinty heart
Retain their narrow pride,
Contracted more by vulgar art,
And stocks and stones abide.
The modern jangler feels no call
From reverend fane or mount,
The tavern and the music-hall
Supply his muddy fount.
He makes no living fair and free
By loftier aim or ode,
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Down to the Dark Abode.
He never soars above the clod
Nor drinks of Nature's well,
The scalpel is his bloody God,
He has no heaven but hell.
He pays no heed to solemn laws,
Lets nothing sacred rest,
And inspiration cheaply draws
From his own sordid breast.
He dances naked round the Ark
Of evil to his shame,
And leaves on all the lurid mark
That is his chosen fame.
He bids the groundling be content
And hug his native mire,
Reveals the spots of man's descent
Or veils the heavenly fire.
He catches not from wave or wood
One ray of old romance,
Denies all visions great and good
And crowns our ignorance.
He shows us that mere matter rules,
Howe'er with graces girt,
Reducing mind to molecules
And deifies the dirt.
And still his tuneless ditties fall
On ghastly lives and gray,
And the Divinity in all
To him is common clay.
The reek of brothels and of slums
Pervades his broadest flight,
With discords as of heathen drums
From worse than heathen night.
He rifles graves for grimy stores
Instead of gardens fresh,
Parades the leper's loathsome sores
And tyrannies of flesh.
And still his dull and droning airs
Transforming men to beasts,
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And hiccoughed at strange feasts.
While our true Orpheus travels forth
Where Dryads are at play,
An outcast in this iron North
He sings his heart away.
He loiters by the lilied brim
Of meres, that gather up
All legendary glories dim,
And bathe the buttercup.
A touch of something more than art,
A glimpse of bluer sky,
A homeless murmur in the heart,
Tell he is passing by.
And sometimes on the ancient walls
He hangs a ballad bright,
And on enchanted ruins falls
His shadow that is light.
And from the cloister comes his sigh
When temptings round us close,
And brings the breath of Nature nigh
As perfume to the rose.
But no one listens to his lute
Which bears a better plan,
And only may when lust is mute
Interpret God to man.
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