University of Virginia Library

I
THE IDES OF MARCH

Percy Herbert Basil Ninian Sandy
Percy
Where the brimming freshets rush
And the pebbles chafe and ring,
The leafless alders flush
With purple of the Spring.

Herbert
And the crimson osiers burn
With spathes that swell and split,
And every bract an urn
With twinkling catkins lit.

Basil
Where chaos spreads unkempt,
And formless being roves,
I wandered lost
Until I crossed
The ultramundane groves,
And dreamt last night, as Cæsar dreamt,
I placed my hand in Jove's.

Ninian
And music sighed and sang,
And voices uttered doom,
And Mars's armour rang
Untouched in Cæsar's room.
Most ominous of woe,
A wondering slave appeared,
Whose fingers flamed below—

Sandy
A candelabrum weird!

Ninian
Titanic beings fought,
In fiery arms on high;
The Universe was wrought
To tragic sympathy;
Nor can the years dispel
The awe of that; nor can
The tongues of poets tell
The deed these signs foreran,
For on the morrow fell
The greatest man.

Basil
What cry? what whispered word?

Percy
What music wild and sweet?

Herbert
The listening air is stirred.

Sandy
The sounds are in the street.

Basil
I hear a murmuring flood.

Percy
I hear a trembling string.

Ninian
The sounds are in our blood.

Basil
The sounds are of the Spring.

Herbert
The throstle in the brake,
Alone, and hid away,
Beginning to rehearse
His long-considered lay,
Because the blossoms wake
On the elms, the first in flower,
Repeats a broken verse
And tunes it by the hour.

Percy
And his cousin thinks him a dunce,
The blackbird, he who sings
At the top of his voice at once
While the startled woodland rings:
He peals his splendid song
Loud and fluent and clear,
For echo to prolong
And all the world to hear.

Herbert
Now like a golden gong;
Now like a crystal sphere.

Percy
For echo to prolong
And all the world to hear.

Basil
What sound is this that comes
At sunset lowly pitched?
The roll of elfin drums
Or song of things bewitched?
Perhaps the nightwind strums
The wires, with news enriched
Of peace, and silent drums—
With happy news enriched
Of silent, sleeping drums,
With war no more bewitched.

Ninian
At least the springtime comes;
For I hear in a valley I know
A sound of elfin drums,
And a shadowy clarion blow,
As the crimson threads and thrums
In the twilight sky decay,
And the wandering beetle hums
The threnody of day.

Sandy
When the spacious darkness comes,
And the crimson lights decay,
The ponderous beetle hums
The threnody of day.

Herbert
The nightwind sighs and sings.

Percy
The darkness deepening comes.

Basil
The antique curfew rings
To the roll of elfin drums.

Ninian
The flickering threads and thrums,
The ruddy brands decay;
And the mournful beetle hums
The threnody of day.

Basil
But soon the wakening comes,
And darkness dies forlorn;
And the thunder of the drums
Of the March wind ushers morn.

Ninian
And woes that wound the sight,
And spectres disappear.

Percy
And men are men of might.

Herbert
And love is crystal-clear.

Sandy
And I swear by the light,
And the noon and the night,
It is good, it is good to be here!