Historical & Legendary Ballads & Songs By Walter Thornbury. Illustrated by J. Whistler, F. Walker, John Tenniel, J. D. Watson, W. Small, F. Sandys, G. J. Pinwell, T. Morten, M. J. Lawless, and many others |
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The Grub Street Poet's Vision.
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 | Historical & Legendary Ballads & Songs |  |
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The Grub Street Poet's Vision.
Bards of ancient time were blessed with visions:
Did not Dante see again his Beatrice
On the broad golden steps of heaven at sunset,
Calm in serenity of changeless peace?
Did not Dante see again his Beatrice
On the broad golden steps of heaven at sunset,
Calm in serenity of changeless peace?
Grub Street now, alas! has lost such seers,
Bailiff harpies vex its garret-dwellers;
No more nectar from bright Hebe's beaker
Fills up the hogsheads in the poet's cellars.
Bailiff harpies vex its garret-dwellers;
No more nectar from bright Hebe's beaker
Fills up the hogsheads in the poet's cellars.
And yet, kind angels, how I flaunt my falsehood!
Lo, there descends a gracious vision. See!
Where the huge bow of the proud crescent Quadrant,
Bends with such power and stately majesty.
Lo, there descends a gracious vision. See!
Where the huge bow of the proud crescent Quadrant,
Bends with such power and stately majesty.
Yes! look in yonder gravely rolling chariot:
In Roman triumph to a poet's seeming
There sits a very queen—but, nay, a Goddess,—
The Venus of my long, long years of dreaming.
In Roman triumph to a poet's seeming
There sits a very queen—but, nay, a Goddess,—
The Venus of my long, long years of dreaming.
How like the face of her from whom I parted
In anger thirty weary years ago!
Ah! she regards me not: yet, would she know me,
Poor, old, and worn with life's rough ebb and flow?
In anger thirty weary years ago!
Ah! she regards me not: yet, would she know me,
Poor, old, and worn with life's rough ebb and flow?
Unchanged her face, ye Gods of old Olympus!
The brow of Dian, bright, serenely chaste,
The neck of Hebe, eyes of Ariadne,
The zone of Venus girding round that waist.
The brow of Dian, bright, serenely chaste,
The neck of Hebe, eyes of Ariadne,
The zone of Venus girding round that waist.
And what a form! Oh, never Grecian sculptor
Shaped out a Nereïd from the marble stone
Half so divinely fair. And in a moment
Dead love returns and claims his fallen throne.
Shaped out a Nereïd from the marble stone
Half so divinely fair. And in a moment
Dead love returns and claims his fallen throne.
From a high mountain you have seen a sunset
Show for a moment through the parting gloom,
So came that vision, and so swift its passage,
Then deeper, darker spreads the boding gloom.
Show for a moment through the parting gloom,
So came that vision, and so swift its passage,
Then deeper, darker spreads the boding gloom.
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So fades the rainbow and so fall the roses:
Life's joys are only shown us and withdrawn;
Once more the weary tramp, the lonely vigil,
The drudging labour till the grey of dawn.
Life's joys are only shown us and withdrawn;
Once more the weary tramp, the lonely vigil,
The drudging labour till the grey of dawn.
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