| |
| THY trivial harp will never please | |
| Or fill my craving ear; | |
| Its chords should ring as blows the breeze, | |
| Free, peremptory, clear. | |
| No jingling serenader’s art, | 5 |
| Nor tinkle of piano strings, | |
| Can make the wild blood start | |
| In its mystic springs. | |
| The kingly bard | |
| Must smite the chords rudely and hard, | 10 |
| As with hammer or with mace; | |
| That they may render back | |
| Artful thunder, which conveys | |
| Secrets of the solar track, | |
| Sparks of the supersolar blaze. | 15 |
| Merlin’s blows are strokes of fate, | |
| Chiming with the forest tone, | |
| When boughs buffet boughs in the wood; | |
| Chiming with the gasp and moan | |
| Of the ice-imprisoned flood; | 20 |
| With the pulse of manly hearts; | |
| With the voice of orators; | |
| With the din of city arts; | |
| With the cannonade of wars; | |
| With the marches of the brave; | 25 |
| And prayers of might from martyrs cave. | |
| |
| Great is the art, | |
| Great be the manners, of the bard. | |
| He shall not his brain encumber | |
| With the coil of rhythm and number; | 30 |
| But, leaving rule and pale forethought, | |
| He shall aye climb | |
| For his rhyme. | |
| “Pass in, pass in,” the angels say, | |
| “Into the upper doors, | 35 |
| Nor count compartments of the floors, | |
| But mount to paradise | |
| By the stairway of surprise.” | |
| |
| Blameless master of the games, | |
| King of sport that never shames, | 40 |
| He shall daily joy dispense | |
| Hid in song’s sweet influence. | |
| Forms more cheerly live and go, | |
| What time the subtle mind | |
| Sings aloud the tune whereto | 45 |
| Their pulses beat, | |
| And march their feet, | |
| And their members are combined. | |
| |
| By Sybarites beguiled, | |
| He shall no task decline; | 50 |
| Merlin’s mighty line | |
| Extremes of nature reconciled, | |
| Bereaved a tyrant of his will, | |
| And made the lion mild. | |
| Songs can the tempest still, | 55 |
| Scattered on the stormy air, | |
| Mould the year to fair increase, | |
| And bring in poetic peace. | |
| |
| He shall not seek to weave, | |
| In weak, unhappy times, | 60 |
| Efficacious rhymes; | |
| Wait his returning strength. | |
| Bird that from the nadir’s floor | |
| To the zenith’s top can soar,— | |
| The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey’s length. | 65 |
| Nor profane affect to hit | |
| Or compass that, by meddling wit, | |
| Which only the propitious mind | |
| Publishes when ’t is inclined. | |
| There are open hours | 70 |
| When the God’s will sallies free, | |
| And the dull idiot might see | |
| The flowing fortunes of a thousand years; | |
| Sudden, at unawares, | |
| Self-moved, fly-to the doors, | 75 |
| Nor sword of angels could reveal | |
| What they conceal. | |
| |
