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[First published 1867.]
I THE EVENING comes, the field is still. | |
| The tinkle of the thirsty rill, | |
| Unheard all day, ascends again; | |
| Deserted is the new-reap’d grain, | |
| Silent the sheaves! the ringing wain, | 5 |
| The reaper’s cry, the dogs’ alarms, | |
| All housed within the sleeping farms! | |
| The business of the day is done, | |
| The last belated gleaner gone. | |
| And from the thyme upon the height, | 10 |
| And from the elder-blossom white | |
| And pale dog-roses in the hedge, | |
| And from the mint-plant in the sedge, | |
| In puffs of balm the night-air blows | |
| The perfume which the day forgoes. | 15 |
| And on the pure horizon far, | |
| See, pulsing with the first-born star, | |
| The liquid sky above the hill! | |
| The evening comes, the field is still. | |
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| Loitering and leaping, | 20 |
| With saunter, with bounds— | |
| Flickering and circling | |
| In files and in rounds— | |
| Gaily their pine-staff green | |
| Tossing in air, | 25 |
| Loose o’er their shoulders white | |
| Showering their hair— | |
| See! the wild Maenads | |
| Break from the wood, | |
| Youth and Iacchus | 30 |
| Maddening their blood! | |
| See! through the quiet corn | |
| Rioting they pass— | |
| Fling the piled sheaves about, | |
| Trample the grass! | 35 |
| Tear from the rifled hedge | |
| Garlands, their prize; | |
| Fill with their sports the field, | |
| Fill with their cries! | |
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| Shepherd, what ails thee, then? | 40 |
| Shepherd, why mute? | |
| Forth with thy joyous song! | |
| Forth with thy flute! | |
| Tempts not the revel blithe? | |
| Lure not their cries? | 45 |
| Glow not their shoulders smooth? | |
| Melt not their eyes? | |
| Is not, on cheeks like those, | |
| Lovely the flush?— | |
| Ah, so the quiet was! | 50 |
| So was the hush! | |
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II The epoch ends, the world is still. | |
| The age has talk’d and work’d its fill— | |
| The famous orators have done, | |
| The famous poets sung and gone, | 55 |
| The famous men of war have fought, | |
| The famous speculators thought, | |
| The famous players, sculptors, wrought, | |
| The famous painters fill’d their wall, | |
| The famous critics judged it all. | 60 |
| The combatants are parted now, | |
| Uphung the spear, unbent the bow, | |
| The puissant crown’d, the weak low! | |
| And in the after-silence sweet, | |
| Now strife is hush’d, our ears doth meet, | 65 |
| Ascending pure, the bell-like fame | |
| Of this or that down-trodden name | |
| Delicate spirits, push’d away | |
| In the hot press of the noon-day. | |
| And o’er the plain, where the dead age | 70 |
| Did its now silent warfare wage— | |
| O’er that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom, | |
| Where many a splendour finds its tomb, | |
| Many spent fames and fallen mights— | |
| The one or two immortal lights | 75 |
| Rise slowly up into the sky | |
| To shine there everlastingly, | |
| Like stars over the bounding hill. | |
| The epoch ends, the world is still. | |
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| Thundering and bursting | 80 |
| In torrents, in waves— | |
| Carolling and shouting | |
| Over tombs, amid graves— | |
| See! on the cumber’d plain | |
| Clearing a stage, | 85 |
| Scattering the past about, | |
| Comes the new age! | |
| Bards make new poems, | |
| Thinkers new schools, | |
| Statesmen new systems, | 90 |
| Critics new rules! | |
| All things begin again; | |
| Life is their prize; | |
| Earth with their deeds they fill, | |
| Fill with their cries! | 95 |
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| Poet, what ails thee, then? | |
| Say, why so mute? | |
| Forth with thy praising voice! | |
| Forth with thy flute! | |
| Loiterer! why sittest thou | 100 |
| Sunk in thy dream? | |
| Tempts not the bright new age? | |
| Shines not its stream? | |
| Look, ah, what genius, | |
| Art, science, wit! | 105 |
| Soldiers like Caesar, | |
| Statesmen like Pitt! | |
| Sculptors like Phidias, | |
| Raphaels in shoals, | |
| Poets like Shakespeare— | 110 |
| Beautiful souls! | |
| See, on their glowing cheeks | |
| Heavenly the flush! | |
| Ah, so the silence was! | |
| So was the hush! | 115 |
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| The world but feels the present’s spell, | |
| The poet feels the past as well; | |
| Whatever men have done, might do, | |
| Whatever thought, might think it too. | |
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