Uprises the great deep and throws himself Its cities- who forgets not, at the sight FROM JULIUS CÆSAR This was the noblest Roman of them all: Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar; -Shakespeare ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, Whom late the Nation he had led, With ashes on her head, Wept with a passion of an angry grief: Forgive me, if from the present things I turn And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote: For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; But by his clear-grained human worth, They knew that outward grace is dust; In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, Could Nature's equal scheme deface And thwart her genial will; Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. I praise him not; it were too late; And some native weakness there must be In him who condescends to victory Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, So always firmly he: He knew to bide his time, And can his fame abide, Still patient in his simple faith sublime, Great captains, with their guns and drums, These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, TO A SKYLARK Hail to thee, blithe spirit! That from heaven, or near it, In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth surpass: Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine! I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? With thy clear, keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? |