THE PATRIOT. 79 THE PATRIOT. AN OLD STORY. T was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad. The air broke into a mist with bells, The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries. Had I said, "Good folks, mere noise repels, But give me your sun from yonder skies!" They had answered, "And afterward, what else?" Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun, To give it my loving friends to keep. Naught man could do, have I left undone, And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run. There's nobody on the house-tops now, - I go in the rain, and, more than needs, Thus I entered Brescia, and thus I go! In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead. "Thou, paid by the World,-what dost thou owe Me?" God might have questioned: but now instead 'Tis God shall requite! I am safer so. A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. 81 L A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. [Time. Shortly after the revival of learning in Europe.] ET us begin, and carry up this corpse, Singing together. Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes, Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, Look out if yonder 's not the day again That's the appropriate country, - there, man's thought, Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop : On a tall mountain, citied to the top, Crowded with culture! All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's Circling its summit! Thither our path lies, - wind we up the heights, Wait ye the warning? Our low life was the level's and the night's; Step to a tune, square chests, erect the head, This is our master, famous, calm, and dead, Sleep, crop and herd! Sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy face and throat, Lyric Apollo ! Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! No, that's the world's way! (keep the mountain-side, He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Left play for work, and grappled with the world Bent on escaping: "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? Show me their shaping, Theirs, who most studied man, the bard and sage, Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Learned, we found him! Yea, but we found him bald, too, Accents uncertain: eyes like lead, "Time to taste life," another would have said, Up with the curtain!" This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Let me know all. Prate not of most or least, Painful or easy: Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, O, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give; Image the whole, then execute the parts, Fancy the fabric Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, 83 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. (Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place Gaping before us.) Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace (Hearten our chorus) Still before living he 'd learn how to live, Earn the means first, - God surely will contrive Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes, Live now or never!" He said, "What's Time? leave Now for dogs and apes! Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head; Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead; Step two a-breast, the way winds narrowly.) Back to his studies, fresher than at first, He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) O, if we draw a circle premature, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure, Was it not great? did he not throw on God, God's task to make the heavenly period Did not he magnify the mind, show clear He would not discount life, as fools do here, Paid by instalment ! He ventured neck or nothing, heaven's success "Wilt thou trust death or not?" he answered, "Yes. |