English

Thus flies the hour.
Meanwhile, O Muse, withdraw awhile apart,
And note yon figure bending in the woods.
It is the dame of Oakland gathering herbs —
Here plucking liverwort, and there the rank
Hot stems of penny-royal — and, anon,
With crooked fingers, in the easy mould,
Digging the sinuous snake-root, and what else
Her curious knowledge finds. In bundles tied,
These all must at her odorous ceiling hang,
To dry mid swinging sheaves of various mint,
Plucked from the garden and the brook; with sage

What sounds are these which thrill the morning star
Hailing the advancing banner of the sun,
While now the herald dawn, with backward hair,
Inflates his winding horn, and wakes the day,
Speeding across the hill-tops? Hark, the roll
Of distant cannon rumbling through the sky,
As if a huge triumphal car, in haste,
Were rolling and resounding through the streets
Of some glad city welcoming its return;
While lesser sounds of bells and rattling guns
Swell the rejoicing hour! It is the day
When Independence celebrates her birth —

A vision strode before me toward the west,
What time the day let drop its golden shield —
A giant form with sun-illumined face:
His hue was like the last dull bar that falls
At eve athwart the hill-tops. From his brow,
A plume of many colours 'gainst the sky
Blazed like a torch-flame. In his tawny hand
A mighty bow he bore — so tall, its top
Flamed in the sun-down, while the low extreme
Trailed the dusk dews, unseen, along the vale.
His eyes were deep, cavernous, unsubdued —
So deep, a curse seemed crouching in their depth —

If from this oaten pipe —
Plucked from the shadow of primeval woods,
And waked to changeful numbers by strange airs,
Born by my native stream, in leafy depths
Of unfrequented glades — somewhat of song
Pour through its simple stops, and wake again
In other hearts what I have felt in mine,
Then not in vain I hold it to my lips,
And breathe the fulness of my soul away.
My theme, the country — worthier theme is not
In all the tomes which star the centuries,
From blind Maeonides to Milton blind!

I sing the battle of the soul:

At moon-wane, in furious foam-flecked seas, eddies and spouts and spirals,
The dreaming soul, a wave of flesh, whipped, wandering, tossing on hilly waters,
Becomes aware of itself ...

The bellbuoys clang longings for freedom,
And the sea like innumerable bells takes up the song, and goes pealing with it,
And the waking soul rolls like a bell clanging for liberation ...

" I am a child, " sings the soul,
" I am a child and a slave ... "
" I am a child of two mothers ... "

CHAPTER II .

Indeed they do presage what will betide,
With the misgiving verdict of misdeeds;
They know a fall will follow after pride,
And in so foul a heart grows many weeds:
Our life is short, quoth they; no, 'tis too long,
Lengthen'd with evil thoughts and evil tongue.

A life must needs be short to them that dies,
For life once dead in sin doth weakly live;
These die in sin, and mask in death's disguise,

The Gods held talk together, group'd in knots,
Round Balder's corpse, which they had thither borne;
And Hermod came down tow'rds them from the gate.
And Lok, the father of the serpent, first
Beheld him come, and to his neighbour spake: —
" See, here is Hermod, who comes single back
From Hell; and shall I tell thee how he seems?
Like as a farmer, who hath lost his dog,
Some morn, at market, in a crowded town —
Through many streets the poor beast runs in vain,
And follows this man after that, for hours;

2. JOURNEY TO THE DEAD

Forth from the east, up the ascent of Heaven,
Day drove his courser with the shining mane;
And in Valhalla, from his gable-perch,
The golden-crested cock began to crow.
Hereafter, in the blackest dead of night,
With shrill and dismal cries that bird shall crow,
Warning the Gods that foes draw nigh to Heaven;
But now he crew at dawn, a cheerful note,
To wake the Gods and Heroes to their tasks.
And all the Gods, and all the Heroes, woke.

I. SENDING

So on the floor lay Balder dead; and round
Lay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears,
Which all the Gods in sport had idly thrown
At Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove;
But in his breast stood fixt the fatal bough
Of mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gave
To Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw —
'Gainst that alone had Balder's life no charm.
And all the Gods and all the Heroes came,
And stood round Balder on the bloody floor,

Claude Monet uses, with essential ease,
The basic method of the Japanese
Who trace the feeling of the object shown
Thro' realism of the form and tone.
In handling masses they reject detail,
And triumph where atomic painters fail.
Like the old Greeks they better Nature's best,
And this is Classic Art's abiding test;
For ideal truth is Beauty's inner law
Freed from the trammel of material flaw.

Hundreds of years ere Monet saw the light,
Or Degas came, to charm with central sight,