Classic Poem

But, lo! amid the woodland green
What mantles of strange blue are seen?
What sage is he who slowly leads
Disciples on and little heeds
The holiness of sylvan haunt,
Where even the silver bird dare chant
But seldom? where the sunlight lies
Here scalding gold, and yonder dies
Into a humid, still, green gloom?
Hath not he in the forum room
To vent himself, that now with rude
Rabble he scareth Solitude
From her ultimate hiding-place?
Now steps he forward a slow pace,
And 'gins his discourse. Hear him prate,
O woods, to silence consecrate;
Hear him, O flowers, whose golden eyes
Speak more than all Man's orat'ries! —

Philosopher . Meanwhile, though nations in distress
Cower at a comet's loveliness
Shaken across the midnight sky;
Though the wind roars, and Victory,
A virgin fierce, on vans of gold
Stoops through the cloud's white smother rolled
Over the armies' shock and flow
Across the broad green hills below,
Yet hovers and will not circle down
To cast t'ward one the leafy crown;
Though men drive galleys' golden beaks
To isles beyond the sunset peaks,
And cities on the sea behold
Whose walls are glass, whose gates are gold,
Whose turrets, risen in an hour,
Dazzle between the sun and shower,
Whose sole inhabitants are kings
Six cubits high with gryphon's wings
And beard and mien more glorious
Than Midas or Assaracus;
Though priests in many a hill-top fane
Lift anguished hands — and lift in vain —
Toward the sun's shaft dancing through
The bright roof's square of wind-swept blue;
Though 'cross the stars nightly arise
The silver fumes of sacrifice;
Though a new Helen bring new scars,
Pyres piled upon wrecked golden cars,
Stacked spears, rolled smoke, and spirits sped
Like a streaked flame toward the dead:
Though all these be, yet grows not old
Delight of sunned and windy wold,
Of soaking downs aglare, asteam,
Of still tarns where the yellow gleam
Of a far sunrise slowly breaks,
Or sunset strews with golden flakes
The deeps which soon the stars will throng.

For earth yet keeps her undersong
Of comfort and of ultimate peace,
That whoso seeks shall never cease
To hear at dawn or noon or night.
Joys hath she, too, joys thin and bright,
Too thin, too bright, for those to hear
Who listen with an eager ear,
Or course about and seek to spy,
Within an hour, eternity.
First must the spirit cast aside
This world's and next his own poor pride
And learn the universe to scan
More as a flower less as a man.
Then shall he hear the lonely dead
Sing and the stars sing overhead,
And every spray upon the heath
And larks above and ants beneath;
The stream shall take him in her arms;
Blue skies shall rest him in their calms;
The wind shall be a lovely friend,
And every leaf and bough shall bend
Over him with a lover's grace.
The hills shall bare a perfect face
Full of a high solemnity;
The heavenly clouds shall weep, and be
Content as overhead they swim
To be high brothers unto him.
No more shall he feel pitched and hurled
Uncomprehended into this world
For every place shall be his place,
And he shall recognize its face.
At dawn he shall upon his path;
No sword shall touch him, nor the wrath
Of the ranked crowd of clamorous men.
At even he shall home again,
And lay him down to sleep at ease,
One with the Night and the Night's peace.
Ev'n Sorrow, to be escaped of none,
But a more deep communion
Shall be to him, and Death at last
No more dreaded than the Past,
Whose shadow in the brain of earth
Informs him now and gave him birth.

Up, O Faun, up! is he a man
So dares affront the great god Pan?
Creep I now close. . . .
(Has he not heard
Ever the lamb cry as the bird
Descends upon its helpless head
To pluck its eyes out? Blank with dread
Did he ne'er press in stumbling haste
Over the wide moor's tossing waste?
Or, stripped to plunge, did never eye
The sunned pool smiling treacherously,
Despair and terror in his heart?
Hate on him!)
See: he draws apart
That with himself he may commune
The while to a low murmuring tune
Wrung from a golden-stringid lyre
The young men chant. Hist! Draws he nigher?
Now crouch I mid a thicket where
The spicy hedge-rose warms the air
With giddy scent, and for an hour
Woos with her open-bosomed flower
The full gaze of her lord the sun,
And through whose thorns the sunbeams run
Spangling the cavern of the brake
With chequered shade such as the snake
Loves to repose in, that the heat
Upon his sullen coils may beat,
Breeding within his ancient heart
Such malice that his tongue must dart
Flickering in silence out and in,
The while adown his withered skin,
From horns above his murderous eyes,
The cold surge shudders, ebbs, and dies.

And now yon comes, with solemn head
Sunk upon breast, with laurel spread
About his thought-bewrinkled brows.
All hail, philosopher! I rouse
Thee by a low and single hiss.
He is frozen still. A sudden bliss
Seizes me, and a branch I shake
As gently as an unseen snake
Swinging toward him.
But he stands,
Clasps and unclasps his gradual hands
In silence save for one long sigh
Of terror.
And I draw more nigh.
Beneath his glazed eyes I sway
Three leaves upon one stilly spray:
He blenches.
Ha! it was well done,
That final hiss.
I am alone:
For with a harsh cry he has fled
Hideously stumbling, and is led
Speechless away.
The lyre, forgot,
Lies in the grass. . . .