Still through the ivy flits the bee Simætha calls on Hecate And hears the wild dogs at the gate: Still by the light and laughing sea Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate: And still in boyish rivalry Young Daphnis challenges his mate: Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee, O singer of Persephone! Dost thou remember Sicily? Oscar Wilde [1856-1900] AVE ATQUE VALE IN MEMORIAM ARTHUR UPSON [1877-1908] I You found the green before the Spring was sweet The haunting fragrance that the south-wind knows And now the Spring is here, the snows are gone, And all the branches throb with love and Spring; But never comes one note to greet the dawn, God speed, great soul, your valiant wandering! Ave Atque Vale 3433 II Your hand that traced these lines, and now is dust! Still linger somewhere-yet no answer saith Stilled in the music of a yester-year That ever echoes its sweet instrument, III How quiet are their voices on the wind But stripped away from things that needs must die, Deep in that youth where death's strange secrets lie And whose faint whispers fall on us behind. Therefore to you the voices harbor peace, Yet more, the inmost murmuring of these; And in that mystic lore beyond release, IV I stood to-day upon time's border-land And looked far off across each rolling year, Yet scarcely their great thunder did I hear Nor marked the wreckage of the changing sand; For one soft note persuasive did command All other tones that reached my quickened ear, As in the saddened passing of fair things, The sorrow of the sunset and the dawn, For death that comes when life's hour least should Ever the moment's hush of lifted wings, A gleam of wonder ere the flood is gone. V October almost holds her golden sway Across these hills and through the slopes between, As if for you some sacrament unseen Were now unfolded in a silent way,— As if for you pale memory astray Had touched each spot of misted summer green, And in the coolness where the shadows lean Had whispered of a cherished yesterday. For one to whom you gave your youth's full praise Yielding the precious beauty of her days THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS A MIST was driving down the British Channel, And through the window-panes, on floor and panel, The Warden of the Cinque Ports It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon, 3435 And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover, To see the French war-steamers speeding over Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions, Their cannon, through the night, Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations Each answering each, with morning salutations, And down the coast, all taking up the burden, As if to summon from his sleep the Warden Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure, No drum-beat from the wall, No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure, No more, surveying with an eye impartial The long line of the coast, Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal Be seen upon his post! For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, In somber harness mailed, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, And, as he entered, darker grew, and deeper, He did not pause to parley or dissemble, But smote the Warden hoar; Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble And groan from shore to shore. Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited, The sun rose bright o'erhead; Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated That a great man was dead. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882] MEMORIAL VERSES [WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850] GOETHE in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. When Byron's eyes were shut in death, And yet with reverential awe We watched the fount of fiery life Which served for that Titanic strife. When Goethe's death was told, we said: Physician of the iron age, Goethe has done his pilgrimage. |