POPULARITY. I. STAND still, true poet that you are! I know you; let me try and draw you. Some night you'll fail us: when afar You rise, remember one man saw you, Knew you, and named a star! II. My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend That loving hand of His which leads you, Yet locks you safe from end to end Of this dark world, unless He needs you, Just saves your light to spend? III. His clenched hand shall unclose at last, Accepts the coming ages' duty, IV. That day, the earth's feast-master's brow Shall clear, to God the chalice raising; "Others give best at first, but Thou "Forever set'st our table praising, "Keep'st the good wine till now!" V. Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand, With few or none to watch and wonder: I'll say a fisher, on the sand By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder, A netful, brought to land. VI. Who has not heard how Tyrian shells VII. And each bystander of them all Could criticize, and quote tradition How depths of blue sublimed some pall VIII. Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh, The sea has only just o'er-whispered! Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh, As if they still the water's lisp heard Through foam the rock-weeds thresh. IX. Enough to furnish Solomon Such hangings for his cedar-house, X. Most like the centre-spike of gold Which burns deep in the blue-bell's womb What time, with ardours manifold, The bee goes singing to her groom, Drunken and overbold. XI. Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof! The liquor filtered by degrees, While the world stands aloof. XII. And there's the extract, flasked and fine, And priced and saleable at last! And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine To paint the future from the past, Put blue into their line. XIII. Hobbs hints blue,-straight he turtle eats: Both gorge. Who fished the murex up? The true poet is he who discovers and discloses, for man's recognition and enjoyment, the hidden beauties which abound everywhere in the great kingdom of God. These beauties may be unrecognised at first, so that the poet is not known as a poet, except to such as the speaker here is supposed to be ("I know you"). He recognises in him a star. How is it, then, that his light is hidden? The hand of God, who looks down on him from far above ("God's glow-worm") as I look up to him from far below ("my star"), has closed around him to keep him and his light safe till the time shall come for discovery (Stanza 3) and for recognition (4). The drawing, or simile follows, of a Tyrian fisherman (5), who brings from the great sea the common-looking little whelk, from which, by a secret process, is obtained that wonderful dye which out-dazzles art, and almost equals Nature's most exquisite tints (6-10). While the process is going on, the world stands aloof (11); but as soon as the extract is "priced and saleable," the commonest people (12) can recognise it and make it pay (13); while the man who fished it up remains poor and unknown to fame. The application is made with characteristic brevity, oddity, and antithetic power: Nokes, Stokes, & Co., gorging turtle; John Keats wanting porridge ! In connection with "Popularity" should be studied "The Two Poets of Croisic," far too long to be inserted here. An interesting comparison, also, may be made with a little poem of Tennyson's called 'The Flower," beginning "Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed, Up there came a flower, The people said, a weed." ་་ THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL. A PICTURE AT FANO. I. DEAR and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending, Another still, to quiet and retrieve. II. Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more, With those wings, white above the child who prays Now on that tomb-and I shall feel thee guarding Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door. III. I would not look up thither past thy head Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread? |