The White Bees | Page 9

stained
Thy pillow, thou didst read the fate ordained,--
Brief life,
wild love, a flight of poesy!
And then,--a shadow fell on Italy:
Thy
star went down before its brightness waned.
Yet thou hast won the gift Tithonus missed:
Never to feel the pain of
growing old,
Nor lose the blissful sight of beauty's truth,
But with
the ardent lips that music kissed
To breathe thy song, and, ere thy
heart grew
cold,
Become the Poet of Immortal Youth.
SHELLEY

Knight-errant of the Never-ending
Quest,
And Minstrel of the Unfulfilled Desire;
For ever tuning thy
frail earthly lyre
To some unearthly music, and possessed
With
painful passionate longing to invest
The golden dream of Love's
immortal fire
In mortal robes of beautiful attire,
And fold perfection
to thy throbbing breast!
What wonder, Shelley, if the restless wave
Should claim thee and the
leaping flame consume
Thy drifted form on Viareggio's beach?
Fate to thy body gave a
fitting grave,
And bade thy soul ride on with fiery plume,
Thy wild
song ring in ocean's yearning
speech!
ROBERT BROWNING
How blind the toil that burrows like the mole,
In winding graveyard pathways underground,
For Browning's lineage! What if men have
found
Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll
Of his forbears?
Did they beget his soul?
Nay, for he came of ancestry renowned

Through all the world,--the poets laurelcrowned
With wreaths from which the autumn takes no
toll.
The blazons on his coat-of-arms are these:
The flaming sign of
Shelley's heart on fire,
The golden globe of Shakespeare's human
stage,
The staff and scrip of Chaucer's pilgrimage,
The rose of
Dante's deep, divine desire,
The tragic mask of wise Euripides.

LONGFELLOW
In a great land, a new land, a land full of labour
and riches and confusion,
Where there were many running to and fro,
and
shouting, and striving together,
In the midst of the hurry and the
troubled noise,
I heard the voice of one singing.
"What are you doing there, O man, singing
quietly amid all this tumult?
This is the time for new inventions,
mighty
shoutings, and blowings of the trumpet."
But he answered, "I am only
shepherding my
sheep with music."
So he went along his chosen way, keeping his
little flock around him;
And he paused to listen, now and then, beside
the antique fountains,
Where the faces of forgotten gods were
refreshed
with musically falling waters;
Or he sat for a while at the blacksmith's door,
and heard the cling-clang of the anvils;
Or he rested beneath old
steeples full of bells,
that showered their chimes upon him;
Or he walked along the border
of the sea, drinking

in the long roar of the billows;
Or he sunned himself in the pine-scented shipyard,
amid the tattoo of the mallets;
Or he leaned on the rail of the bridge,
letting
his thoughts flow with the whispering river;
He hearkened also to
ancient tales, and made
them young again with his singing.
Then a flaming arrow of death fell on his flock,
and pierced the heart of his dearest!
Silent the music now, as the
shepherd entered
the mystical temple of sorrow:
Long he tarried in darkness there: but
when he
came out he was singing.
And I saw the faces of men and women and
children silently turning toward him;
The youth setting out on the
journey of life, and
the old man waiting beside the last mile-stone;
The toiler sweating
beneath his load; and the
happy mother rocking her cradle;
The lonely sailor on far-off seas; and the greyminded
scholar in his book-room;
The mill-hand bound to a clacking machine;
and
the hunter in the forest;
And the solitary soul hiding friendless in the

wilderness of the city;
Many human faces, full of care and longing, were
drawn irresistibly toward him,
By the charm of something known to
every heart,
yet very strange and lovely,
And at the sound of that singing
wonderfully
all their faces were lightened.
"Why do you listen, O you people, to this old
and world-worn music?
This is not for you, in the splendour of a new
age, in the democratic triumph!
Listen to the clashing cymbals, the
big drums, the
brazen trumpets of your poets."
But the people made no answer, following in
their hearts the simpler music:
For it seemed to them, noise-weary,
nothing
could be better worth the hearing
Than the melodies which brought
sweet order
into life's confusion.
So the shepherd sang his way along, until he
came unto a mountain:
And I know not surely whether it was called
Parnassus,
But he climbed it out of sight, and still I heard
the voice of one singing.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
I
BIRTHDAY VERSES
Dear Aldrich, now November's mellow days
Have brought another Festa round to you,
You can't refuse a
loving-cup of praise
From friends the fleeting years have bound to
you.
Here come your Marjorie Daw, your dear Bad
Boy,
Prudence, and Judith the Bethulian,
And many more, to wish
you birthday joy,
And sunny hours, and sky caerulean!
Your children all, they hurry to your den,
With wreaths of honour
they have won for
you,
To merry-make your threescore