Classic Poem

(27 TH F EBRUARY 1881)

From mountains at the touch of rosy-fingered morning glowing
The epic verse of Homer like a stream divine is flowing,
By white swans haunted, through the fertile Asiatic plain.
 The tragedy of Aeschylus arises, rough and splendid
'Mid horror of fate and roar of fire and smoke and thunder blended,
Like Etna in the night-time o'er the dark Sicilian main.

The Olympic ode of Pindar, with oarage of its pinions
Like an eagle soaring proudly in its own supreme dominions,
Floats triumphantly at midday over mart and town beneath.
 In my study stands thy statue, grey-haired Victor Hugo, near
To the books of these three poets, with thy forehead of a seer
On thy right hand propped, as seeming one whom grief o'er-burdeneth.

Dost dream of sons or country? Dost dream of human sorrow?
I know not; but when, O prophet, of that secret grief I borrow
  A spell for heart and eyes,
No memory of losses past or present loss abideth,
But I remember years that were, and those the future hideth,
  And that which never dies.
I placed upon thy brow a twig of laurel, for thee broken
From off a nameless tomb beside the Appian Way, as token
  How I thy genius prize.
Poet, thou wert o'er force of Fate and Circumstance victorious;
Poet, beneath thy shining foot the Emperor inglorious
  With all his Empire lies.

What carest thou for life? Who tells the years thou shalt inherit?
Thou art of Gaul, thou art of France the everlasting spirit,
Which bursts from thy great heart to take its flight through centuries.
 In thee the muttering storms athwart the Breton sand-dunes creeping,
In thee the dreams of Norman plains beneath the moonlight sleeping,
In thee the heat of granite cliffs of the sunny Pyrenees.

In thee the sunburnt health of Bourgogne's vintagers, the fire
Of that Provençal song whose note Greek harmonies inspire,
The genius of the soil where Marne and Seine encircling flow.
 Thou sawest the Nomad wains encamped where once great Ilium towered.
Heard'st Frankish Roland wind his horn in Roncivalle o'er-powered,
Did'st talk familiarly with Godfrey, Bayard, and Marceau.

Thy fateful work, like Druid oak, a dreadful awe diffuses,
Whose sacred mistletoe is cut with golden axe by Muses
  Clad in white draperies.
From sunlit branches hang the harps; which bards of old have sounded,
Hang the ancestral arms; but nightingales within the rounded
  Shields sing love-melodies.
Spring whispers thro' the leaves, and girls deep in the shade are dancing.
And little children, golden-curled, with great blue eyes up glancing
  Toward the evening skies,
Where the tall branches mingle with the twilight, gaze in wonder,
For thither pass, girt round with lightning-flash and roar of thunder.
  The avenging Deities.

Poet, I 've hung the tricolour upon thy tresses hoary,
Sent to me from the Danube, from the waters of Salvore
By Trieste, who to none in passionate love oFrome doth yield.
 Poet, from the wall that faces thee the Brescian Victory crieth:
‘What year resplendent with the light of a fame that never dieth.
What name, shall I inscribe upon my everlasting shield?’

Our glory pass like churchyard wraiths that morning sunbeams banish,
Like shifting scenery of the stage kingdoms and empires vanish,
Yet archangelic moves thy verse serene and proud and free.
 To coming ages sing, old man, in godlike exultation
The ‘Carmen Seculare’ of the great Latin nation:
Yea, sing to the expectant world, Justice and Liberty.