Classic Poem

" Seedsmen of old Saturn's land,
Love and peace went hand in hand,
And sowed the Era Golden!

" Golden time for man and mead:
Title none, nor title-deed,
Nor any slave, nor Soldan.

" Venus burned both large and bright,
Honey-moon from night to night,
Nor bride, nor groom waxed olden.

" Big the tears, but ruddy ones,
Crushed from grapes in vats and tuns
Of vineyards green and golden!

" Sweet to sour did never sue,
None repented ardour true —
Those years did so embolden.

" Glum Don Graveairs slunk in den:
Frankly roved the gods with men
In gracious talk and golden.

" Thrill it, cymbals of my rhyme,
Power was love, and love in prime,
Nor revel to toil beholden.

" Back, come back, good age, and reign,
Goodly age, and long remain —
Saturnian Age, the Golden!"

The masquer gone, by stairs that climb,
In seemly sort, the friars withdrew;
And, waiting that, the Islesman threw
His couplets of the Arcadian time,
Then turning on the pilgrims: " Hoo!

" The bird-of-paradise don't like owls:
A handful of acorns after the cowls!"

But Clarel, bantered by the song,
Sad questioned, if in frames of thought
And feeling, there be right and wrong;
Whether the lesson Joel taught
Confute what from the marble 's caught
In sylvan sculpture — Bacchant, Faun,
Or shapes more lax by Titian drawn.
Such counter natures in mankind —
Mole, bird, not more unlike we find:
Instincts adverse, nor less how true
Each to itself. What clue, what clue?