Classic Poem

V

But, alas! it may not be;
Such joys, never meant to last
With wild youth nor be o'ercast,
Were not made, Old Man, for thee!
For she saw his locks were whitened
That his eyes no longer lightened:
That his heart no more expanded,
Nor his lip of pride commanded.
Yet, oh yet, life's sands withhold.
Ere from him for ever rolled!
In red harvest-fields, in bowers
With grapes' bacchanalian showers
Gushingly above him streaming,
Give the hours to rapture dreaming.

But such fleeting joys are hollow,
She must leave that scene enchanted;
Duty calls, and she must follow;
For the fruits her sister planted
Wither, if withheld the tone
Of life ripening from her own.
So her latest rose-wreath faded,
Drooping from her tresses braided;
From him slowly half-retiring,
Half-returning with her head
Averted still, and lingering tread;
Parting, yet to stay desiring,
Like the latest torch expiring
O'er the spent feast — Autumn fled!

VI

Then the P OET who had loved
That confiding Old Man, strayed
To his chamber; he had proved
All he felt, till he had made
His heart outwardly as cold
As that life his will controlled.
O'er his brow the wreath was bound,
In his hand the golden lyre;
While he waked its chords to sound,
His eye flashed ecstatic fire;
And he touched a mournful tune,
As you may have heard in noon
Of the stilly month of June,
When the brooklet sighs along
Voices deep that form a song.
Preluding, his fingers wandered
O'er those strings, uncertain, wild,
Even as that impulsive child,
While in musing thought he pondered;
As the wind Æolian numbers
Thrills along the harp that slumbers,
Its unmeasured symphonies;
As the lay of passion dies
In its own absorbing sighs,
The wild descant thus began: