Classic Poem

THIS is the honey in the lion's jaws:
That from the reverberant roar
And wrack of savage war
Art saves a sweet repose, by mystic laws
Not by long labor learned
But by keen love discerned;
For this it bears the palm:
To show the storms of life in terms of calm.
Not what he knew but what he felt,
Gave secret power to this Celt.
Master of harmony, his sense could find
A bond of likeness among things diverse,
And could their forms in beauty so immerse
That to the enchanted mind
Ideal and real seem a single kind.

Behold our gaunt Crusader, grimly brave,
The swooping eagle in his face,
The very genius of command,
And her not less, with her imperious hand,—
The herald Victory holding equal pace.
Not trulier in the blast
Moves prow with mast;
Line mates with flowing line, as wave with following wave—
Rider and homely horse
Intent upon their course
As though she went not with them. Near or far,
One is their import: she the dream, the star—
And he the prose, the iron thrust—of War.