Classic Poem

On an eve that May
chose to assay its powers,
portraying on the earth
the finery of heaven,
without fear nor doubt
it might, in such ostent,
rich, arrogant, presumptuous and proud,
be vanquished;
and as the westering sun
with incandescent light
fell whirling o'er the verge
— Phaeton headlong from
his ardent chariot hurled —
to burial in rosy sepulchre,
a mead appears,
spangled with flowers
in such luxuriance that it defies
and dares to vie with them as many stars
as shine upon the globe.

Sentinel stands
above this fair champaign
a Mountain, emerald
from peak to spacious lap;
Argus-like with white lilies
it is besprent and bright;
towering colossus,
rude Atlas of the skies,
lofty Polypheme
bruising with his brow the clouds,
and on whose pinnacle
a living fountain springs.
And finding no repose
in the close durance of its quiet bed,
the limpid Fount
channels its sands
and cunning vents
in threads of crystal, silver veins,
until impetuous
— its prison rent —
from the high peak it falls,
a snowy Icarus,
to gush in glassy coils
all down the Mountain's breast.
It comes to the fair lap
and frolicks joyfully
with gillyflowers and myrtles,
dewing with pearls their rubies;
and the mead, so imbued
with snow of running crystal,
puts forth fresh wreaths of flowers,
diversifies its hues,
in floral tribute making good as much
as from the stream it drank.

Thus richly clad the Mead,
when sorrowful
— stricken with fears,
his heart immersed in care —
upon the belvedere a Monk appeared
who could no longer
suffer his own self,
as by increasing pangs he is assailed;
with brimming eyes
and fitful pulse
and halting breath
and with a profane tumult in his thoughts.
To hill and dale,
seeing them thus adorned, he bends his gaze,
so haply they might still
the inner turmoil of his discourses.
Suspended all his sense
in a profound amaze,
on what he sees he lives;
for there he nought discerns
save only hill and field
that gently lull his grief
— as tumult slackens
and the close rig of pain
when falls the wind
that lashed the heart to storm —
till by a tuneful Goldfinch,
augur of calm to come,
he is aroused
from this dead life.

He lighted on a spray
of willow — verdant reef —
and in high counterpoint,
taking for theme his loves
and loving jealousies,
suspended heaven with his harmony.
Still be the strains
with which the Thracian charmed the savage beasts,
and hushed the tones
with which Amphion's lyre
gave movement to the stones,
and ended the grave harmony
in whose toils Arion took
the foaming dolphins:
for the Goldfinch had stayed
Phaeton in his career
were he not hindered, cracking his fiery whip,
from lending ear thereto.
The flowers at his coming joined
their plaudits, at his voice fell still,
and some to see him stood on their tiptoes.
The noisy brook
incontinent made halt,
its current left behind
— albeit quickened crystal, living ice —
and to its rapid steps
the sound of such sweet strains made obstacle.

The tuneful Goldfinch
checked his song and, the while,
free, joyous, sumptuous,
combed with his beak his wings;
like foam he ruffles
his gaudy plume
whose sheen the sun
oft envious shone upon.
Again he pipes
his boasted song
and the whole hemisphere
hangs on his melody,
and more ravished still
the sorry wretch
whose grievous adverse lot
turns all this suavity
to poisoned cup of bitterness.
And so, his slighted
heart dissolved
in fervent tears
welling from his eyes,
looking on the Goldfinch
— in contemplation of his blessed freedom —
he bespeaks him thus:

" Happy birdling
who dost sweetly sing
perched on these verdant shoots;
I grieve, thou jestest,
I complain while thou exultest;
the cause wherefor thou jestest and I grieve
is that thou art most alien from my grief,
and I hold manacled
the freedom, Goldfinch, that thou dost enjoy.
Ah, sweet freedom,
wasted in the flower of my years!
In bondage, gentle Goldfinch,
thou wouldest be less garrulous, I vow,
for thy dire pains
would tie thy tongue;
and prisoner moan
thy perished freedom, destitute of song.
Begone, confusion;
let now the spirit's perturbation cease;
in dread of what do I tremble
if to the world I also may take flight?

" If in crystal cradle
the Stream is born, and harks after its torrents,
finding its destined way
in perilous places,
in spite of crags and steeps,
and sundered seeking freedom;
if the Rose, in boastful beauty,
breaks the green bud's spiny clasp
to come abroad, fairest of all,
albeit the untimely birth
doom her to die to-morrow;
if the Fish, in windless depths
of Neptune's surging main,
joyous, despite the storm
that scours his domain,
comes safe from shore to shore
and — scaly vessel — cleaves the seas:
who do I hold
captive my freedom, I
whose empire is so free there is no might
may limit or pervert it?
In what law, Heaven, is it writ
that Stream, Rose, Fish and Bird,
born in servitude, shall enjoy
the liberty that never was their portion,
and I (absurdity!)
freeborn, not freely will? "

Thus he spoke,
and already made resolve
— blind and in despair —
to renounce his holy state,
when he beheld,
soaring, beating the air,
a Hawk appear
— Pirate whose sustenance
is plunder, feathered bolt,
wandering meteor, vertiginous comet.
Well armed with talons,
his beak a furbished sword,
he speeds his course,
spreading his body's sails.
Plumy craft, he towers
even to the clouds, to feign himself a cloud,
and thence — eyeing
the Goldfinch singing,
happy and careless,
heedless of peril,
the Hawk, poising,
stoops boltlike from the clouds
with such muffled thunder
that it is heard by none
but by the Bird who, terrorstruck,
beheld himself between the talons mangled
so unawares
that he together ended
his life and song,
breathing his latest accent from the wound,
leaving by his baneful death the flowers
beset with fears
and weeping piteously
such innocence so injured and aggrieved.

Then, full of horror,
and fresh affright,
the Monk, confused,
penitent, sorrowing,
learning from this strange hap
the cause of all his woe,
and bathed in tears
wrung from him by the violence of his grief,
desists from his intent
— his reason lit by God —
and makes him ready
with inward exhortation in this sort:

" See, soul, the liberty
that blind thou covetest,
for it is not fitting thou shouldst err
by ignorance in such a weighty matter.

" In a dead Goldfinch mark
thine own enlightenment,
and if its life deceived,
so may its death instruct thee.

" If in a cage the birdling
had been a prisoner,
on him, though seen, the Hawk
had never dared to seize.

" For living free he dies!
Oh cogent argument,
if bound the Bird is safe,
'tis freedom that destroys him!

" And were it not to stray
in grassy freedom, the Stream
would never know the steeps
towards which its waters flow.

" And were it not to range
the sea's immensities,
nor would the reckless Fish
lose freedom in the nets.

" And though the garden Rose
freed from its thorns expand,
full well it dreads the brute
and the audacious hand.

" And the Bird, though winged, beholds
himself to as many perils
a prey as the crafty Corsairs
that press him and assail.

" If Stream, Fish, Bird and Rose
for sake of freedom die,
by Fish, Bird, Stream and Rose,
'tis well thou shouldst be warned.

" For if I captive live,
a willing prisoner I;
and scorn, if free I die,
such heedless liberty. "