Classic Poem

I listen to the songs you sing,
Grave elegies or gay romances,
And straight my limping thoughts take wing
To join you in a world of fancies;
To fly with you through time and space,
Beyond this life of mortal seeing,
New creatures of a changeful race
Your voice has ushered into being.

And on this phantom stage of yours,
Be farce or tragedy the drama,
One guiding motive still endures
Through all the shifting panorama:
Let love be crowned, or hope be mocked,
June or December rule the weather,
Your fate and mine rest interlocked,
To play our destined parts together.

How softly falls " the dying day, "
As you, that magic slumber ending,
" Across the hills, and far away, "
Close to my side your steps are wending;
How glow, like yonder Ayrshire sun,
The passion-laden lines I utter,
While you are " Mary Morison , "
And I the Bard beneath your shutter.

But ah! sometimes your songs remind
Of lilies stained and roses blighted,
That Beauty is not always kind,
That falsehood thrives, and faith is slighted;
How Vivien wove the charm unseen
For Merlin where the oaks were shady,
Or how " the River ran between "
The Soldier and his ruthless Lady.

And thus, and thus, the measures sway,
From Tosti's languid southern slumbers,
To Breton ballad, Scottish lay,
Or lofty Wagner's pregnant numbers:
But be their outcome laugh or sigh,
Their moral cynical or tender,
You queen it through them all, whilst I
My poor identity surrender.

For all my inmost fibres thrill
Responsive to your music's changes,
As answered to Amphion's quill
The rocks on purple Theban ranges;
You strike a solemn chord that brings
Me nigh to poet, saint, or hero, —
Till soon some flippant scherzo flings
My fine ambitions down to zero

But how reduce to common life
Such high and mystical devotion?
How (speaking plainly) take to wife
The figment of an hour's emotion? —
Well, after all, one must suppose
(And I for one would not upbraid him)
That Petrarch's self made love in prose,
And Bach without a fugue to aid him.