Your Virgil of a spouse, in Attica: yea, thrid The mob of men, select the special virtue hid In him, forsooth, and say - or rather, smile so sweet,

"Of all the multitude, you I prefer to cheat! Are you for Athens bound? I can perform the trip,

Shove little pinnace off, while yon superior ship,

The Elvire, refits in port!" So, off we push from beach

Of Pornic town, and lo, ere eye can wink, we reach

The Long Walls, and I prove that Athens is no dream,

For there the temples rise! they are, they nowise seem!

Earth is not all one lie, this truth attests me true!

Thanks therefore to Fifine! Elvire, I'm back with you!

Share in the memories! Embark I trust we shall

Together some fine day, and so, for good and all,

Bid Pornic Town adieu, - then, just the strait to cross,

And we reach harbor, safe, in Iostephanos!

Frankly, we simulate!" To feign, means to have grace

And so get gratitude! This ruler of the race, Crowned, sceptred, stoled to suit, - 't is not that you detect

The cobbler in the king, but that he makes effect

By seeming the reverse of what you know to be

The man, the mind, whole form, fashion, and quality.

Mistake his false for true, one minute, - there's an end

Of the admiration! Truth, we grieve at or rejoice:

'T is only falsehood, plain in gesture, look and

Keeps thoughts apart from facts, and to one flowing vein

Confines its sense of that which is not, but might be,

And leaves the rest alone. What ghosts do poets see?

What demons fear? what man or thing misapprehend?

Unchecked, the channel's flush, the fancy 's free to spend

Its special self aright in manner, time and place.

Never believe that who create the busy race O' the brain, bring poetry, to birth, such act performed,

Feel trouble them, the same, such residue as warmed

My prosy blood, this morn, intrusive fancies,

Thought hankers after speech, while no speech may evince

Feeling like music, mine, o'erburdened with each gift

From every visitant, at last resolved to shift Its burden to the back of some musician dead And gone, who feeling once what I feel now, instead

Of words, sought sounds, and saved forever, in the same,

Truth that escapes prose,

shame.

- nay, puts poetry to

I read the note, I strike the key, I bid record
The instrument, - thanks greet the veritable
word!
And not in vain I urge :
O dead and gone

away,

66

Assist who struggles yet, thy strength become

my stay,

Thy record serve as well to register - I felt And knew thus much of truth! With me,

must knowledge melt

Into surmise and doubt and disbelief, unless
Thy music reassure — - I gave no idle guess,
But gained a certitude, I yet may hardly keep!
What care? since round is piled a monumental
heap

Of music that conserves the assurance, thon as well

Wast certain of the same! thou, master of the spell,

Mad'st moonbeams marble, didst record what

other men

Feel only to forget!" Who was it helped me, then?

To board-head just the dish which other condiment

Makes palatable now: guests came, sat down, fell-to,

Rose up, wiped mouth, went way, -lived, died, and never knew

That generations yet should, seeking sustenance, Still find the selfsame fare, with somewhat to enhance

Its flavor, in the kind of cooking. As with hates And loves and fears and hopes, so with what emulates

The same, expresses hates, loves, fears, and hopes in Art: The forms, the themes

counterpart

no one without its

Ages ago; no one but, mumbled the due time I' the mouth of the eater, needs be cooked again in rhyme,

Dished up anew in paint, sauce-smothered fresh in sound,

To suit the wisdom-tooth, just cut, of the age, that 's found

With gums obtuse to gust and smack which relished so

The meat o' the meal folk made some fifty

From out its frontispiece, feathered or scaled or curled,

To make the vizard whence himself should view the world,

And where the world believed himself was manifest.

Yet when you came to look, mixed up among the rest

More funnily by far, were masks to imitate Humanity's mishap: the wrinkled brow, bald pate,

And rheumy eyes of Age, peak'd chin and parchment chap,

Were signs of day-work done, and wage-time near, mishap

Merely; but, Age reduced to simple greed and guile,

Worn apathetic else as some smooth slab, erewhile

A clear-cut man-at-arms i' the pavement, till foot's tread

Effaced the sculpture, left the stone you saw instead,

Was not that terrible beyond the mere uncouth?

Well, and perhaps the next revolting you was Youth,

Stark ignorance and crude conceit, half smirk, half stare

On that frank fool-face, gay beneath its head of hair Which covers nothing.

Each variant quality, and brute-beast touch was turned

Into mankind's safeguard! Force, guile, were arms which earned

My praise, not blame at all: for we must learn to live,

Case-hardened at all points, not bare and sensitive,

But plated for defence, nay, furnished for attack,

With spikes at the due place, that neither front nor back

May suffer in that squeeze with nature, we find - life.

Are we not here to learn the good of peace through strife,

Of love through hate, and reach knowledge by ignorance?

Why, those are helps thereto, which late we eyed askance,

And nicknamed unaware! Just so, a sword we call

Superfluous, and cry out against, at festival: Wear it in time of war, its clink and clatter.