Of a hapless lover's wail;
Offspring of an idle hour,
Whence has come thy lasting power?
By what turn of rhythm or phrase,
By what subtle careless grace,
Can thy music charm our ears
After full three hundred years?
Little song, since thou wert born,
In the Reformation morn,
How much great has passed away,
Shattered or by slow decay,
Stately piles in ruins crumbled,
Lordly houses lost and humbled,
Thrones and realms in darkness hurled,
Noble flags for ever furled,
Wisest schemes by statesmen spun,
Time has seen them one by one
Like the leaves of Autumn fall—
A little song outlives them all.
There were mighty scholars then,
With the slow, laborious pen,
Piling up their words of learning,
Men of solid, deep discerning,
Widely famous as they taught
Systems of connected thought,
Destined for all future ages;
Now the cobweb binds their pages;
All unread their volumes lie
Mouldering so peaceably,
Coffined thoughts of coffined men,
Never more to stir again.
In the passion and the strife,
In the fleeting forms of life,
All their force and meaning gone
As the stream of thought flows on.
Flying through the world so long?
Canst thou on thy fairy pinions,
Cleave the future's dark dominions,
And with music soft and clear
Charm the yet unfashioned ear,
Mingling with the things unborn,
When perchance another morn,
Great as that which gave thee birth,
Dawns upon the changing earth?
It may be so, for all around,
With a heavy crashing sound,
Like the ice of polar seas
Melting in the summer breeze,
Signs of change are gathering fast,
Nations breaking with their past.
The pulse of thought is beating quicker,
The lamp of faith begins to flicker,
The ancient reverence decays
With forms and types of other days,
And old beliefs grow faint and few
As knowledge moulds the world anew,
And scatters far and wide the seeds
Of other hopes and other creeds;
And all in vain we seek to trace
The fortunes of the coming race,
Some with fear and some with hope-
None can cast its horoscope.
Vap'rous lamp or rising star,
Many a light is seen afar,
And dim shapeless figures loom
All around us in the gloom-
Forces that may rise and reign
As the old ideals wane.
Landmarks of the human mind
One by one are left behind,
And a subtle change is wrought
In the mould and cast of thought;
Modes of reasoning pass away,
Types of beauty lose their sway;
Creeds and causes that have made
Many noble lives must fade,
And the words that thrilled of old
Now seem hueless, dead, and cold
Fancy's rainbow tints are flying,
Thoughts, like men, are slowly dying;
All things perish, and the strongest
Often do not last the longest ;
The stately ship is seen no more,
The fragile skiff attains the shore ;
And while the great and wise decay,
And all their trophies pass away,
Some sudden thought, some careless rhyme,
Still floats above the wrecks of Time.
Roll forward, now subside, anon emerge, Upheaved in glory o'er a setting sun, Those beatific harmonies sweep on!
O'er earth they sweep from heaven's remotest verge
Triumphant hymeneal, hymn and dirge,
Blending in everlasting unison.
Whence is the music? Stranger, these were
That, great in love, by love unvanquished proved :
These were true lovers, for in God they loved :
With God, these Spirits rest in endless day, Yet still for Love's behoof, on wings outspread
Float on o'er earth, betwixt the Angels and the Dead!
In the merry hay-time we raked side by side, In the harvest he whispered-Wilt thou be my bride?
And my girl-heart bounded-Forgive, God,
If I loved him more than Thee in the merry hay-time.
In the sad hay-time I sit on the grass, The scythe whistles clear, the merry mowers pass;
But he cometh never, for under the lime Is a long low hillock since the last hay-time.
Still, as we saunter down the crowded street, On our own thoughts intent, and plans, and pleasures,
For miles and miles beneath our idle feet, Rome buries from the day yet unknown
The whole world's alphabet, in every line Some stirring page of history she recalls, Her Alpha is the Prison Mamertine,
Her Omega, St. Paul's, without the walls.
Above, beneath, around, she weaves her spells,
And ruder hands unweave them all in
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