Poems of the Past and the Present | Page 8

upon the scene,?With its saffron walls, dun tiling,
And its meads of maiden green,
VI
Even as when the trackway thundered
With the charge of grenadiers,?And the blood of forty hundred
Splashed its parapets and piers . . .
VII
Any ancient crone I'd toady
Like a lass in young-eyed prime,?Could she tell some tale of Lodi
At that moving mighty time.
VIII
So, I ask the wives of Lodi
For traditions of that day;?But alas! not anybody
Seems to know of such a fray.
IX
And they heed but transitory
Marketings in cheese and meat,?Till I judge that Lodi's story
Is extinct in Lodi's street.
X
Yet while here and there they thrid them
In their zest to sell and buy,?Let me sit me down amid them
And behold those thousands die . . .
XI
? Not a creature cares in Lodi How Napoleon swept each arch, Or where up and downward trod he,
? Or for his memorial March!
XII
So that wherefore should I be here,
Watching Adda lip the lea,?When the whole romance to see here
Is the dream I bring with me?
XIII
And why sing "The Bridge of Lodi"
As I sit thereon and swing,?When none shows by smile or nod he
Guesses why or what I sing? . . .
XIV
Since all Lodi, low and head ones,
Seem to pass that story by,?It may be the Lodi-bred ones
Rate it truly, and not I.
XV
Once engrossing Bridge of Lodi,
Is thy claim to glory gone??Must I pipe a palinody,
Or be silent thereupon?
XVI
And if here, from strand to steeple,
Be no stone to fame the fight,?Must I say the Lodi people
Are but viewing crime aright?
XVII
Nay; I'll sing "The Bridge of Lodi" -
That long-loved, romantic thing,?Though none show by smile or nod he
Guesses why and what I sing!
ON AN INVITATION TO THE UNITED STATES
I
My ardours for emprize nigh lost?Since Life has bared its bones to me,?I shrink to seek a modern coast?Whose riper times have yet to be;?Where the new regions claim them free?From that long drip of human tears?Which peoples old in tragedy?Have left upon the centuried years.
II
For, wonning in these ancient lands,?Enchased and lettered as a tomb,?And scored with prints of perished hands,?And chronicled with dates of doom,?Though my own Being bear no bloom?I trace the lives such scenes enshrine,?Give past exemplars present room,?And their experience count as mine.
THE MOTHER MOURNS
When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time,
And sedges were horny,?And summer's green wonderwork faltered
On leaze and in lane,
I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly
Came wheeling around me?Those phantoms obscure and insistent
That shadows unchain.
Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me
A low lamentation,?As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened,
Perplexed, or in pain.
And, heeding, it awed me to gather
That Nature herself there?Was breathing in aerie accents,
With dirgeful refrain,
Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days,
Had grieved her by holding?Her ancient high fame of perfection
In doubt and disdain . . .
? "I had not proposed me a Creature (She soughed) so excelling All else of my kingdom in compass
? And brightness of brain
"As to read my defects with a god-glance,
Uncover each vestige?Of old inadvertence, annunciate
Each flaw and each stain!
"My purpose went not to develop
Such insight in Earthland;?Such potent appraisements affront me,
And sadden my reign!
"Why loosened I olden control here
To mechanize skywards,?Undeeming great scope could outshape in
A globe of such grain?
"Man's mountings of mind-sight I checked not,
Till range of his vision?Has topped my intent, and found blemish
Throughout my domain.
"He holds as inept his own soul-shell -
My deftest achievement -?Contemns me for fitful inventions
Ill-timed and inane:
"No more sees my sun as a Sanct-shape,
My moon as the Night-queen,?My stars as august and sublime ones
That influences rain:
"Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching,
Immoral my story,?My love-lights a lure, that my species
May gather and gain.
"'Give me,' he has said, 'but the matter
And means the gods lot her,?My brain could evolve a creation
More seemly, more sane.'
? "If ever a naughtiness seized me To woo adulation From creatures more keen than those crude ones
? That first formed my train -
"If inly a moment I murmured,
'The simple praise sweetly,?But sweetlier the sage'--and did rashly
Man's vision unrein,
"I rue it! . . . His guileless forerunners,
Whose brains I could blandish,?To measure the deeps of my mysteries
Applied them in vain.
"From them my waste aimings and futile
I subtly could cover;?'Every best thing,' said they, 'to best purpose
Her powers preordain.' -
"No more such! . . . My species are dwindling,
My forests grow barren,?My popinjays fail from their tappings,
My larks from their strain.
"My leopardine beauties are rarer,
My tusky ones vanish,?My children have aped mine own slaughters
To quicken my wane.
"Let me grow, then, but mildews and mandrakes,
And slimy distortions,?Let nevermore things good and lovely
To me appertain;
"For Reason is rank in my temples,
And Vision unruly,?And chivalrous laud of my cunning
Is heard not again!"
"I SAID TO LOVE"
I said to Love,?"It is not now as in old days?When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;?Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One?Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.
I said to him,?"We now know more of thee than then;?We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,?We clamoured thee