TO SAPPHO. ANNIE FIELDS. Then while the earth made mimicry of heaven DAUGHTER of Love! Out of the flow- With stillness, calmly spake the ing river, mightiest judge: Bearing the tide of life upon its bil-O Eschylus! The father of our low, Down to that gulf where love and song together Sink and must perish: Out of that fatal and resistless current, One little song of thine to thy great mother, Treasured upon the heart of earth forever, Athenian master of the tragic lyre song! Thou the incomparable! Swayer of Immortal minstrel of immortal deeds! strong hearts! The autumn grows apace, and all must die; Soon winter comes, and silence. Eschylus! After that silence laughs the tuneful spring! Read'st thou our meaning through this slender veil Will evening bring no unsought fruitage home? Must the days pass and these poor lips be dumb, While strewing leaves sing falling through the air, And autumn gathers in her richest fruit? Where is my spring departed? Where, O gods! Within my spirit still the building birds I hear, with voice more tender than when leaves Are budding and the happy earth is gay. Am I, indeed, grown dumb for evermore! Take me, O bark! Take me, thou flowing stream! Who knowest nought of death save when thy waves Rush to new life upon the ocean's breast. Bear thou me singing to the under world! [From Sophocles.] AGED SOPHOCLES ADDRESSING THE ATHENIANS BEFORE READING HIS CEDIPUS COLONEUS. BOWED half with age and half with reverence, thus, I, Sophocles, now answer to your call; Questioned have I the cause and the reason learned. Lo, I am here that all the world may see These feeble limbs that signal of decay! But, know ye, ere the aged oak must die, Long after the strong years have bent his form, The spring still gently weaves a leafy crown, Fresh as of yore to deck his wintry head. And now, O people mine, who have loved my song, Ye shall be judges if the spring have brought Late unto me, the aged oak, a crown. Hear ye once more, ere yet the river of sleep Bear me away far on its darkening tide, The music breathed upon me from these fields. If to your ears, alas! the shattered strings No longer sing, but breathe a discord harsh, I will return and draw this mantle close About my head and lay me down to die. But if ye hear the wonted spirit call, Framing the natural song that fills this world To a diviner form, then shall ye all believe The love I bear to those most near to To the storm, To the voices of pleasure, Nor faint in the arms of the earth; Of thy grape was no frost and no Who knows both our death and our rain; I love thee! I follow thy feet! birth. And sing for bread and nightly rest The singer's carolling lips are dust, Voiceless as common men,- IN EXTREMIS. On, the soul-haunting shadows when low he'll lie dying, And the dread angel's voice for his spirit is crying! Where will his thoughts wander, just Will he go on beguiling, 'Tis June with him now, but quick cometh December; There's a broken heart somewhere for him to remember, And sure as God liveth, for all his gay trolling, The bell for his passing one day will be tolling! Then no more beguiling, A PROTEST. Go, sophist! dare not to despoil You see no light beyond the stars, No hope of lasting joys to come? I feel, thank God, no narrow bars Between me and my final home! O HAPPIEST he, whose riper years retain The hopes of youth, unsullied by a stain! His eve of life in calm content shall glide, Like the still streamlet to the ocean tide: No gloomy cloud hangs o'er his tranquil day; No meteor lures him from his home astray; For him there glows with glittering beam on high Love's changeless star that leads him to the sky; Still to the past he sometimes turns to trace The mild expression of a mother's face, And dreams, perchance, as oft in earlier years, The low, sweet music of her voice he hears. FIRST APPEARANCE AT The Odéon. "I AM Nicholas Tacchinardi,- hunchbacked, look you, and a fright; Caliban himself might never interpose so foul a sight. Granted; but I come not, masters, to exhibit formi or size. Gaze not on my limbs, good people; lend your ears, and not your eyes. Let me try my voice to-night here, keep your jests till I begin. Then the crowd in pit and boxes jeered the dwarf, and mocked his shape; Bowing low, pale Tacchinardi, long accustomed to such threats, 66 FRANCIS MILES FINCH. THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. By the flow of the inland river; Asleep are the ranks of the dead: Waiting the Judgment-Day; Under the other, the Gray. These in the robings of glory, Under the sod and the dew; Under the willow, the Gray. From the silence of sorrowful hours Lovingly laden with flowers, Alike for the friend and the foe; So, with an equal splendor, Waiting the Judgment-Day; So, when the summer calleth Waiting the Judgment-Day; |