'
Not for so swift forgetfulness you wrought,
Day upon day, with rapt fastidious pen,
Turning, like precious stones, with anxious thought,
This word and that again and yet again,
Seeking to match its meaning with the world;
Nor to the morning stars gave ears attent,
That you, indeed, might ever dare to be
With other praise than immortality
Unworthily content.
Not while a boy still whistles on the earth,
Not while a single human heart beats true,
Not while Love lasts, and Honour, and the Brave,
Has earth a grave,
O well-beloved, for you!
AN ODE TO SPRING
(TO GRANT AND NELLIE ALLEN)
Is it the Spring?
Or are the birds all wrong
That play on flute and viol,
A thousand strong,
In minstrel galleries
Of the long deep wood,
Epiphanies
Of bloom and bud.
Grave minstrels those,
Of deep responsive chant;
But see how yonder goes,
Dew-drunk, with giddy slant,
Yon Shelley-lark,
And hark!
Him on the giddy brink
Of pearly heaven
His fairy anvil clink.
Or watch, in fancy,
How the brimming note
Falls, like a string of pearls,
From out his heavenly throat;
Or like a fountain
In Hesperides,
Raining its silver rain,
In gleam and chime,
On backs of ivory girls--
Twice happy rhyme!
Ah, none of these
May make it plain,
No image we may seek
Shall match the magic of his gurgling beak.
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