Of horror that, and thrilling fears,

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

Nor second he, that rode sublime Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, The secrets of the abyss to spy.

He passed the flaming bounds of place and time: The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze,

Where Angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,

Closed his eyes in endless night.

Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,

Wide o'er the fields of glory bear

Two coursers of ethereal race,

With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace.

Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,

Scatters from her pictured urn

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

But ah, 'tis heard no more!

O Lyre divine! what daring Spirit

Wakes thee now? Though he inherit

Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban Eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air:

Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray,

With orient hues, unborrowed of the Sun:

Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the Good how far-but far above the Great.

Thomas Gray [1716–1771]

SEAWEED

WHEN descends on the Atlantic

The gigantic

Storm-wind of the equinox,

Landward in his wrath he scourges

The toiling surges,

Laden with seaweed from the rocks:

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far-off, bright Azore;

From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,

Answering the hoarse Hebrides;

And from wrecks of ships, and drifting Spars, uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas,—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main;

Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion

Strike the ocean

Of the poet's soul, ere long,

From each cave and rocky fastness

In its vastness,

Floats some fragment of a song:

From the far-off isles enchanted
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of Truth;

From the flashing surf, whose vision

Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor

That for ever

Wrestles with the tides of Fate;

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,

Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate;

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;

Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded

Household words, no more depart.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807–1882]

TO THE MUSES

WHETHER on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the Sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceased;
Whether in heaven ye wander fair,
Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air

Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea,
Wandering in many a coral grove;
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry;

How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoyed in you!

The languid strings do scarcely move,

The sound is forced, the notes are few.

William Blake [1757-1827]

"WHITHER IS GONE THE WISDOM AND THE POWER"

WHITHER is gone the wisdom and the power
That ancient sages scattered with the notes
Of thought-suggesting lyres? The music floats
In the void air; e'en at this breathing hour,

In every cell and every blooming bower
The sweetness of old lays is hovering still:
But the strong soul, the self-constraining will,
The rugged root which bare the winsome flower
Is weak and withered. Were we like the fays
That sweetly nestle in the fox-glove bells,
Or lurk and murmur in the rose-lipped shells
Which Neptune to the earth for quit-rent pays,
Then might our pretty modern Philomels
Sustain our spirits with their roundelays.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1849]

THE MUSES

Of old the Muses sat on high,

And heard and judged the songs of men;
On one they smiled, who loitered by;
Of toiling ten, they slighted ten.

"They lightly serve who serve us best,
Nor know they how the task was done;

We Muses love a soul at rest,

But violence and toil we shun."

If men say true, the Muses now

Have changed their ancient habitude,
And would be served with knitted brow,
And stress and toil each day renewed.

So each one with the other vies,

Of those who weave romance or song:
"On us, O Muse, bestow thy prize,
For we have striven well and long!"

And yet methinks I hear the hest

Come murmuring down from Helicon:
"They lightly serve who serve us best,
Nor know they how the task was done!”
Edith M. Thomas [1854-

THE MOODS

(AFTER READING CERTAIN OF THE IRISH POETS)

THE Moods have laid their hands across my hair:
The Moods have drawn their fingers through my heart;
My hair shall nevermore lie smooth and bright,
But stir like tide-worn sea-weed, and my heart
Shall nevermore be glad of small, sweet things,-
A wild rose, or a crescent moon,-
-a book
Of little verses, or a dancing child.

My heart turns crying from the rose and brook,
My heart turns crying from the thin bright moon,
And weeps with useless sorrow for the child.
The Moods have loosed a wind to vex my hair,
And made my heart too wise, that was a child.

Now I shall blow like smitten candle-flame;
I shall desire all things that may not be:
The years, the stars, the souls of ancient men,
All tears that must, and smiles that may not be,—
Yes, glimmering lights across a windy ford,

Yes, vagrant voices on a darkened plain,

And holy things, and outcast things, and things
Far too remote, frail-bodied, to be plain.

My pity and my joy are grown alike;

I cannot sweep the strangeness from my heart.

The Moods have laid swift hands across my hair:

The Moods have drawn swift fingers through my heart. Fannie Stearns Davis [18

THE PASSIONATE READER TO HIS POET

DOTH it not thrill thee, Poet,

Dead and dust though thou art,

To feel how I press thy singing
Close to my heart?