MERIDIAN
Speak out the hour, non potest quin, 't were well
The upper or the lower room to seek
For Tully's Latin, Homer's rhythmic Greek;—
Yet were it well? ay, brothers, if, alack,
For this one day the shadow might go back!
Ah, no! with doubtful faces each on each
We look, we speak with altered, graver speech:
The spell is gone! We know what 't is to wake
From an illusive dream, at morning's break,
That we again are dark-haired, buoyant, young,—
Scanning, once more, our spring-time mates among,
The grand hexameter—that anthem free
Of the pursuing, loud-resounding sea,—
To wake, anon, and know another day
Already speeds for one whose hairs are gray,—
In this swift change to lose a third of life
Lopped by the stroke of Memory's ruthless knife,
And feel, though naught go ill, it is a pain
That youth, lost youth, can never come again!
Were the dream real, or should we idly go
To yonder halls and strive to make it so,
There listening to the voices that rehearse,
Like ours of old, the swift Ionic verse,
What silvery speech could now for us restore
The cadence that we thought to hear once more?
The low, calm utterance of him who first
Our faltering minds to clearer knowledge nursed,—
The perfect teacher, who endured our raw
Harsh bleatings with a pang we never saw;
Whose bearing was so apt we scarcely knew,
At first, the wit that lit him through and through,
Strength's surplusage; nor, after many a day
Had taught us, rated well the heart that lay
Beneath his speech, nor guessed how brave a soul
In that frail body dwelt with fine control:
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