ARIEL
Wild requiem of the heart whose vibratings,
With laughter fraught, and tears,
Beat through the century's dying years
While for one more dark round the old Earth plumes her wings.
No answer came to thee; from ether fell
No voice, no radiant beam; and in thy youth
How were it else, when still the oracle
Withholds its truth?
We sit in judgment,—we, above thy page
Judge thee and such as thee,
Pale heralds, sped too soon to see
The marvels of our late yet unanointed age!
The slaves of air and light obeyed afar
Thy summons, Ariel; their elf-horns wound
Strange notes which all uncapturable are
Of broken sound.
That music thou alone couldst rightly hear
(O rare impressionist!)
And mimic. Therefore still we list
To its ethereal fall in this thy cyclic year.
Be then the poet's poet still! for none
Of them whose minstrelsy the stars have blessed
Has from expression's wonderland so won
The unexpressed,—
So wrought the charm of its elusive note
On us, who yearn in vain
To mock the pæan and the plain
Of tides that rise and fall with sweet mysterious rote.
Was it not well that the prophetic few,
So long inheritors of that high verse,
Dwelt in the mount alone, and haply knew
What stars rehearse?
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