POEMS OF OCCASION
Within some niche (once overhung
By whose sea-gazing cool pavilion?)
Sleep in their charm forever young
What idylls of the sweet Sicilian!
Not vain, Theocritus, our dream,—
Fresh songs of Etna's springs and grasses,
Of love-distracted Polypheme,
Of streets where couched Adonis passes.
What Dialogues, suppressed by Fate,
Of Plato's metaphysic rival,
Perchance in durance yet await
A bimillennial revival;
And "Hold!"—I hear Virgilians say—
"Was there no Latin then imbedded?
Slight not the golden verse, we pray,
Of bards to pure Augustan wedded."
So, Doctor, plead with State and Throne,
Adjure each latter-day Mæcenas;
Our pence and plaudits are your own,—
Our mandate—Frange nunc catenas!
Such vintage give the world to quaff,
Age-stored beneath its tedious rumble,
And many a laurelled cenotaph
Long ere your name dies out shall crumble.
March 10, 1905.
JOHN HAY
Fall'n like an eagle from his scaur—
From yon clear height none dared to soil!
Beats on that noble heart no more
Above the warfare and the spoil,—
The poet-statesman's, in whose thought
216
