I.
The Poets pour wine; and, when 'tis new, all decry it;
But, once let it be old, every trifler must try it.
And Polonius, who praises no wine that's not Massic, Complains of my verse, that my verse is not classic.
And Miss Tilburina, who sings, and not badly, My earlier verses, sighs "Commonplace sadly!"
As for you, O Polonius, you vex me but slightly;
But you, Tilburina, your eyes beam so brightly In despite of their languishing looks, on my word, That to see you look cross I can scarcely afford.
Yes! the silliest woman that smiles on a bard Better far than Longinus himself can reward The appeal to her feelings of which she approves;
And the critics I most care to please are the Loves.
Alas, friend! what boots it, a stone at his head And a brass on his breast,--when a man is once dead?
Ay! were fame the sole guerdon, poor guerdon were then Theirs who, stripping life bare, stand forth models for men.
The reformer's?--a creed by posterity learnt A century after its author is burnt!
The poet's?--a laurel that hides the bald brow It hath blighted! The painter's?--Ask Raphael now Which Madonna's authentic! The stateman's?--a name For parties to blacken, or boys to declaim!
The soldier's?--three lines on the cold Abbey pavement!
Were this all the life of the wise and the brave meant, All it ends in, thrice better, Neaera, it were Unregarded to sport with thine odorous hair, Untroubled to lie at thy feet in the shade And be loved, while the roses yet bloom overhead, Than to sit by the lone hearth, and think the long thought, A severe, sad, blind schoolmaster, envied for naught Save the name of John Milton! For all men, indeed, Who in some choice edition may graciously read, With fair illustration, and erudite note, The song which the poet in bitterness wrote, Beat the poet, and notably beat him, in this--
The joy of the genius is theirs, whilst they miss The grief of the man: Tasso's song--not his madness!
Dante's dreams--not his waking to exile and sadness!
Milton's music--but not Milton's blindness! . . .
Yet rise, My Milton, and answer, with those noble eyes Which the glory of heaven hath blinded to earth!
Say--the life, in the living it, savors of worth:
That the deed, in the doing it, reaches its aim:
That the fact has a value apart from the fame:
That a deeper delight, in the mere labor, pays Scorn of lesser delights, and laborious days:
And Shakespeare, though all Shakespeare's writings were lost, And his genius, though never a trace of it crossed Posterity's path, not the less would have dwelt In the isle with Miranda, with Hamlet have felt All that Hamlet hath uttered, and haply where, pure On its death-bed, wrong'd Love lay, have moan'd with the Moor!
II.
When Lord Alfred that night to the salon return'd He found it deserted. The lamp dimly burn'd As though half out of humor to find itself there Forced to light for no purpose a room that was bare.
He sat down by the window alone. Never yet Did the heavens a lovelier evening beget Since Latona's bright childbed that bore the new moon!
The dark world lay still, in a sort of sweet swoon, Wide open to heaven; and the stars on the stream Were trembling like eyes that are loved on the dream Of a lover; and all things were glad and at rest Save the unquiet heart in his own troubled breast.
He endeavor'd to think--an unwonted employment, Which appear'd to afford him no sort of enjoyment.
III.
"Withdraw into yourself. But, if peace you seek there for, Your reception, beforehand, be sure to prepare for,"
Wrote the tutor of Nero; who wrote, be it said, Better far than he acted--but peace to the dead!
He bled for his pupil: what more could he do?
But Lord Alfred, when into himself he withdrew, Found all there in disorder. For more than an hour He sat with his head droop'd like some stubborn flower Beaten down by the rush of the rain--with such force Did the thick, gushing thoughts hold upon him the course Of their sudden descent, rapid, rushing, and dim, From the cloud that had darken'd the evening for him.
At one moment he rose--rose and open'd the door, And wistfully look'd down the dark corridor Toward the room of Matilda. Anon, with a sigh Of an incomplete purpose, he crept quietly Back again to his place in a sort of submission To doubt, and return'd to his former position,--
That loose fall of the arms, that dull droop of the face, And the eye vaguely fix'd on impalpable space.
The dream, which till then had been lulling his life, As once Circe the winds, had seal'd thought; and his wife And his home for a time he had quite, like Ulysses, Forgotten; but now o'er the troubled abysses Of the spirit within him, aeolian, forth leapt To their freedom new-found, and resistlessly swept All his heart into tumult, the thoughts which had been Long pent up in their mystic recesses unseen.
IV.
How long he thus sat there, himself he knew not, Till he started, as though he were suddenly shot, To the sound of a voice too familiar to doubt, Which was making some noise in the passage without.
A sound English voice; with a round English accent, Which the scared German echoes resentfully back sent;
The complaint of a much disappointed cab-driver Mingled with it, demanding some ultimate stiver;
Then, the heavy and hurried approach of a boot Which reveal'd by its sound no diminutive foot:
And the door was flung suddenly open, and on The threshold Lord Alfred by bachelor John Was seized in that sort of affectionate rage or Frenzy of hugs which some stout Ursa Major On some lean Ursa Minor would doubtless bestow With a warmth for which only starvation and snow Could render one grateful. As soon as he could, Lord Alfred contrived to escape, nor be food Any more for those somewhat voracious embraces.
Then the two men sat down and scann'd each other's faces:
And Alfred could see that his cousin was taken With unwonted emotion. The hand that had shaken His own trembled somewhat. In truth he descried At a glance, something wrong.
V.
"What's the matter?" he cried.
"What have you to tell me?"
JOHN.
What! have you not heard?
ALFRED.
Heard what?
JOHN.
