I
As long as Fame's imperious music rings Will poets mock it with crowned words august;And haggard men will clamber to be kings As long as Glory weighs itself in dust.
II
Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled, Nor shudder for the revels that are done:
The wines that flushed Lucullus are all spilled, The strings that Nero fingered are all gone.
III
We cannot crown ourselves with everything, Nor can we coax the Fates for us to quarrel:
No matter what we are, or what we sing, Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel.
The WorldSome are the brothers of all humankind, And own them, whatsoever their estate;And some, for sorrow and self-scorn, are blind With enmity for man's unguarded fate.
For some there is a music all day long Like flutes in Paradise, they are so glad;And there is hell's eternal under-song Of curses and the cries of men gone mad.
Some say the Scheme with love stands luminous, Some say 't were better back to chaos hurled;And so 't is what we are that makes for us The measure and the meaning of the world.
An Old StoryStrange that I did not know him then, That friend of mine!
I did not even show him then One friendly sign;But cursed him for the ways he had To make me see My envy of the praise he had For praising me.
I would have rid the earth of him Once, in my pride!...
I never knew the worth of him Until he died.
Ballade of a ShipDown by the flash of the restless water The dim White Ship like a white bird lay;Laughing at life and the world they sought her, And out she swung to the silvering bay.
Then off they flew on their roystering way, And the keen moon fired the light foam flying Up from the flood where the faint stars play, And the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.
'T was a king's fair son with a king's fair daughter, And full three hundred beside, they say, --Revelling on for the lone, cold slaughter So soon to seize them and hide them for aye;But they danced and they drank and their souls grew gay, Nor ever they knew of a ghoul's eye spying Their splendor a flickering phantom to stray Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.
Through the mist of a drunken dream they brought her (This wild white bird) for the sea-fiend's prey:
The pitiless reef in his hard clutch caught her, And hurled her down where the dead men stay.
A torturing silence of wan dismay --
Shrieks and curses of mad souls dying --
Then down they sank to slumber and sway Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.
ENVOY
Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds' crying? --Or does love still shudder and steel still slay, Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying?
Ballade by the FireSlowly I smoke and hug my knee, The while a witless masquerade Of things that only children see Floats in a mist of light and shade:
They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, And with a weak, remindful glow, The falling embers break and fade, As one by one the phantoms go.
Then, with a melancholy glee To think where once my fancy strayed, I muse on what the years may be Whose coming tales are all unsaid, Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid Within their shadowed niches, grow By grim degrees to pick and spade, As one by one the phantoms go.
But then, what though the mystic Three Around me ply their merry trade? --And Charon soon may carry me Across the gloomy Stygian glade? --Be up, my soul! nor be afraid Of what some unborn year may show;But mind your human debts are paid, As one by one the phantoms go.
ENVOY
Life is the game that must be played:
This truth at least, good friend, we know;So live and laugh, nor be dismayed As one by one the phantoms go.
Ballade of Broken Flutes(To A.T.Schumann.)In dreams I crossed a barren land, A land of ruin, far away;Around me hung on every hand A deathful stillness of decay;And silent, as in bleak dismay That song should thus forsaken be, On that forgotten ground there lay The broken flutes of Arcady.
The forest that was all so grand When pipes and tabors had their sway Stood leafless now, a ghostly band Of skeletons in cold array.
A lonely surge of ancient spray Told of an unforgetful sea, But iron blows had hushed for aye The broken flutes of Arcady.
No more by summer breezes fanned, The place was desolate and gray;But still my dream was to command New life into that shrunken clay.
I tried it.Yes, you scan to-day, With uncommiserating glee, The songs of one who strove to play The broken flutes of Arcady.
ENVOY
So, Rock, I join the common fray, To fight where Mammon may decree;And leave, to crumble as they may, The broken flutes of Arcady.
Ballade of Dead FriendsAs we the withered ferns By the roadway lying, Time, the jester, spurns All our prayers and prying --All our tears and sighing, Sorrow, change, and woe --All our where-and-whying For friends that come and go.
Life awakes and burns, Age and death defying, Till at last it learns All but Love is dying;Love's the trade we're plying, God has willed it so;Shrouds are what we're buying For friends that come and go.
Man forever yearns For the thing that's flying.
Everywhere he turns, Men to dust are drying, --Dust that wanders, eying (With eyes that hardly glow)New faces, dimly spying For friends that come and go.
ENVOY
And thus we all are nighing The truth we fear to know:
Death will end our crying For friends that come and go.
Her EyesUp from the street and the crowds that went, Morning and midnight, to and fro, Still was the room where his days he spent, And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow.
Year after year, with his dream shut fast, He suffered and strove till his eyes were dim, For the love that his brushes had earned at last, --And the whole world rang with the praise of him.
But he cloaked his triumph, and searched, instead, Till his cheeks were sere and his hairs were gray.
"There are women enough, God knows," he said....
