Women with smiling eyes and star-spun hair
Spake gentle things, bade me look back to view
The deeds of the great souls who climbed the stair
Immortal, and for whom God's manna grew:
Dante, Anacreon, Euripides,
And all who set rich wine upon the lees.
THE ACCOLADE
Men of brave stature came and placed their hands
Upon my head, and, lifting shining swords,
Drew through the air signs mightier than words,
And vanished in the sun upon the sands.
Glimpses I caught of faces that have come
Through crowding ages; whisperings of songs;
And prayers for the redress of human wrongs
From voices that upon the earth are dumb.
They were but shadows, but they lent me joy;
They gave me reverence for all who pace
The world with hands raised, evil to destroy,
Who live but for the honour of their race.
They taught me to strike at no idol raised,
Worshipped a space, then left to be dispraised.
FALLEN IDOLS
Stedfastness, shall we find it, then, at all?
Is it that as the winds blow north and south,
So must be praises from the loud world's mouth,
Which on its heroes in their glory fall?
Because the voice grows stiller, or the arm
No longer can beat evils back; because
The shoulders sink beneath new-rising cause,
And the fine thought has lost its moving charm;
Because of these shall puny sages shake
Their heads, and haste to mock the failing one,
Who in his strength could make the nations quake;
Prophet like Daniel, King like Solomon!
In this full time we have seen mockers run
About the throne of such as Tennyson.
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