Volume I Part 25 (2/2)

Of a strange company around And toward the altar, pale and bound With bay above the eyes profound.

Deathful their faces were, and yet The power of life was in them set-- Never forgot nor to forget:

Sublime significance of mouth, Dilated nostril full of youth, And forehead royal with the truth.

These faces were not multiplied Beyond your count, but side by side Did front the altar, glorified,

Still as a vision, yet exprest Full as an action--look and geste Of buried saint in risen rest.

The poet knew them. Faint and dim His spirits seemed to sink in him-- Then, like a dolphin, change and swim

The current: these were poets true, Who died for Beauty as martyrs do For Truth--the ends being scarcely two.

G.o.d's prophets of the Beautiful These poets were; of iron rule, The rugged cilix, serge of wool.

Here Homer, with the broad suspense Of thunderous brows, and lips intense Of garrulous G.o.d-innocence.

There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world: O eyes sublime With tears and laughters for all time!

Here aeschylus, the women swooned To see so awful when he frowned As the G.o.ds did: he standeth crowned.

Euripides, with close and mild Scholastic lips, that could be wild And laugh or sob out like a child

Even in the cla.s.ses. Sophocles, With that king's-look which down the trees Followed the dark effigies

Of the lost Theban. Hesiod old, Who, somewhat blind and deaf and cold, Cared most for G.o.ds and bulls. And bold

Electric Pindar, quick as fear, With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear Slant startled eyes that seem to hear

The chariot rounding the last goal, To hurtle past it in his soul.

And Sappho, with that gloriole

Of ebon hair on calmed brows-- O poet-woman! none forgoes The leap, attaining the repose.

Theocritus, with glittering locks Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks He watched the visionary flocks.

And Aristophanes, who took The world with mirth, and laughter-struck The hollow caves of Thought and woke

The infinite echoes hid in each.

And Virgil: shade of Mantuan beech Did help the shade of bay to reach

And knit around his forehead high: For his G.o.ds wore less majesty Than his brown bees hummed deathlessly.

Lucretius, n.o.bler than his mood, Who dropped his plummet down the broad Deep universe and said ”No G.o.d--”

Finding no bottom: he denied Divinely the divine, and died Chief poet on the Tiber-side

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