Argos and Pteleon with its shrines and groves,
Celestial Messa populous with doves;
And Pelion with his shaggy, changing brow,
Blue Titaresus, and the gulf of steel,
Whose waves that glass the floating swan, reveal
Snowy Camyre to Oloossone's snow.
Tell me what golden dreams shall charm our sleep,
Whence shall be drawn the tears that we shall weep?
This morning when thy lids were touched with light,
What pensive seraph, bending kindly near,
Dropped lilacs from his airy robe of white,
And whispered beams of love within thine ear?
Say, shall we sing of sadness, joy or hope?
Or bathe in blood the settled, steel-clad ranks?
See lovers mount the ladder's silken rope?
Or fleck the wind with coursers' foaming flanks?
Or shall we tell whose hand the lamps above,
In the celestial mansions, year by year,
Kindles with sacred oil of life and love?
With Tarquin shall we cry, "Come, night is here!"
Or shall we dive for pearls beneath the seas,
Or find the wild goats by the alpine trees?
Bid melancholy gaze upon the skies?
Follow the huntsman on the upland lawns?
The roe uplifts her tearful, suppliant eyes,
Her heath awaits her, and her suckling fawns;
He stoops, he slaughters her, he flings her heart
Still warm amidst his panting hounds apart.
Or shall we paint a maid with vermeil cheek,
Who, with her page behind, to vespers fares,
Beside her mother, dreamy-eyed and meek,
And on her half-oped lips forgets her prayers,
Trembles midst echoing columns, hearkening
To hear her bold knight's clanging spurs outring.
Or shall we bid the heroes of old France
Scale full equipped the battlemented wall,
And so revive the simple-strained romance
Their fame inspired our troubadours withal?
Or shall we clothe soft elegies in white?
Or bid the man of Waterloo recite
His story, and the crop mown by his art,
Or ere the herald of eternal night
On his green mound with fatal wing did smite
And cross his hands above his iron heart?
Or shall we gibbet on some satire here
The name thrice-bought of some pale pamphleteer,
Who, hunger-goaded, from his haunts obscure,
Dared, quivering with impotence and spite,
Insult the hope on Genius' brow of light,
And gnaw the wreath his breath had made impure?