And bold De Vega,-who breathed quick
Song after song, till death's old trick
Put pause to life and rhetorick.

And Goethe-with that reaching eye
His soul reached out from, far and high,
And fell from inner entity.

And Schiller, with heroic front
Worthy of Plutarch's kiss upon't,-
Too large for wreath of modern wont.

And Chaucer, with his infantine
Familiar clasp of things divine-
That mark upon his lip is wine.

Here, Milton's eyes strike piercing dim:
The shapes of suns and stars did swim
Like clouds from them, and granted him

God for sole vision. Cowley, there,
Whose active fancy debonnaire

Drew straws like amber-foul to fair.

Drayton and Browne,—with smiles they drew
From outward Nature, to renew
From their own inward nature true.

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben—
Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows, when
The world was worthy of such men.

And Burns, with pungent passionings
Set in his eyes. Deep lyric springs
Are of the fire-mount's issuings.

And Shelley, in his white ideal,
All statue blind; and Keats the real
Adonis, with the hymeneal

Fresh vernal buds half sunk between
His youthful curls, kissed straight and sheen
In his Rome-grave, by Venus queen.

And poor, proud Byron,―sad as grave,
And salt as life: forlornly brave,
And quivering with the dart he drave.

And visionary Coleridge, who
Did sweep his thoughts as angels do
Their wings, with cadence up the Blue.

These poets faced (and other more)
The lighted altar booming o'er
The clouds of incense dim and hoar:

And all their faces, in the lull

Of natural things, looked wonderful
With life and death and deathless rule.

All, still as stone, and yet intense;

As if by spirit's vehemence

That stone were carved, and not by sense.

All still and calm as statue-stone:

The life lay coiled unforegone

Up in the awful eyes alone,

And flung its length out through the air
Into whatever eyes should dare

To front them-Awful shapes and fair!

But where the heart of each should beat,
There seemed a wound instead of it,

From whence the blood dropped to their feet,

Drop after drop-dropped heavily,

As century follows century

Into the deep eternity.

Then said the lady-and her word

Came distant, -as wide waves were stirred

-

Between her and the ear that heard ;

"World's use is cold-world's love is vain,

World's cruelty is bitter bane;

But pain is not the fruit of pain.

"Hearken, O poet, whom I led

From the dark wood! Dismissing dread, Now hear this angel in my stead.

"His organ's pedals strike along These poets' hearts, which, metal strong, They gave him without count of wrong,

"From which foundation he can guide Up to God's feet, from these who died, An anthem fully glorified.

"Whereat God's blessing... IBARAK (777) Breathes back this music-folds it back About the earth in vapoury rack:

"And men walk in it, crying 'Lo!
'The world is wider, and we know
'The very heavens look brighter so.

"The stars move statelier round the edge 'O' the silver spheres, and give in pledge "Their light for nobler privilege.

"No little flower but joys or grieves-
'Full life is rustling in the sheaves;
'Full spirit sweeps the forest-leaves.'

"So works this music on the earth;
God so admits it, sends it forth,
To add another worth to worth-

"A new creation-bloom that rounds
The old creation, and expounds
His Beautiful in tuneful sounds.

"Now hearken!" Then the poet gazed
Upon the angel glorious-faced,
Whose hand, majestically raised,

Floated across the organ-keys,

Like a pale moon o'er murmuring seas,
With no touch but with influences.

Then rose and fell (with swell and swound
Of shapeless noises wandering round
A concord which at last they found)

Those mystic keys-the tones were mixed, Dim, faint; and thrilled and throbbed betwixt The incomplete and the unfixed:

And therein mighty minds were heard
In mighty musings, inly stirred,
And struggling outward for a word.

Until these surges, having run
This way and that, gave out as one
An Aphrodite of sweet tune,-

A Harmony, that, finding vent,
Upward in grand ascension went,
Winged to a heavenly argument-

Up, upward! like a saint who strips
The shroud back from his eyes and lips,
And rises in apocalypse.

A harmony sublime and plain,
Which cleft (as flying swan, the rain,—
Throwing the drops off with a strain

Of her white wing) those undertones
Of perplext chords, and soared at once,
And struck out from the starry thrones

Their several silver octaves, as
It passed to God. The music was
Of divine stature-strong to pass.

And those who heard it, understood
Something of life in spirit and blood-
Something of nature's fair and good.

And while it sounded, those great souls
Did thrill as racers at the goals,

And burn in all their aureoles.

But she, the lady, as vapour-bound,
Stood calmly in the joy of sound,-
Like Nature with the showers around.

And when it ceased, the blood which fell,
Again alone grew audible,

Tolling the silence as a bell.

The sovran angel lifted high
His hand, and spake out sovranly-
"Tried poets, hearken and reply!

"Give me true answers. If we grant
That not to suffer, is to want
The conscience of the Jubilant,—

"If ignorance of anguish is
But ignorance; and mortals miss
Far prospects, by a level bliss,-

"If, as two colours must be viewed
In a seen image, mortals should
Need good and evil, to see good,-

"If to speak nobly, comprehends
To feel profoundly,-if the ends
Of power and suffering, Nature blends,—

If poets on the tripod must

Writhe like the Pythian, to make just
Their oracles, and merit trust,—

"If every vatic word that sweeps

To change the world, must pale their lips,
And leave their own souls in eclipse,—

"If to search deep the universe

Must pierce the searcher with the curse,-
Because that bolt (in man's reverse),

"Was shot to the heart o' the wood, and lies Wedged deepest in the best,-if eyes That look for visions and surprise