Counsel which the ages kept
Shall the well-born soul accept.
As the overhanging trees

Fill the lake with images,—

As garment draws the garment's hem,
Men their fortunes bring with them.
By right or wrong,

Lands and goods go to the strong.
Property will brutely draw
Still to the proprietor;

Silver to silver creep and wind,
And kind to kind.

Nor less the eternal poles
Of tendency distribute souls.
There need no vows to bind

Whom not each other seek, but find.
They give and take no pledge or oath,-
Nature is the bond of both:

No prayer persuades, no flattery fawns,-
Their noble meanings are their pawns.
Plain and cold is their address,
Power have they for tenderness;
And, so thoroughly is known
Each other's counsel by his own,
They can parley without meeting;
Need is none of forms of greeting;
They can well communicate
In their innermost estate;
When each the other shall avoid,
Shall each by each be most enjoyed.

Not with scarfs or perfumed gloves
Do these celebrate their loves;
Not by jewels, feasts, and savors,
Not by ribbons or by favors,
But by the sun-spark on the sea,
And the cloud-shadow on the lea,

The soothing lapse of morn to mirk,
And the cheerful round of work.
Their cords of love so public are,
They intertwine the farthest star:
The throbbing sea, the quaking earth,
Yield sympathy and signs of mirth;
Is none so high, so mean is none,
But feels and seals this union;
Even the fell Furies are appeased,
The good applaud, the lost are eased.

Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond,
Bound for the just, but not beyond;
Not glad, as the low-loving herd,
Of self in other still preferred,
But they have heartily designed
The benefit of broad mankind.
And they serve men austerely,
After their own genius, clearly,
Without a false humility;
For this is Love's nobility,-
Not to scatter bread and gold,
Goods and raiment bought and sold;
But to hold fast his simple sense,
And speak the speech of innocence,
And with hand and body and blood,
To make his bosom-counsel good.
For he that feeds men serveth few;
He serves all who dares be true.

THE APOLOGY

THINK me not unkind and rude
That I walk alone in grove and glen;

I go to the god of the wood

To fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that I

Fold my arms beside the brook; Each cloud that floated in the sky Writes a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,
For idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand

Goes home loaded with a thought.

There was never mystery

But 'tis figured in the flowers;

Was never secret history

But birds tell it in the bowers.

One harvest from thy field

Homeward brought the oxen strong; A second crop thine acres yield, Which I gather in a song.

MERLIN

I

THY trivial harp will never please

Or fill my craving ear;

Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,

Free, peremptory, clear.

No jingling serenader's art,

Nor tinkle of piano strings,

Can make the wild blood start

In its mystic springs.

The kingly bard

Must smite the chords rudely and hard,

As with hammer or with mace;

That they may render back
Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,

Sparks of the supersolar blaze.

Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,

Chiming with the forest tone,

When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
Chiming with the gasp and moan
Of the ice-imprisoned flood;

With the pulse of manly hearts;
With the voice of orators;
With the din of city arts;
With the cannonade of wars;

With the marches of the brave;

And prayers of might from martyr's cave.

Great is the art,

Great be the manners, of the bard.

He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb

For his rhyme.

"Pass in, pass in," the angels say, "In to the upper doors,

Nor count compartments of the floors,

But mount to paradise

By the stairway of surprise."

Blameless master of the games,
King of sport that never shames,
He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song's sweet influence.
Things more cheerly live and go,
What time the subtle mind

Sings aloud the tune whereto

Their pulses beat,

And march their feet,

And their members are combined.

By Sybarites beguiled,

He shall no task decline;

Merlin's mighty line

Extremes of nature reconciled,—

Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
And made the lion mild.
Songs can the tempest still,
Scattered on the stormy air,
Mould the year to fair increase
And bring in poetic peace.

He shall not seek to weave,
In weak, unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes;

Wait his returning strength.

Bird, that from the nadir's floor

To the zenith's top can soar,

The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey's length.

Nor profane affect to hit

Or compass that, by meddling wit,

Which only the propitious mind

Publishes when 'tis inclined.

There are open hours

When the God's will sallies free,
And the dull idiot might see

The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;

Sudden, at unawares,

Self-moved, fly-to the doors,

Nor sword of angels could reveal

What they conceal.

MERLIN

II

THE rhyme of the poet
Modulates the king's affairs;
Balance-loving Nature

Made all things in pairs.