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 that 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 martyrs' 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 Plays 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 could 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.