Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat, Under protection of an oak, there sat
A sweet Lute's-master, in whose gentle airs He lost the day's heat, and his own hot cares. Close in the covert of the leaves there stood A Nightingale, come from the neighboring wood: (The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree, Their Muse, their Syren - harmless Syren she!) There stood she list'ning, and did entertain The music's soft report, and mould the same In her own murmurs, that whatever mood His curious fingers lent, her voice made good: The man perceived his rival, and her art; Disposed to give the light-foot lady sport, Awakes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come Informs it in a sweet præludium
Of closer strains, and ere the war begin, He lightly skirmishes on every string, Charged with a flying touch: and straightway she Carves out her dainty voice as readily, Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd tones, And reckons up in soft divisions, Quick volumes of wild notes; to let him know By that shrill taste, she could do something too. His nimble hands' instinct then taught each string
A cap'ring cheerfulness; and made them sing To their own dance; now negligently rash He throws his arm, and with a long drawn dash Blends all together; then distinctly trips From this to that; then quick returning skips And snatches this again, and pauses there. She measures every measure, everywhere Meets art with art; sometimes as if in doubt Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out, Trails her plain ditty in one long-spun note, Through the sleek passage of her open throat, A clear unwrinkled song; then doth she point it With tender accents, and severely joint it By short diminutives, that being rear'd In controverting warbles evenly shared, With her sweet self she wrangles. He amazed That from so small a channel should be raised The torrent of a voice, whose melody Could melt into such sweet variety, Strains higher yet; that tickled with rare art The tattling strings (each breathing in his part) Most kindly do fall out; the grumbling base In surly groans disdains the treble's grace; The high-perch'd treble chirps at this, and chides, Until his finger (Moderator) hides
And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all, Hoarse, shrill at once; as when the trumpets call Hot Mars to th' harvest of Death's field, and woo Men's hearts into their hands: this lesson too
She gives him back; her supple breast thrills out Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill, And folds in wav'd notes with a trembling bill The pliant series of her slippery song; Then starts she suddenly into a throng Of short, thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys float,
And roll themselves over her lubric throat In panting murmurs, 'still'd out of her breast, That ever-bubbling spring; the sugar'd nest Of her delicious soul, that there does lie, Bathing in streams of liquid melody; Music's best seed-plot, whence in ripen'd airs
A golden-headed harvest fairly rears
His honey-dropping tops, plough'd by her breath, Which there reciprocally laboreth
In that sweet soil; it seems a holy quire Founded to the name of great Apollo's lyre, Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes Of sweet-lipp'd angel-imps, that swill their throats In cream of morning Helicon, and then Prefer soft-anthems to the ears of men, To woo them from their beds, still murmuring That men can sleep while they their matins sing: (Most divine service) whose so early lay, Prevents the eyelids of the blushing Day! There might you hear her kindle her soft voice, In the close murmur of a sparkling noise, And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song, Still keeping in the forward stream, so long, Till a sweet whirlwind (striving to get out) Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about, And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast, Till the fledged notes at length forsake their nest, Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky, Wing'd with their own wild echoes, prattling fly. She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride On the way'd back of every swelling strain, Rising and falling in a pompous train. And while she thus discharges a shrill peal Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal With the cool epode of a graver note, Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat Would reach the brazen voice of War's hoarse
Her little soul is ravish'd: and so pour'd Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed Above herself, Music's Enthusiast.
Shame now and anger mixed a double stain In the Musician's face; yet once again (Mistress) I come; now reach a strain my lute, Above her mock, or be for ever mute; Or tune a song of victory to me,
Or to thyself, sing thine own obsequy: So said, his hands sprightly as fire, he flings And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings. The sweet-lipp'd sisters, musically frighted, Singing their fears, are fearfully delighted, Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs Are fann'd and frizzled in the wanton airs Of his own breath: which married to his lyre
Doth tune the spheres, and make Heaven's self look higher.
From this to that, from that to this he flies. Feels Music's pulse in all her arteries; Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads, His fingers struggle with the vocal threads. Following those little rills, he sinks into A sea of Helicon; his hand does go Those paths of sweetness which with nectar drop, Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup. The humorous strings expound his learned touch, By various glosses; now they seem to grutch, And murmur in a buzzing din, then gingle In shrill-tongued accents: striving to be single. Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke
Gives life to some new grace; thus doth h' invoke Sweetness by all her names; thus, bravely thus, (Fraught with a fury so harmonious)
The lute's light genius now does proudly rise, Heaved on the surges of swollen rhapsodies. Whose flourish (meteor-like) doth curl the air With flash of high-born fancies: here and there Dancing in lofty measures, and anon Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone; Whose trembling murmurs melting in wild airs Runs to and fro, complaining his sweet cares, Because those precious mysteries that dwell In Music's ravish'd soul, he dare not tell, But whisper to the world: thus do they vary Each string his note, as if they meant to carry Their Master's blest soul (snatch'd out at his ears By a strong ecstasy) through all the spheres Of Music's heaven; and seat it there on high In the empyrean of pure harmony. At length (after so long, so loud a strife Of all the strings, still breathing the best life Of blest variety, attending on
His fingers' fairest revolution
In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall) A full-mouth'd diapason swallows all.
This done, he lists what she would say to this, And she, (although her breath's late exercise Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat,) Yet summons all her sweet powers for a note. Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul!) she tries To measure all those wild diversities
Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one
Poor simple voice, raised in a natural tone; She fails, and failing grieves, and grieving dies. She dies: and leaves her life the Victor's prize, Falling upon his lute; O, fit to have (That lived so sweetly) dead, so sweet a grave!
AN EPITAPH UPON MR. ASHTON, A CONFORMABLE CITIZEN.
THE modest front of this small floor, Believe me, Reader, can say more Than many a braver marble can; Here lies a truly honest man.
One whose conscience was a thing, That troubled neither Church nor King. One of those few that in this town, Honor all Preachers, hear their own. Sermons he heard, yet not so many As left no time to practice any. He heard them rev'rently, and then His practice preach'd them o'er again. His Parlor-Sermons rather were Those to the eye, than to the ear. His prayers took their price and strength, Not from the loudness, nor the length. He was a Protestant at home, Not only in despite of Rome. He loved his Father; yet his zeal Tore not off his Mother's veil.
To th' Church he did allow her dress, True Beauty, to true Holiness. Peace, which he loved in life, did lend Her hand to bring him to his end. When Age and Death call'd for the score No surfeits were to reckon for. Death tore not - therefore - but sans strife Gently untwined his thread of life. What remains then, but that thou Write these lines, Reader, in thy brow, And by his fair example's light, Burn in thy imitation bright.
So while these lines can but bequeath
A life perhaps unto his death;
His better Epitaph shall be, His life still kept alive in thee.
TWO WENT UP INTO THE TEMPLE TO PRAY. Two went to pray! O, rather say, One went to brag, th' other to pray. One stands up close, and treads on high, Where th' other dares not send his eye. One nearer to God's altar trod; The other to the altar's God.
'HE year 1860 is notable as the birth-year of at
all of whom are now familiarly known to readers of the verse of our day, and who gained the public ear at not far from the same time: Charles G. D. Roberts, Dempster Sherman and Clinton Scollard. Clinton Scollard, the youngest of the trio by a few months was born in the village of Clinton, Oneida County, New York, September 18, 1860. His father, Dr. James J. Scollard, has been for many years a physician of note in that locality and still in middle life remains in the active practice of his profession besides being connected with many of the leading business interests in that region. Clinton, his only son, was educated at private schools in his native town and after passing four years successfully at Hamilton College in the same place, was graduated from that institution in 1881. Like most boys with literary leanings, he wrote more or less indifferent verse and prose during his later years at school and in his college course. His father seems hardly to have approved of these early efforts, but his mother encouraged him by her intelligent sympathy, criticising freely and praising where praise could fairly be given. Little of this first work has been preserved. A certain ease of rhyming was its most noteworthy characteristic as it is a pronounced feature of his later work.
For a year or two after leaving college Mr. Scollard was engaged as a teacher of elocution in a school in Brooklyn, New York, and then, his health becoming uncertain, he spent some time in travel in California and Florida. During these few years he wrote much in verse, and in December, 1884, published a collection of a number of his poems with the title, “Pictures in Song." This book could not be called a strong one, but showed promise and was pleasantly noticed by the reviewers.
In October, 1884, Mr. Scollard removed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was for two years a graduate student at Harvard University, devoting his attention while there mainly to purely literary courses of study. During these years he wrote largely and his verse appeared in periodical literature with increasing frequency. With Reed and Lyre," his second book, was published in September, 1886, and met with favorable attention in many quarters. The latter half of 1886 was spent by Mr. Scollard in European travel, and returning in January, 1887, he conducted classes in literature in Boston and Cambridge. A second trip to Europe was made by him in July of the same year. In September, 1888, he was appointed assistant professor of rhetoric and literature at Hamilton College, a position he now holds. "Old and New World Lyrics," his third volume, appeared in November. 1888. O. F. A.
I SAW a snowflake in the air
When smiling May had decked the year, And then 't was gone, I knew not where,— I saw a snowflake in the air,
And thought perchance an angel's prayer Had fallen from some starry sphere;
I saw a snowflake in the air
When smiling May had decked the year.
A TWILIGHT PIECE.
I STRAYED from the bower of the roses as the dusk of the day drew on,
From the purple palm-tree closes where the crimson cactus shone;
Along the sycamore alley and up through the town I strode,
Nor paused where the gay groups dally at curves of the wide white road.
And I came to a pathway climbing through an olive orchard gray,
As the last faint bells were chiming in a chapel far
Only the stir of the lizard in the long sparse grass
And the wind, like an unseen wizard, with its mystical whispered word.
But at last I broke from the glooming of boughs, and the darkling place,
And beheld tall warders looming o'er a wide and lonely space;
Old cypress trees intoning a chant that was weird and low,
And as sad as the ghostly moaning from the lips
Here many a time at the margin of day, ere the bats grew brave,
Had I seen the low sun sink large in the dip of
Seen the hues of the magical painter flush half of
And then grow fainter and fainter till the flowers of the night were blown,
Enwrapt by the drowsy quiet, I sank on the turf,
I yearned for the rhythmic riot of the night-bird's soaring song;
A song that should pulse and thrill me, and tides of the heart unbar,
A song that should surge and fill me with thoughts of a clime afar;
For I felt the passionate sadness of the mourner who may not weep,
And turned to the bird's wild gladness as the weary turn toward sleep.
Then it came, ah! it came with a rushing and ripple of notes that poured
Like a mountain rillet gushing from a rock-fount, pebble-floored;
And I soared with the song's swift soaring, and I fled with the song's swift flow,
From that land of the sun's adoring to a land of storm and snow;
From the home of the rose and laurel, from the olive slopes and the vines,
To hills where the mad winds quarrel in the supple tops of pines.
And I said, enough of the languor, enough of the dreamful ease,
With never a sound of anger from the slumberous
I listened long to catch a bird-note falling From out the sombre spaces of the sky, And only heard a grim rook hoarsely calling As toward the woodland he went wheeling by; The sere marsh rushes seemed to breathe an echo to my sigh.
When last I strayed this self-same pathway over How every breeze was palpitant with song! The grass I trod was white with foamy clover, And bees went darting by, a burdened throng; Now all was drear and desolate the whole wide vale along.
Where is the promise of the re-awaking?
I thought, as one that o'er dead joyance grieves Some lingering springtide symbol sweetly making A link between the reaped and unsown sheaves; When lo, a violet still in bloom amid the withered leaves!
THE CATACOMBS.
AN eddying speck the swallow flies, The morn is full of fragrant breath, Yet, dark and dank beneath, there lies A charnel-house of death.
Spring comes, and straightway at her smiles The wide Campagna bursts in bloom; But naught again to life beguiles The grave's black hecatomb.
And yet the fairest flowers have birth
In mould and darkness and decay; And here the faith that rings the earth Flowered into endless day.
MOONRISE AT MONTEREY.
ALL through the sultry evening hours The fluctuant tide's soft swell was heard, And to the cadence sang a bird Amid the bright acacia flowers.
A bat zigzagged across the night, And in the dark the spiders spun Their webs, that would, at rise of sun, Be little silvery paths of light.
Clear notes of song dropped down the air, Well-rounded, perfect pearls of sound; A star sprang eastward, and was drowned In outer ether, none knew where.
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