Nor peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower,
  There in white languors to decline and cease;
But peace whose names are also rapture, power,
  Clear sight, and love:  for these are parts of peace.

III

I hear it vouched the Muse is with us still;—­
  If less divinely frenzied than of yore,
In lieu of feelings she has wondrous skill
  To simulate emotion felt no more.

Not such the authentic Presence pure, that made
  This valley vocal in the great days gone!—­
In his great days, while yet the spring-time played
  About him, and the mighty morning shone.

No word-mosaic artificer, he sang
  A lofty song of lowly weal and dole. 
Right from the heart, right to the heart it sprang,
  Or from the soul leapt instant to the soul.

He felt the charm of childhood, grace of youth,
  Grandeur of age, insisting to be sung. 
The impassioned argument was simple truth
  Half-wondering at its own melodious tongue.

Impassioned? ay, to the song’s ecstatic core! 
  But far removed were clangour, storm and feud;
For plenteous health was his, exceeding store
  Of joy, and an impassioned quietude.

IV

A hundred years ere he to manhood came,
  Song from celestial heights had wandered down,
Put off her robe of sunlight, dew and flame,
  And donned a modish dress to charm the Town.

Thenceforth she but festooned the porch of things;
  Apt at life’s lore, incurious what life meant. 
Dextrous of hand, she struck her lute’s few strings;
  Ignobly perfect, barrenly content.

Unflushed with ardour and unblanched with awe,
  Her lips in profitless derision curled,
She saw with dull emotion—­if she saw—­
  The vision of the glory of the world.

The human masque she watched, with dreamless eyes
  In whose clear shallows lurked no trembling shade: 
The stars, unkenned by her, might set and rise,
  Unmarked by her, the daisies bloom and fade.

The age grew sated with her sterile wit. 
  Herself waxed weary on her loveless throne. 
Men felt life’s tide, the sweep and surge of it,
  And craved a living voice, a natural tone.

For none the less, though song was but half true,
  The world lay common, one abounding theme. 
Man joyed and wept, and fate was ever new,
  And love was sweet, life real, death no dream.

In sad stern verse the rugged scholar-sage
  Bemoaned his toil unvalued, youth uncheered. 
His numbers wore the vesture of the age,
  But, ’neath it beating, the great heart was heard.

From dewy pastures, uplands sweet with thyme,
  A virgin breeze freshened the jaded day. 
It wafted Collins’ lonely vesper-chime,
  It breathed abroad the frugal note of Gray.