of austere brow,
     Believed of discord by thy timely word
     At intervals refreshing life:  for thou
     Art verify Keeper of the Muse’s Key;
     Thyself no vacant melodist;
     On lower land elective even as she;
     Holding, as she, all dissonance abhorred;
     Advising to her measured steps in flow;
     And teaching how for being subjected free
     Past thought of freedom we may come to know
     The music of the meaning of Accord.

     Youth in memory

     Days, when the ball of our vision
     Had eagles that flew unabashed to sun;
     When the grasp on the bow was decision,
     And arrow and hand and eye were one;
     When the Pleasures, like waves to a swimmer,
     Came heaving for rapture ahead! —
     Invoke them, they dwindle, they glimmer
     As lights over mounds of the dead.

     Behold the winged Olympus, off the mead,
     With thunder of wide pinions, lightning speed,
     Wafting the shepherd-boy through ether clear,
     To bear the golden nectar-cup. 
     So flies desire at view of its delight,
     When the young heart is tiptoe perched on sight. 
     We meanwhile who in hues of the sick year
     The Spring-time paint to prick us for our lost,
     Mount but the fatal half way up —
     Whereon shut eyes!  This is decreed,
     For Age that would to youthful heavens ascend,
     By passion for the arms’ possession tossed,
     It falls the way of sighs and hath their end;
     A spark gone out to more sepulchral night. 
     Good if the arrowy eagle of the height
     Be then the little bird that hops to feed.

     Lame falls the cry to kindle days
     Of radiant orb and daring gaze. 
     It does but clank our mortal chain. 
     For Earth reads through her felon old
     The many-numbered of her fold,
     Who forward tottering backward strain,
     And would be thieves of treasure spent,
     With their grey season soured. 
     She could write out their history in their thirst
     To have again the much devoured,
     And be the bud at burst;
     In honey fancy join the flow,
     Where Youth swims on as once they went,
     All choiric for spontaneous glee
     Of active eager lungs and thews;
     They now bared roots beside the river bent;
     Whose privilege themselves to see;
     Their place in yonder tideway know;
     The current glass peruse;
     The depths intently sound;
     And sapped by each returning flood
     Accept for monitory nourishment
     Those worn roped features under crust of mud,
     Reflected in the silvery smooth around: 
     Not less the branching and high singing tree,
     A home of nests, a landmark and a tent,
     Until their hour for losing hold on ground. 
     Even such good harvest