| |
| IN these restrained and careful times | |
| Our knowledge petrifies our rhymes; | |
| Ah! for that reckless fire men had | |
| When it was witty to be mad, | |
| |
| When wild conceits were piled in scores, | 5 |
| And lit by flaring metaphors, | |
| When all was crazed and out of tune,— | |
| Yet throbbed with music of the moon. | |
| |
| If we could dare to write as ill | |
| As some whose voices haunt us still, | 10 |
| Even we, perchance, might call our own | |
| Their deep enchanting undertone. | |
| |
| We are too diffident and nice, | |
| Too learnéd and too over-wise, | |
| Too much afraid of faults to be | 15 |
| The flutes of bold sincerity. | |
| |
| For, as this sweet life passes by, | |
| We blink and nod with critic eye; | |
| We ’ve no words rude enough to give | |
| Its charm so frank and fugitive. | 20 |
| |
| The green and scarlet of the Park, | |
| The undulating streets at dark, | |
| The brown smoke blown across the blue, | |
| This colored city we walk through;— | |
| |
| The pallid faces full of pain, | 25 |
| The field-smell of the passing wain, | |
| The laughter, longing, perfume, strife, | |
| The daily spectacle of life;— | |
| |
| Ah! how shall this be given to rhyme, | |
| By rhymesters of a knowing time? | 30 |
| Ah! for the age when verse was glad, | |
Being godlike, to be bad and mad.
EDMUND GOSSE.
1894. | |
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