Page:Collected poems of Flecker.djvu/58

 :Light and the subtler light of wizard fire,
 * And winds that strike forth hope on some grand lyre,
 * And spirits of blue air like April clouds,
 * And all the water-company that crowds
 * The river-spaces and dark open sea,
 * Conspired at his creation: Liberty,
 * Watching his prowess from her tower above,
 * Took to her side a royal-wingèd Love.
 * And when he died and they could do no more
 * To strengthen him who graced that southern shore
 * They bade a clearer, stronger sun arise
 * And drive old darkness from the Italian skies.

• • •


 * Many there be to-day whose foolish praise
 * Has dulled the roar of thy old fighting days,
 * So that thy hymns of intellectual joy
 * Seem but fine utterance of a wayward boy,
 * Thy call of war, thy thunderbolts of hate
 * A madman's cry, that rails against his fate;
 * Who find in them a vague and phantom truth
 * Or dim ideal of a lovelorn youth.

• • •


 * He was too beautiful; he died too young,
 * Before the mellow season of his prime;
 * Sweet songs he left, but sweeter songs unsung,
 * Whose thin ghosts wander out of space and time.
 * All his philosophy was Love and Hate,
 * His life a rainbow for the sun to fashion,
 * His thoughts most royally importunate,

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