Page:Masque of the Edwards of England (1902).djvu/45

 On which all chance and changes turn;

A tower founded in the mind

Against the unpenetrating shock

Of moving elements; a plant

Whose iron-fibred roots are twined

To the world's tie-ribs fast; a rock

Where hope rides anchored, adamant.

THE CHANT.

To us the Past is sacred yet,

Like some deep gem the old rocks fill

With a weird fire that never pales;

Like one whose constant soul is set

On starlight infinitely still;

A teller of symbolic tales

Whose wise experience never fails;

A prophet of some hidden will;

A guide through the untrodden ways

Of wide new lands, his intent gaze

Still peering on a pathless track,

And as he presses forward still,

Still forward hoping, harking back.

Wycliffe, with the Bible, and by his side

A group of lollards.

John Ball the dreamer.

Chaucer, with book and pen, and

THE CHANT.

With us the Past in triumph comes

To call of horn and roll of drums,

A blast across the house-tops pealed;

A word expressed from lip to lip;

A sign half felt and half revealed;

Some far-discerning statesmanship

Writ in a book that's signed and sealed

And worn with many studious thumbs.

With us the Past to harp and lute

In a deep tuneful triumph comes

To the far-pealing of the flute,

To trumpets and the tread that hums

Accompaniment of hundred drums.

To us, forbidden to forget,

The Past to us is sacred yet.

Henry V, the hero of Agincourt.

Caxton the master printer.

King Henry VIII. with his two wives

Shakespeare.

Sir Philip Sidney.

Sir Walter Raleigh, and

Ben Jonson.

THE CHANT.

To us the Past, supremely dear,

Stands for a truth revealed and clear.

What though the pageant disappear,

What though forgot the song we sing:

In all this perishable sphere

There is but one eternal thing,

The love-born beauty that we bring,

The radiant eloquence of eyes

Or voices full in thanksgiving.

'Tis this creates, 'tis this fulfills,

'Tis this survives, inspires, instills

The essential soul that never dies.

The greatest gift of God above,

Beauty, alone begot of Love,

Beauty, like some effulgence hurled

From beaten on an observant world.

'Tis ours the glorious gift to bring,

'Tis ours to guard and grace it here.

In all this perishable sphere

There is but one eternal thing.