Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/23

 MUSIC AT HOME

beneath a fragrant tasselled tree,

Whose trunk encoiling vines had made to be

A glossy fount of leafage. Sweet the air,

Far-off the smoke-veiled city and its care,

Precious and near the book within my hand—

The deathless song of that immortal land

Wherefrom Keats took his young Endymion

And laurelled bards enow their wreaths have won;—

When from some topmost spray began to chant

And flute, and trill, a warbling visitant,

A cat-bird, riotous the world above,

Hasting to spend his heritage ere love

Should music change to madness in his throat,

Leaving him naught but one discordant note.

And as my home-bred chorister outvied

The nightingale, old England's lark beside,

I thought—What need to borrow? Lustier clime

Than ours Earth has not,—nor her scroll a time

Ampler of human glory and desire

To touch the plume, the brush, the lips, with fire; 3