Page:Some soldier poets.djvu/134

Rh In reading, I will omit the division of clay; you can all decide whether I am justified in so doing when you read the poem for yourselves at your leisure.

The beauty of Dion's character and its relation to that of Plato are first compared to a white swan sailing in the light of the moon.

Fair is the swan, whose majesty, prevailing

O'er breezeless water, on Locarno's lake,

Bears him on while proudly sailing

He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake:

Behold! the mantling spirit of reserve

Fashions his neck into a goodly curve;

An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings

Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs

To which, on some unruffled morning, clings

A flaky weight of winter's purest snows!

—Behold!—as with a gushing impulse heaves

That downy prow, and softly cleaves

The mirror of the crystal flood,

Vanish inverted hill, and shadowy wood,

And pendent rocks, where'er, in gliding state,

Winds the mute Creature without visible mate

Or rival, save the Queen of night

Showering down a silver light,

From heaven, upon her chosen favourite!

So pure, so bright, so fitted to embrace,

Where'er he turned, a natural grace

Of haughtiness without pretence,

And to unfold a still magnificence,

Was princely Dion, in the power

And beauty of his happier hour.

Nor less the homage that was seen to wait

On Dion's virtues, when the lunar beam

Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere

Fell round him in the grove of Academe,

Softening their inbred dignity austere—

That he, not too elate

With self-sufficing solitude,

But with majestic lowliness endued, 130