Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/540

532 :Untimely notes the poet sung alone, Checked by the chilling frosts of words unkind; And his grieved soul, some thousand years astray, Paled like the moon in most unwelcome day.

His speech betrayed him ere his heart grew cold; With morning freshness to the world he told Of man's first love, and fearless creed of youth, When Beauty he believed the type of Truth.

In the vexed glories of unquiet Troy, So might to Helen's jealous ear discourse The flute, first tuned on Ida's haunted hill, Against Œnone's coming, to betray In what sweet solitude her shepherd lay.

Yet, Poet-Priest! the world shall ever thrill To thy loved theme, its charm undying still! Hearts in their youth are Greek as Homer's song, And all Olympus half contents the boy, Who from the quarries of abounding joy Brings his white idols without thought of wrong.

With reverent hand he sets each votive stone, And last, the altar "To the God Unknown."

As in our dreams the face that we love best Blooms as at first, while we ourselves grow old,— As the returning Spring in sunlight throws Through prison-bars, on graves, its ardent gold,— And as the splendors of a Syrian rose Lie unreproved upon the saddest breast,— So mythic story fits a changing world: Still the bark drifts with sails forever furled. An unschooled Fancy deemed the work her own, While mystic meaning through each fable shone.

, a mass of crags embellished by some greenness, looked up to heaven a hundred miles from shore. It was a fortified position, and a place of banishment. In the course of a long war, waged on sea and land between two great nations, this, "least of all," became a point of some importance to the authority investing it; the fort was well supplied with the machinery of death, and the prison filled with prisoners. But peace had now been of long continuance; and though a nation's banner floated from the tower of the fort, and was seen afar by mariners,—though the cannon occupied their ancient places, ordered for