dropped the lyre no other hand has played. Fame watches o'er the deathless poet's sleep, Her fanfares echoing still their wild applause, While sweet Melpomene and Thalia weep, For theirs no more the grandest flight that soars, But lower planes where smaller spirits sweep, Whose whispers sound like waves on distant shores. 

 

 

 To a Daffodil 

 Bright messenger of life renewed and love, Joy fills thy golden chalice to the brim, Fit symbol of the sacred seraphim Who with their blazing phalanx headlong drove The Star of Morning from his seat above, Scattering celestial sparks through voidness dim, To fall upon our planet's curving rim And bloom as thy fair flowers in mead and grove. As victory's anthem stirred the heavenly choir, Awaking rapture in triumphant praise, So thou in spring dost mortal souls inspire With new-born hope and consecrated fire, Reflected glory from ethereal rays, To make divine the human heart's desire. 

 

 

 The Appian Way 

 Road of the dead! whose stately avenue Of ruined tombs reveals the glorious past, When proud patrician chariots rolling fast And litters borne by slaves of ebon hue Breasted the throng that ever thicker grew And onward hurried where the portal vast Showed praetor, tribune and plebeian massed With traders from afar beyond the blue. Road of the dead! thy voices haunted me, Once as I lingered on a starlit night, Seeing thy restless ghosts in fantasy: And Peter paused again in act to flee: With downcast eyes and pale with sudden fright, Then whispered low: "Quo vadis Domine?" 

 

 Note.—Tradition has it that Peter in a moment of weakness fled to escape martyrdom, but was turned back by a vision of his Master. The little church of Quo vadis Domine on the Appian Way commemorates this. 

 

 

 From the Fields 

 The village chime drifts on the summer breeze, In softened cadence o'er expanses green, Across the river, winding slow between Broad fields of clover where marauding bees Lighten their toil with murmured harmonies, Whilst corn in rolling waves of verdant sheen Lends rhythmic movement to the rural scene And sighs responsive to the wind-stirred trees. 

 Prev. P 19/20 next