i saw the twinkle of white feet, I saw the flash of robes descending; Before her ran an influence fleet, That bowed my heart like barely bending. As, in bare fields, the searching bees Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, It led me on, by sweet degrees Joy’s simple honey-cells unbinding. Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates; With nearer love the sky leaned o’er me; The long-sought Secret’s golden gates On musical hinges swung before me. I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp Thrilling with godhood; like a lover I sprang the proffered life to clasp;— The beaker fell; the luck was over. The earth has drunk the vintage up; What boots it patch the goblet ’s splinters? Can Summer fill the icy cup, Whose treacherous crystal is but winter’s? O spendthrift haste! await the Gods; The nectar crowns the lips of Patience; Haste scatters on unthankful sods The immortal gift in vain libations. Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, And shuns the hands would seize upon her; Follow thy life, and she will sue To pour for thee the cup of honor.
Hebe
More from Poet
-
From “The Biglow Papers,” No. III. GUVENER B. 1 is a sensible man; He stays to his home an’ looks arter his folks; He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, An’ into nobody’s tater-patch pokes;— But John P. Robinson he Sez he wunt vote for Guvener B. My! ain’t it...
-
From “a Fable for Critics” THERE are truths you Americans need to be told, And it never ’ll refute them to swagger and scold; John Bull, looking o’er the Atlantic, in choler. At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; But to scorn i-dollar-try ’s what very few do, And John goes to...
-
From “a Fable for Critics” LET us glance for a moment, ’t is well worth the pains, And note what an average grave-yard contains; There lie levellers levelled, duns done up themselves, There are booksellers finally laid on their shelves, Horizontally there lie upright politicians, Dose-a-dose...
-
“Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors.” —Letter of H. G. OTIS. IN...
-
[From “Under the Elm,” read at Cambridge, July 3, 1875, on the Hundredth Anniversary of Washington’s taking Command of the American Army.] BENEATH our consecrated elm A century ago he stood, Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood, Which redly foamèd round him but could not overwhelm The...