From an "Ode to England"

by William Wilberforce

Keats o gold Hyperion, love-lorn Porphyro,   Ill-fated! from thine orbëd fire struck back Just as the parting clouds began to glow,   And stars, like sparks, to bicker in thy track! Alas! throw down, throw down, ye mighty dead,   The leaves of oak and asphodel That ye were weaving for that honored head,—   In vain, in vain, your lips would seek a spell In the few charmed words the poet sung,   To lure him upward in your seats to dwell,— As vain your grief! Oh! why should one so young   Sit crowned midst hoary heads with wreaths divine? Though to his lips Hymettus’ bees had clung,   His lips shall never taste the immortal wine, Who sought to drain the glowing cup too soon, For he hath perished, and the moon Hath lost Endymion—but too well   The shaft that pierced him in her arms was sped:   Into that gulf of dark and nameless dread,   Star-like he fell, but a wide splendor shed Through its deep night, that kindled as he fell. WORDSWORTH And Thou! whom earth still holds, and will not yield   To join the mighty brotherhood of ghosts,— Who, when their lips upon the earth are sealed,   Sing in the presence of the Lord of Hosts:— Thou that, when first my quickened ear Thy deeper harmonies might hear, I imaged to myself as old and blind,   For so were Milton and Mæonides! And worthy art thou—whether like the wind   Rousing its might among the forest trees, Thou sing of mountain and of flood,   The voiceful thunder of the seas,   With all their inland symphonies,     Their thousand brooks and rills; The vale’s deep voice, the roaring wood,     The ancient silence of the hills,   Sublimer still than these; Or in devotion’s loftier mood,   Like a solemn organ tone   In some vast minster heard alone,   Feelings that are thoughts inspire;   Or, with thy hand upon the lyre High victories to celebrate,   Summon from its strings the throng Of stately numbers intricate   That swell the impetuous tide of song. O Bard, of soul assured and high,   And god-like calm! we look on thee With like serene and awful eye,   As when,—of such divinity Still credulous,—the multitude   One in the concourse might behold, Whose statue in his life-time stood   Among the gods. O Poet, old   In all the years of future time! But young in the perpetual youth And bloom of love, and might of truth,—   To these thy least ambitious rhyme     Is faithful, and partakes their worth;   Yea, true as is the starry chime     To the great strains the sun gives forth.   Bard of our Time! thy name we see,   By golden-haired Mnemosyne,     First graved upon its full-writ page,—     Thee—last relinquished, whom the Age   Doth yield to Immortality.

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