POETRY.
TE NNYS ON.
[What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind ?] ART for Art's sake ! This our motto ! Vex us not with moral song !
Let us rest beside the river !
Speak no more of right and wrong !
Here the pan-pipes murmur sighing, As the winds around them sweep ; And the drops of water falling Sound like tears that women weep.
Let us feel the throbbing pulses, Know the sympathetic thrill, When from out the broken reed-pipe Discords float—then all is still!
So the wretched rhymers chanted, Warbling forth their shallow lays, Drinking from the lotus-fountain, Clothed in purple, crowned with bays.
Then I saw a stately figure Sitting, too, beside the stream, Mourning seemed he, weeping, doubting, Asking was this life a dream Storm-clouds gathered, and he listened, Voices reached him from the height ; Far into the darkness gazed he, And beyond—he saw the light.
Never once to idle dreamers Would he bend his lofty head; Never listen to the murmuring Whispers in the river bed.
But the storm-winds changed to music, For this Beethoven of song, And he told the joy, the glory Won through conflict against wrong.
Long he chanted—and I heard him— Now I hear him from afar—
Down the river to the ocean He has passed, and crossed the bar.
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