THE RETURN TO ARCADIA
Of clowns that scarce their names can read,
Throng pave and palace, to display
The vulgar antics of the day.
Their wives, too senseless to be blamed,
Half naked and all unashamed,
Their sons with manners of the slave,
Their girls with morals of the pave,
These shine a scum upon the stream
Of the great city of your dream.
The rich on harlots waste their store,
And brutish Gallic plays. The poor
Rot in their vermin, gnash their teeth,
And curse the feet they cower beneath.
Meantime the city fathers steal
The purses of the common weal.
But there are portents in the air:
The stern old Roman stuff is there,
Silent and grim. The other day,
A robber, swaggering with his prey
Past great Justitia's column, saw
Flash white the letters of the law,
And swift the statue's sleeping glaive
Fell ringing down and smote the knave!"
"Now, Atticus, we fain would know
With thee and Athens how things go.
What of Brain-city? Surely there
They breathe a somewhat purer air?"
"Cold, cold, i' faith, and all too thin.
Their thinkers have abolished sin,
And virtue has become good taste.
They 've goodness, but it goes tight-laced.
Your true Athenian likes things new;
In all things superstitious, too.
No temples thronged like theirs; at least
By women, amorous of the priest.
At knocking spirits they turn pale,
And trust the augurs' spectral tale;
The sly old augurs! who must wink
And nudge each other, when they think.
I saw a houseful on their knees
Before the ghost of Pericles
Some lank Thessalian from the fleet,
Chalk-visaged, stalking in a sheet.
I saw a shrewd Ionian
Take forty drachmae from a man
For stroking his rheumatic limb,
And calling on the gods for him.
At every gleam of truth they blink,
Save what they think their neighbors think.
I hold with old Lucretius
Against their ghostly fudge and fuss.
When all their gods they glibly name,
And when I see this life of flame
That leaps in impotent despair
And breaks its heart upon the air,
friends, with clasp of hands
for the divine that stands
And faces me with human eyes
And living deeds and dear replies."
"Now, Rusticus, what of thy quest
Beyond the barriers of the West?"
“The earth all right; the world all wrong.
The birds are wise, the beasts are strong
The trees are virtuous, pure the air,
And field and farm and fold are fair;
But as to men ye know what are
The thick clods of Boeotia :
Too dull to read, too dull to think,
Brain-sodden, with the Celtic drink,
Till any demagogue may win
Their plaudits, plumed however thin.
In feverish towns impatient strive
The angry toilers of the hive,
Storing not honey, soon or late,
But venom of distrust and hate.
Bitter of heart, and blind of brain,
They grope for better things in vain,
And crouch like whipped hounds to the knaves
That boast them free to bind them slaves."
"And now, Mugwumpius, bard and seer,
How wags thy world, this many a year?
THE RETURN TO ARCADIA 379
Far hidden in thy mountain tower,
What is thy message of the hour?"
“Like hurrying life, my thought I tell
In two words welcome! and farewell!
I've trimmed my vines, and browned my hay,
And fed my pheasants of Cathay,
Watching you others try your wings,
And pondering on the world of things.
I trust the seasons, as they roll;
I trust the striving human soul.
These ills and wrongs that gall and goad,
I count them all as episode;
And far beyond these years I see
The dawn of golden destiny.
Welcome, oh, welcome! - Nay,. a bell
More solemn peals farewell! farewell!"
THE Angel with the Book
That holds each word and deed,
On my page let me look;
And as I blushed to read,
"Three things," the Angel said, "I may blot out for thee."
I bowed in thought my head
Now which ones should they be?
"Blot this! "No, that!" came quick,
As still new conscience woke ;
Till all the leaf was thick
With blackening blur and stroke.
"'T were better as I live,"
I cried in my despair,
"To blot the whole, and give
A new page otherwhere !
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