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Read Ebook: XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885] by Lang Andrew
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Ebook has 241 lines and 19460 words, and 5 pages
Page Ballade of Theocritus 15 Ballade of Cleopatra's Needle 17 Ballade of Roulette 19 Ballade of Sleep 21 Ballade of the Midnight Forest 24 Ballade of the Tweed 27 Ballade of the Book-hunter 29 Ballade of the Voyage to Cythera 31 Ballade of the Summer Term 34 Ballade of the Muse 36 Ballade against the Jesuits 38 Ballade of Dead Cities 40 Ballade of the Royal Game of Golf 42 Double Ballade of Primitive Man 44 Ballade of Autumn 47 Ballade of True Wisdom 49 Ballade of Worldly Wealth 51 Ballade of Life 53 Ballade of Blue China 55 Ballade of Dead Ladies 57 Villon's Ballade of Good Counsel 59 Ballade of Rabbits and Hares 61 Valentine in form of Ballade 63 Ballade of Old Plays 65 Ballade of his Books 67 Ballade of AEsthetic Adjectives 69 Ballade of the Pleased Bard 72 Ballade for a Baby 74 Ballade Amoureuse 76 Ballade of Queen Anne 78 Ballade of Blind Love 80 Ballade of his Choice of a Sepulchre 82 Dizain 84 VERSES AND TRANSLATIONS. A Portrait of 1783 87 The Moon's Minion 90 In Ithaca 92 Homer 93 The Burial of Moli?re 94 Bion 95 Spring 96 Before the Snow 97 Villanelle 98 The Mystery of Queen Persephone 100 Stoker Bill 105 Natural Theology 108 The Odyssey 110 Ideal 111
BALLADE TO THEOCRITUS, IN WINTER.
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Id. viii. 56.
Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar Of London, and the bustling street, For still, by the Sicilian shore, The murmur of the Muse is sweet. Still, still, the suns of summer greet The mountain-grave of Helik?, And shepherds still their songs repeat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.
What though they worship Pan no more, That guarded once the shepherd's seat, They chatter of their rustic lore, They watch the wind among the wheat: Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat, Where whispers pine to cypress tree; They count the waves that idly beat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.
ENVOY.
Master,--when rain, and snow, and sleet And northern winds are wild, to thee We come, we rest in thy retreat, Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!
BALLADE OF CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.
Ye giant shades of RA and TUM, Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian, If murmurs of our planet come To exiles in the precincts wan Where, fetish or Olympian, To help or harm no more ye list, Look down, if look ye may, and scan This monument in London mist!
Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb That once were read of him that ran When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum Wild music of the Bull began; When through the chanting priestly clan Walk'd Ramses, and the high sun kiss'd This stone, with blessing scored and ban-- This monument in London mist.
ENVOY.
Prince, the stone's shade on your divan Falls; it is longer than ye wist: It preaches, as Time's gnomon can, This monument in London mist!
BALLADE OF ROULETTE.
TO R. R.
The lover will stake as he may His heart on his Peggies and Nancies; The girl has her beauty to lay; The saint has his prayers and his trances; The poet bets endless expanses In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt: How they gaze at the wheel as it glances-- The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette!
ENVOY.
The prize that the pleasure enhances? The prize is--at last to forget The changes, the chops, and the chances-- The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette.
BALLADE OF SLEEP.
The hours are passing slow, I hear their weary tread Clang from the tower, and go Back to their kinsfolk dead. Sleep! death's twin brother dread! Why dost thou scorn me so? The wind's voice overhead Long wakeful here I know, And music from the steep Where waters fall and flow. Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
All sounds that might bestow Rest on the fever'd bed, All slumb'rous sounds and low Are mingled here and wed, And bring no drowsihed. Shy dreams flit to and fro With shadowy hair dispread; With wistful eyes that glow, And silent robes that sweep. Thou wilt not hear me; no? Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
What cause hast thou to show Of sacrifice unsped? Of all thy slaves below I most have labour?d With service sung and said; Have cull'd such buds as blow, Soft poppies white and red, Where thy still gardens grow, And Lethe's waters weep. Why, then, art thou my foe? Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
ENVOY.
BALLADE OF THE MIDNIGHT FOREST.
AFTER TH?ODORE DE BANVILLE.
Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old, Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree; The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold, And wolves still dread Diana roaming free In secret woodland with her company. 'Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite When now the wolds are bathed in silver light, And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey, Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright, And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee, Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be, The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy; Then 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright, The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white, With one long sigh for summers pass'd away; The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
She gleans her silvan trophies; down the wold She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee Mixed with the music of the hunting roll'd, But her delight is all in archery, And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she More than her hounds that follow on the flight; The goddess draws a golden bow of might And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay. She tosses loose her locks upon the night, And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
ENVOY.
Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite, The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight: Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray There is the mystic home of our delight, And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
BALLADE OF THE TWEED.
TO T. W. LANG.
ENVOY.
BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER.
No dismal stall escapes his eye, He turns o'er tomes of low degrees, There soiled romanticists may lie, Or Restoration comedies; Each tract that flutters in the breeze For him is charged with hopes and fears, In mouldy novels fancy sees Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.
ENVOY.
Prince, all the things that tease and please,-- Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears, What are they but such toys as these-- Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs?
BALLADE OF THE VOYAGE TO CYTHERA.
AFTER TH?ODORE DE BANVILLE.
I know Cythera long is desolate; I know the winds have stripp'd the gardens green. Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been, Nor ever lover on that coast is seen! So be it, but we seek a fabled shore, To lull our vague desires with mystic lore, To wander where Love's labyrinths beguile; There let us land, there dream for evermore: "It may be we shall touch the happy isle."
The sea may be our sepulchre. If Fate, If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene We watch the bolt of heaven, and scorn the hate Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen. Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen That veils the fairy coast we would explore. Come, though the sea be vex'd, and breakers roar, Come, for the air of this old world is vile, Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar; "It may be we shall touch the happy isle."
Grey serpents trail in temples desecrate Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen, And ruined is the palace of our state; But happy Loves flit round the mast, and keen The shrill wind sings the silken cords between. Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore, Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar, Yet haste, light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile; Love's panthers sleep 'mid roses, as of yore: "It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"
ENVOY.
Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore. Ah, singing birds your happy music pour! Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile; Flit to these ancient gods we still adore: "It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"
BALLADE OF THE SUMMER TERM.
When Lent and Responsions are ended, When May with fritillaries waits, When the flower of the chestnut is splendid, When drags are at all of the gates , Life wins from the grasp of the Fates Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
When wickets are bowl'd and defended, When Isis is glad with "the Eights," When music and sunset are blended, When Youth and the summer are mates, When Freshmen are heedless of "Greats," And when note-books are cover'd with rhyme, Ah, these are the hours that one rates-- Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
ENVOY.
Reformers of Schools and of States, Is mirth so tremendous a crime? Ah! spare what grim pedantry hates-- Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
BALLADE OF THE MUSE.
The man whom once, Melpomene, Thou look'st on with benignant sight, Shall never at the Isthmus be A boxer eminent in fight, Nor fares he foremost in the flight Of Grecian cars to victory, Nor goes with Delian laurels dight, The man thou lov'st, Melpomene!
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