WOULD this sunshine be completer, Or these violets smell sweeter, Or the birds sing more in metre, If it all were years ago, When the melted mountain-snow Heard in Enna all the woe Of the poor forlorn Demeter? Would a stronger life pulse o'er us If a panther-chariot bore us, If we saw, enthroned before us, Ride the leopard-footed god, With a fir-cone tip the rod, Whirl the thyrsus round, and nod To a drunken Maenad-chorus? Bloomed there richer, redder roses Where the Lesbian earth encloses All of Sappho? where reposes Meleager, laid to sleep By the olive-girdled deep? Where the Syrian maidens weep, Bringing serpolet in posies? Ah! it may be! Greece had leisure For a world of faded pleasure; We must tread a tamer measure, To a milder, homelier lyre; We must tend a paler fire, Lay less perfume on the pyre, Be content with poorer treasure' Were the brown-limbed lovers bolder? Venus younger, Cupid older? Down the wood-nymph's warm white shoulder Trailed a purpler, madder vine? Were the poets more divine? Brew we no such golden wine Here, where summer suns are colder? Yet for us too life has flowers, Time a glass of joyous hours, Interchange of sun and showers, And a wealth of leafy glades, Meant for loving men and maids, Full of warm green lights and shades, Trellis-work of wild-wood bowers. So while English suns are keeping Count of sowing-time and reaping, We've no need to waste our weeping, Though the glad Greeks lounged at ease Underneath their olive-trees, And the Sophoclean bees Swarmed on lips of poets sleeping! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WHEN I HEARD AT THE CLOSE OF THE DAY by WALT WHITMAN WINTER TWILIGHT by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON THIRD BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 13 by THOMAS CAMPION SOME LATE LARK SINGING by BROTHER CLEMENT IS THIS THE PRICE OF LOVE? by JOSEPH SEAMON COTTER JR. THE SOULE (2) by ABRAHAM COWLEY |