| IN ancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt; | |
| There, from of old, thy childhood passed; and there | |
| High expectation, high delights and deeds, | |
| Thy fluttering heart with hope and terror moved. | |
| And thou hast heard of yore the Blatant Beast, | 5 |
| And Roland’s horn, and that war-scattering shout | |
| Of all-unarmed Achilles, ægis-crowned. | |
| And perilous lands thou sawest, sounding shores | |
| And seas and forests drear, island and dale | |
| And mountain dark. For thou with Tristram rod’st | 10 |
| Or Bedevere, in farthest Lyonesse. | |
| Thou hadst a booth in Samarcand, whereat | |
| Side-looking Magians trafficked; thence, by night, | |
| An Afreet snatched thee, and with wings upbore | |
| Beyond the Aral mount; or, hoping gain, | 15 |
| Thou, with a jar of money, didst embark, | |
| For Balsorah, by sea. But chiefly thou | |
| In that clear air took’st life; in Arcady | |
| The haunted, land of song; and by the wells | |
| Where most the gods frequent. There Chiron old, | 20 |
| In the Pelethronian antre, taught thee lore: | |
| The plants, he taught, and by the shining stars | |
| In forests dim to steer. There hast thou seen | |
| Immortal Pan dance secret in a glade, | |
| And, dancing, roll his eyes; these, where they fell, | 25 |
| Shed glee, and through the congregated oaks | |
| A flying horror winged; while all the earth | |
| To the god’s pregnant footing thrilled within. | |
| Or whiles, beside the sobbing stream, he breathed, | |
| In his clutched pipe, unformed and wizard strains, | 30 |
| Divine yet brutal; which the forest heard, | |
| And thou, with awe; and far upon the plain | |
| The unthinking ploughman started and gave ear. | |
| |
| Now things there are that, upon him who sees, | |
| A strong vocation lay; and strains there are | 35 |
| That whoso hears shall hear for evermore. | |
| For evermore thou hear’st immortal Pan | |
| And those melodious godheads, ever young | |
| And ever quiring, on the mountains old. | |
| |
| What was this earth, child of the gods, to thee? | 40 |
| Forth from thy dreamland thou, a dreamer, cam’st, | |
| And in thine ears the olden music rang, | |
| And in thy mind the doings of the dead, | |
| And those heroic ages long forgot. | |
| To a so fallen earth, alas! too late. | 45 |
| Alas! in evil days, thy steps return, | |
| To list at noon for nightingales, to grow | |
| A dweller on the beach till Argo come | |
| That came long since, a lingerer by the pool | |
| Where that desirèd angel bathes no more. | 50 |
| |
| As when the Indian to Dakota comes, | |
| Or farthest Idaho, and where he dwelt, | |
| He with his clan, a humming city finds; | |
| Thereon awhile, amazed, he stares, and then | |
| To right and leftward, like a questing dog, | 55 |
| Seeks first the ancestral altars, then the hearth | |
| Long cold with rains, and where old terror lodged, | |
| And where the dead. So thee undying Hope, | |
| With all her pack, hunts screaming through the years: | |
| Here, there, thou fleeëst; but nor here nor there | 60 |
| The pleasant gods abide, the glory dwells. | |
| |
| That, that was not Apollo, not the god. | |
| This was not Venus, though she Venus seemed | |
| A moment. And though fair yon river move, | |
| She, all the way, from disenchanted fount | 65 |
| To seas unhallowed runs; the gods forsook | |
| Long since her trembling rushes; from her plains | |
| Disconsolate, long since adventure fled; | |
| And now although the inviting river flows, | |
| And every poplared cape, and every bend | 70 |
| Or willowy islet, win upon thy soul | |
| And to thy hopeful shallop whisper speed; | |
| Yet hope not thou at all; hope is no more; | |
| And O, long since the golden groves are dead, | |
| The faery cities vanished from the land! | 75 |
