ONE ballade more before we say good-night, | |
| O dying Muse, one mournful ballade more! | |
| Then let the new men fall to their delight, | |
| The Impressionist, the Decadent, a score | |
| Of other fresh fanatics, who adore | 5 |
| Quaint demons, and disdain thy golden shrine; | |
| Ah! faded goddess, thou wert held divine | |
| When we were young! But now each laurelled head | |
| Has fallen, and fallen the ancient glorious line; | |
| The last is gone, since Banville too is dead. | 10 |
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| Peace, peace a moment, dolorous Ibsenite! | |
| Pale Tolstoist, moaning from the Euxine shore! | |
| Psychology, to dreamland take thy flight! | |
| And, fell Heredity, forbear to pour | |
| Drop after drop thy dose of hellebore, | 15 |
| For we look back to-night to ruddier wine | |
| And gayer singing than these moans of thine! | |
| Our skies were azure once, our roses red, | |
| Our poets once were crowned with eglantine; | |
| The last is gone, since Banville too is dead. | 20 |
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| With flutes and lyres and many a lovely rite | |
| Through the mad woodland of our youth they bore | |
| Verse, like pure ichor in a chrysolite, | |
| Secret yet splendid, and the world forswore, | |
| For one brief space, the mocking mask it wore. | 25 |
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| Then failed, then fell those children of the vine,— | |
| Sons of the sun,—and sank in slow decline; | |
| Pulse after pulse their radiant lives were shed; | |
| To silence we their vocal names consign; | |
| The last is gone, since Banville too is dead. | 30 |
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ENVOI. Prince-Jeweller, whose facet-rhymes combine | |
| All hues that glow, all rays that shift and shine, | |
| Farewell! thy song is sung, thy splendor fled! | |
| No bards to Aganippe’s wave incline; | |
| The last is gone, since Banville too is dead. | 35 |
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