Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
DædalusJohn Sterling (1806–1844)
W
All that is tuneful in air or wave!
Shapes whose beauty is truest and rarest,
Haunt with your lamps and spells his grave!
Ye that glance ’mid ruins old,
That know not a past, nor expect a morrow
On many a moonlight Grecian wold!
Thee, Dædalus, oft the Nymphs recall;
The leaves with a sound of winter quiver,
Murmur thy name, and withering fall.
Of all that crowd on the tear-dimmed eye,
Though, Dædalus, thou no more commandest
New stars to that ever-widening sky.
Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;
By bed and table they lord it o’er us,
With looks of beauty and words of good.
O’er all that’s aimless, blind, and base;
Their presence has made our nature glorious,
Unveiling our night’s illumined face.
Stars and Sun, lament for him!
Ages quake in strange commotion!
All ye realms of Life be dim!
From earth’s deep centre Mankind appall!
Seldom ye sound, and then Death rejoices,
For he knows that then the mightiest fall.