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THE PATRIOT.

79

THE PATRIOT.

AN OLD STORY.

T was roses, roses, all the way,

With myrtle mixed in my path like mad.
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day!

The air broke into a mist with bells,

The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries. Had I said, "Good folks, mere noise repels,

But give me your sun from yonder skies!" They had answered, "And afterward, what else?"

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun,

To give it my loving friends to keep. Naught man could do, have I left undone, And you see my harvest, what I reap This very day, now a year is run.

There's nobody on the house-tops now, -
Just a palsied few at the windows set,-
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate, or, better yet,
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.

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I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind,
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.

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Thus I entered Brescia, and thus I go!

In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead. "Thou, paid by the World,-what dost thou owe Me?" God might have questioned: but now instead 'Tis God shall requite! I am safer so.

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL.

81

L

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL.

[Time. Shortly after the revival of learning in Europe.]

ET us begin, and carry up this corpse,

Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,
Each in its tether

Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow.

Look out if yonder 's not the day again
Rimming the rock-row!

That's the appropriate country, - there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer!

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop :
Seek we sepulture

On a tall mountain, citied to the top,

Crowded with culture!

All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it;

No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's

Circling its summit!

Thither our path lies, - wind we up the heights,

Wait ye the warning?

Our low life was the level's and the night's;
He's for the morning!

Step to a tune, square chests, erect the head,
'Ware the beholders!

This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.

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Sleep, crop and herd! Sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,

Singing together,

He was a man born with thy face and throat,

Lyric Apollo !

Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow?

Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,

Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!
My dance is finished?"

No, that's the world's way! (keep the mountain-side,
Make for the city.)

He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;

Left play for work, and grappled with the world

Bent on escaping:

"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? Show me their shaping,

Theirs, who most studied man, the bard and sage,

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Straight got by heart that book to its last page:

Learned, we found him!

Yea, but we found him bald, too,

Accents uncertain:

eyes like lead,

"Time to taste life," another would have said, Up with the curtain!"

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This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment!

Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still, there's the comment.

Let me know all.

Prate not of most or least,

Painful or easy:

Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
Ay, nor feel queasy!"

O, such a life as he resolved to live,

When he had learned it,

When he had gathered all books had to give;
Sooner, he spurned it!

Image the whole, then execute the parts,

Fancy the fabric

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!

83

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL.

(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place Gaping before us.)

Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace

(Hearten our chorus)

Still before living he 'd learn how to live,
No end to learning.

Earn the means first, - God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.

Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes,

Live now or never!"

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He said, "What's Time? leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever."

Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head;
Calculus racked him:

Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead;

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Step two a-breast, the way winds narrowly.)
Not a whit troubled,

Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon

He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.

O, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,

Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure,
Bad is our bargain!

Was it not great? did he not throw on God,
(He loves the burthen) —

God's task to make the heavenly period
Perfect the earthen?

Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant?

He would not discount life, as fools do here,

Paid by instalment !

He ventured neck or nothing, heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:

"Wilt thou trust death or not?" he answered, "Yes.
Hence with life's pale lure!"

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