His breath comes fast, his eyes grow bright,
To think upon that ancient fight.
Oh, leaping from the strained string
Against an armored Wrong to ring,
Brave the songs that arrows sing!
He weighs the finished flight:
"Live and die; by and by
The sun kills dark; I know not, I,
In what good fight mine arrows fly!"
Or at the gray hour, weary grown,
When curfew o'er the wold is blown,
He sees, as in a magic glass,
Some lost and lonely mountain-pass;
And lo! a sign of deathful rout
The mocking vine has wound about,--
An earth-fixed arrow by a spring,
All greenly mossed, a mouldered thing;
That stifled shaft no more shall sing!
He shakes his head in doubt.
"Laugh and sigh, live and die,--
The hand is blind: I know not, I,
In what lost pass mine arrows lie!
One to east, one to west,
Another for the eagle's breast,--
The archer and the wind know best!"
The stars are in the sky;
He lays his arrows by.
A NEST IN A LYRE
As sign before a playhouse serves
A giant Lyre, ornately gilded,
On whose convenient coignes and curves
The pert brown sparrows late have builded.
They flit, and flirt, and prune their wings,
Not awed at all by golden glitter,
And make among the silent strings
Their satisfied ephemeral twitter.
Ah, somewhat so we perch and flit,
And spy some crumb and dash to win it,
And with a witty chirping twit
Our sheltering Time--there's nothing in it!
In Life's large frame, a glorious Lyre's,
We nest, content, our season flighty,
Nor guess we brush the powerful wires
Might witch the stars with music mighty.
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