O clarion, from whose brazen throat Strange sounds across the seas are blown, Where England, girt as with a moat, A strong sea-lion sits alone! A pilgrim from that white-cliffed shore, What joy, large flower of Western land! To seek thy democratic door, With eager hand to clasp thy hand! _Paumanokides._ Right you are! Take then the electric pressure of these fingers, O my Comrade! * * * * * Dear son, I have learned the secret of the Universe, I learned it from my original _bonne_, the white-capped ocean, The secret of the Universe is not Beauty, dear son, Nor is it Art, the perpetuator of Beauty, The secret of the Universe is to admire one’s self. Camerado, you hear me! _Narcissus._ Ah, I too loitering on an eve of June Where one wan narciss leaned above a pool, While overhead Queen Dian rose too soon, And through the Tyrian clematis the cool Night avis came wandering wearily, I too, Beholding that pale flower, beheld Life’s key at last, and knew That love of one’s fair self were but indeed Just worship of pure Beauty; and I gave One sweet sad sigh, then bade my fond eyes feed Upon the mirrored treasure of the wave, Like that lithe beauteous boy in Tempe’s vale, Whom hapless Echo loved――thou knowest the Heliconian tale! And while heaven’s harmony in lake and gold Changed to a faint nocturne in silvern gray, Like rising sea-mists from my spirit rolled The grievous vapors of this Age of Clay, Beholding Beauty’s re-arisen Shrine, And the white glory of this precious loveliness of mine! * * * * * Haply in the far, the orient future, In the dawn we herald like the birds, Men shall read the legend of our meeting, Linger o’er the music of our words; Haply coming poets shall compare me Then to Milton in his lovely youth, Sitting in the cell of Galileo, Learning at his elder’s lips the truth. Haply they shall liken these dear moments, Safely held in History’s amber clear, Unto Dante’s converse bland with Virgil, On the margin of that gloomy mere! _Paumanokides._ Do not be deceived, dear son; Amid the chorusses of the morn of progress, roaring, hilarious, those names will be heard no longer. Galileo was admirable once, Milton was admirable, Dante the _I_-talian was a cute man in his way, But he was not the maker of poems, the answerer! I, Paumanokides, am the maker of poems, the answerer, And I calculate to chant as long as the earth revolves, To an interminable audience of haughty, effusive, copious, gritty, and chipper Americanos! _Narcissus._ What more is left to say or do? Our minds have met; our hands must part. I go to plant in pastures new The love of Beauty and of Art, I’ll shortly start. One town is rather small for two Like me and you!