Homer forsakes the billowy round Of sailors circling o’er the island-sea; Pindar, from Theban fountains and the mound Builded in love and woe by doomed Antigone, Must pass beneath the ground; Stout Æschylus that slew the deep-haired Mede At Marathon, at Salamis, and freed Athens from Persian thrall, Then sung the battle call,— Must yield to that one foe he could not quell; In Gela’s flowery plain he slumbers well.[2] Sicilian roses bloom Above his nameless tomb; And there the nightingale doth mourn in vain For Bion, too, who sung the Dorian strain; By Arethusa’s tide, His brother swains might flute in Dorian mood,— The bird of love in thickets of the wood Sing for a thousand years his grave beside— Yet Bion still was mute—the Dorian lay had died. Footnote 2: Athenian Æschylus Euphorion’s son, Buried in Gela’s field these _words_ declare: His _deeds_ are registered at Marathon, Known to the deep-haired Mede who meet him there. —_Greek Anthology._ IV. The Attic poet at approach of age Laid by his garland, took the staff and scrip, For singing robes the mantle of the sage,— And taught gray wisdom with the same grave lip That once had carolled gay Where silver flutes breathed soft and festal harps did play; Young Plato sang of love and beauty’s charm, While he that from Stagira came to hear In lyric measures bade his princely pupil arm, And strike the Persian tyrant mute with fear. High thought doth well accord with melody, Brave deed with Poesy, And song is prelude fair to sweet Philosophy. But wiser English Shakspeare’s noble choice, Poet and sage at once, whose varied voice Taught beyond Plato’s ken, yet charming every ear;— A kindred choice was his, whose spirit hovers here. V. Now Avon glides through Severn to the sea, And murmurs that her Shakspeare sings no more; Thames bears the freight of many a tribute shore, But on those banks her poet bold and free, That stooped in blindness at his humble door, Yet never bowed to priest or prince the knee, Wanders no more by those sad sisters led; Herbert and Spenser dead Have left their names alone to him whose scheme Stiffly endeavors to supplant the dream Of seer and poet, with mechanic rule Learned from the chemist’s closet, from the surgeon’s tool. With us Philosophy still spreads her wing, And soars to seek Heaven’s King— Nor creeps through charnels, prying with the glass That makes the little big,—while gods unseen may pass. VI.