But, now, far other days Have made less green the poet’s bays,— Have less revered the band and gown, The grave physician’s learnéd frown,— Shaken the penitential mind That read the text nor looked behind,— Brought from his throne the bookman down, Made hard the road to station and renown! Now from this seclusion deep The scholar wakes,—as one from sleep, As one from sleep remote and sweet, In some fragrant garden-close Between the lily and the rose, Roused by the tramp of many feet, Leaps up to find a ruthless, warring band, Dust, strife, an untried weapon in his hand! The time unto itself is strange, Driven on from change to change, Neither of past nor present sure, The ideal vanished nor the real secure. Heaven has faded from the skies, Faith hides apart and weeps with clouded eyes; A noise of cries we hear, a noise of creeds, While the old heroic deeds Not of the leaders now are told, as then, But of lowly, common men. See by what paths the loud-voiced gain Their little heights above the plain: Truth, honor, virtue, cast away For the poor plaudits of a day! Now fashion guides at will The artist’s brush, the writer’s quill, While, for a weary time unknown, The reverent workman toils alone, Asking for bread and given but a stone. Fettered with gold the statesman’s tongue; Now, even the church, among New doubts and strange discoveries, half in vain Defends her long, ancestral reign; Now, than all others grown more great, That which was the last estate By turns reflects and rules the age,— Laughs, scolds, weeps, counsels, jeers,—a jester and a sage! V. ENCHANTMENTS.