Grass of Parnassus

Part 1

Transcribed from the 1888 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

GRASS OF PARNASSUS

RHYMES OLD AND NEW

BY ANDREW LANG

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LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET

All rights reserved

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PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON

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TO E. M. S.

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Primâ dicta mihi, summâ dicenda Camenâ.

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The years will pass, and hearts will range, You conquer Time, and Care, and Change. Though Time doth still delight to shed The dust on many a younger head; Though Care, oft coming, hath the guile From younger lips to steal the smile; Though Change makes younger hearts wax cold, And sells new loves for loves of old, Time, Change, nor Care, hath learned the art To fleck your hair, to chill your heart, To touch your tresses with the snow, To mar your mirth of long ago. Change, Care, nor Time, while life endure, Shall spoil our ancient friendship sure, The love which flows from sacred springs, In ‘old unhappy far-off things,’ From sympathies in grief and joy, Through all the years of man and boy.

Therefore, to you, the rhymes I strung When even this ‘brindled’ head was young I bring, and later rhymes I bring That flit upon as weak a wing, But still for you, for yours, they sing!

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MANY of the verses and translations in this volume were published first in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872). Though very sensible that they have the demerits of imitative and even of undergraduate rhyme, I print them again because people I like have liked them. The rest are of different dates, and lack (though doubtless they need) the excuse of having been written, like some of the earlier pieces, during College Lectures. I would gladly have added to this volume what other more or less serious rhymes I have written, but circumstances over which I have no control have bound them up with Ballades, and other toys of that sort.

It may be as well to repeat in prose, what has already been said in verse, that Grass of Parnassus, the pretty Autumn flower, grows in the marshes at the foot of the Muses’ Hill, and other hills, not at the top by any means.

Several of the versions from the Greek Anthology have been published in the Fortnightly Review, and the sonnet on Colonel Burnaby appeared in Punch. These, with pieces from other serials, are reprinted by the courteous permission of the Editors.

The verses that were published in Ballades and Lyrics, and in Ballads and Verses Vain (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York), are marked in the contents with an asterisk.

CONTENTS

DEEDS OF MEN PAGE SEEKERS FOR A CITY 3 THE WHITE PACHA 6 MIDNIGHT, JANUARY 25, 1886 8 ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA 9 COLONEL BURNABY 11 MELVILLE AND COGHILL 12 RHODOCLEIA TO RHODOCLEIA 15 AVE CLEVEDON CHURCH 21 TWILIGHT ON TWEED * 23 METEMPSYCHOSIS * 25 LOST IN HADES * 26 A STAR IN THE NIGHT * 27 A SUNSET ON YARROW * 28 ANOTHER WAY 29 HESPEROTHEN * THE SEEKERS FOR PHÆACIA 33 A SONG OF PHÆACIA 35 THE DEPARTURE FROM PHÆACIA 37 A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE 39 THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME 40 CIRCE’S ISLE REVISITED 42 THE LIMIT OF LANDS 44 VERSES MARTIAL IN TOWN 49 APRIL ON TWEED 51 TIRED OF TOWNS 53 SCYTHE SONG 55 PEN AND INK 56 A DREAM 58 THE SINGING ROSE 59 A REVIEW IN RHYME 62 COLINETTE * 63 A SUNSET OF WATTEAU * 65 NIGHTINGALE WEATHER * 67 LOVE AND WISDOM * 69 GOOD-BYE * 71 AN OLD PRAYER * 73 À LA BELLE HÉLÈNE * 74 SYLVIE ET AURÉLIE * 76 A LOST PATH * 78 THE SHADE OF HELEN * 79 SONNETS SHE 83 HERODOTUS IN EGYPT 84 GÉRARD DE NERVAL * 85 RONSARD * 86 LOVE’S MIRACLE * 87 DREAMS * 88 TWO SONNETS OF THE SIRENS * 89 TRANSLATIONS HYMN TO THE WINDS * 93 MOONLIGHT * 94 THE GRAVE AND THE ROSE * 95 A VOW TO HEAVENLY VENUS * 96 OF HIS LADY’S OLD AGE * 97 SHADOWS OF HIS LADY * 98 APRIL * 99 AN OLD TUNE * 103 OLD LOVES * 104 A LADY OF HIGH DEGREE * 106 IANNOULA * 108 THE MILK WHITE DOE * 109 HELIODORE 112 THE PROPHET 113 LAIS 114 CLEARISTA 115 THE FISHERMAN’S TOMB 116 OF HIS DEATH 117 RHODOPE 118 TO A GIRL 119 TO THE SHIPS 120 A LATE CONVERT 121 THE LIMIT OF LIFE 122 TO DANIEL ELZEVIR 123 THE LAST CHANCE THE LAST CHANCE 127

GRASS OF PARNASSUS.

PALE star that by the lochs of Galloway, In wet green places ’twixt the depth and height Dost keep thine hour while Autumn ebbs away, When now the moors have doffed the heather bright, Grass of Parnassus, flower of my delight, How gladly with the unpermitted bay— Garlands not mine, and leaves that not decay— How gladly would I twine thee if I might!

The bays are out of reach! But far below The peaks forbidden of the Muses’ Hill, Grass of Parnassus, thy returning snow Between September and October chill Doth speak to me of Autumns long ago, And these kind faces that are with me still.

DEEDS OF MEN

αειδε δ’ αρα κλέα ανδρων

Part 2

TO COLONEL IAN HAMILTON

To you, who know the face of war, You, that for England wander far, You that have seen the Ghazis fly From English lads not sworn to die, You that have lain where, deadly chill, The mist crept o’er the Shameful Hill, You that have conquered, mile by mile, The currents of unfriendly Nile, And cheered the march, and eased the strain When Politics made valour vain, Ian, to you, from banks of Ken, We send our lays of Englishmen!

SEEKERS FOR A CITY.

“Believe me, if that blissful, that beautiful place, were set on a hill visible to all the world, I should long ago have journeyed thither. . . But the number and variety of the ways! For you know, There is but one road that leads to Corinth.”

HERMOTIMUS (Mr Pater’s Version).

“The Poet says, dear city of Cecrops, and wilt thou not say, dear city of Zeus?”

M. ANTONINUS.

TO Corinth leads one road, you say: Is there a Corinth, or a way? Each bland or blatant preacher hath His painful or his primrose path, And not a soul of all of these But knows the city ’twixt the seas, Her fair unnumbered homes and all Her gleaming amethystine wall!

Blind are the guides who know the way, The guides who write, and preach, and pray, I watch their lives, and I divine They differ not from yours and mine!

One man we knew, and only one, Whose seeking for a city’s done, For what he greatly sought he found, A city girt with fire around, A city in an empty land Between the wastes of sky and sand, A city on a river-side, Where by the folk he loved, he died. {4a}

Alas! it is not ours to tread That path wherein his life he led, Not ours his heart to dare and feel, Keen as the fragrant Syrian steel; Yet are we not quite city-less, Not wholly left in our distress— Is it not said by One of old, Sheep have I of another fold? Ah! faint of heart, and weak of will, For us there is a city still!

Dear city of Zeus, the Stoic says, {4b} The Voice from Rome’s imperial days, In Thee meet all things, and disperse, In Thee, for Thee, O Universe! To me all’s fruit thy seasons bring, Alike thy summer and thy spring; The winds that wail, the suns that burn, From Thee proceed, to Thee return.

Dear city of Zeus, shall we not say, Home to which none can lose the way! Born in that city’s flaming bound, We do not find her, but are found. Within her wide and viewless wall The Universe is girdled all. All joys and pains, all wealth and dearth, All things that travail on the earth, God’s will they work, if God there be, If not, what is my life to me?

Seek we no further, but abide Within this city great and wide, In her and for her living, we Have no less joy than to be free; Nor death nor grief can quite appal The folk that dwell within her wall, Nor aught but with our will befall!

THE WHITE PACHA.

VAIN is the dream! However Hope may rave, He perished with the folk he could not save, And though none surely told us he is dead, And though perchance another in his stead, Another, not less brave, when all was done, Had fled unto the southward and the sun, Had urged a way by force, or won by guile To streams remotest of the secret Nile, Had raised an army of the Desert men, And, waiting for his hour, had turned again And fallen on that False Prophet, yet we know GORDON is dead, and these things are not so! Nay, not for England’s cause, nor to restore Her trampled flag—for he loved Honour more— Nay, not for Life, Revenge, or Victory, Would he have fled, whose hour had dawned to die. He will not come again, whate’er our need, He will not come, who is happy, being freed From the deathly flesh and perishable things, And lies of statesmen and rewards of kings. Nay, somewhere by the sacred River’s shore He sleeps like those who shall return no more, No more return for all the prayers of men— Arthur and Charles—they never come again! They shall not wake, though fair the vision seem: Whate’er sick Hope may whisper, vain the dream!

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