Bacchanalia; Or, the New Age II

The epoch ends, the world is still.The age has talked and worked its fill.The famous orators have shone,The famous poets sung and gone,The famous men of war have fought,The famous speculators thought,The famous players, sculptors, wrought,The famous painters filled their wall,The famous critics judged it all.The combatants are parted now;Uphung the spear, unbent the bow,The puissant crowned, the weak laid low.And in the after-silence sweet,Now strifes are hushed, our ears doth meet,Ascending pure, the bell-like fameOf this or that down-trodden name,Delicate spirits, pushed awayIn the hot press of the noonday.And o’er the plain, where the dead ageDid its now-silent warfare wage,--O’er that wide plain, now wrapped in gloom,Where many a splendor finds its tomb,Many spent fames and fallen nights nights--The one or two immortal lightsRise slowly up into the sky,To shine there everlastingly,Like stars over the bounding hill.The epoch ends, the world is still.

Thundering and burstingIn torrents, in waves,Carolling and shoutingOver tombs, amid graves,See! on the cumbered plainClearing a stage,Scattering the past about,Comes the new age.Bards make new poems,Thinkers new schools,Statesmen new systems,Critics new rules.All things begin again;Life is their prize;Earth with their deeds they fill,Fill with their cries.

Poet, what ails thee, then?Say, why so mute?Forth with thy praising voice!Forth with thy flute!Loiterer! why sittest thouSunk in thy dream?Tempts not the bright new age?Shines not its stream?Look, ah! what genius,Art, science, wit!Soldiers like Cæsar,Statesmen like Pitt!Sculptors like Phidias,Raphaels in shoals,Poets like Shakspeare,--Beautiful souls!See, on their glowing cheeksHeavenly the flush!--Ah! so the silence was!So was the hush!

The world but feels the present’s spell:The poet feels the past as well;Whatever men have done, might do,Whatever thought, might think it too.