Teaching How Poetry Is Best Paid for

O say not that the minstrel’s art,The glorious gift of verse,Though his hopes decay, though his friends depart,Can ever be a curse;Though sorrow reign within his heart,And poortith hold his purse.

Say not his toil is profitless;Though he charm no rich relation,The Fairies all his labours blessWith such remunerationAs Mr. Hume would soon confessBeyond his calculation.

Annuities and Three per Cents,Little cares he about them;And Indian bonds, and tithes, and rents,He rambles on without them;But love, and noble sentiments,Oh, never bid him doubt them!

Childe Florice rose from his humble bedAnd prayed, as a good youth should;And forth he sped, with a lightsome tread,Into the neighbouring wood;He knew where the berries were ripe and red,And where the old oak stood.

And as he lay at the noon of dayBeneath the ancient tree,A grey-haired pilgrim passed that way;A holy man was he,And he was wending forth to prayAt a shrine in a far countrie.

Oh, his was a weary wandering,And a song or two might cheer him,The pious Childe began to sing,As the ancient man drew near him;The lark was mute as he touched the string,And the thrush said, “Hear him, hear him!”

He sang high tales of the martyred brave,Of the good, and pure, and just,Who have gone into the silent graveIn such deep faith and trust,That the hopes and thoughts which sain and saveSpring from their buried dust.

The fair of face, and the stout of limb,Meek maids and grandsires hoary,Who have sung on the cross their rapturous hymn,As they passed to their doom of glory;Their radiant fame is never dim,Nor their names erased from story.

Time spares the stone where sleep the deadWith angels watching round them;The mourner’s grief is comfortedAs he looks on the chains that bound them;And peace is shed on the murderer’s head,And he kisses the thorns that crowned them

Such tales he told; and the pilgrim heardIn a trance of voiceless pleasure;For the depths of his inmost soul was stirredBy the sad and solemn measure:“I give thee my blessing,” was his word,“It is all I have of treasure!”--

A little child came bounding by;And he, in a fragrant bower,Had found a gorgeous butterfly,Rare spoil for a nursery dower,Which with fierce step and eager eyeHe chased from flower to flower.

“Come hither, come hither,” ’gan Florice call;And the urchin left his fun:So from the hall of poor Sir PaulRetreats the baffled dun;So Ellen parts from the village ball,Where she leaves a heart half won.

Then Florice did the child caress,And sang his sweetest songs:Their theme was of the gentlenessWhich to the soul belongs,Ere yet it knows the name or dressOf human rights and wrongs;

And of the wants which make agreeAll parts of this vast plan;How life is in whate’er we see,And only life in man;What matter where the less may be,And where the longer span?

And how the heart grows cold withoutSoft Pity’s freshening dews;And how when any life goes outSome little pang ensues:--Facts which great soldiers often doubt,And wits who write reviews.

Oh, song hath power o’er Nature’s springs,Though deep the Nymph has laid them!The child gazed--gazed on gilded wingsAs the next bright breeze displayed them;But he felt the while that the meanest thingsAre dear to Him that made them!

The sun went down behind the hill,The breeze was growing colder;But there the Minstrel lingered still,And amazed the chance beholder,Musing beside a rippling rillWith a harp upon his shoulder.

And soon, on a graceful steed and tame,A sleek Arabian mare,The lady Juliana cameRiding to take the air,With many a lord at whose proud nameA Radical would swear.

The Minstrel touched his lute again;It was more than a Sultan’s crown,When the Lady checked her bridle reinAnd lit from her palfrey down:--What would you give for such a strain,Rees, Longman, Orme and Brown?

He sang of Beauty’s dazzling eyes,Of Beauty’s melting tone,And her praise is a richer prizeThan the gems of Persia’s throne,And her love a bliss which the coldly wiseHave never, never known.

He told how the valiant scoff at fearWhen the sob of her grief is heard;How fiercely they fight for a smile or a tear,How they die for a single word:--Things which, I own, to me appearExceedingly absurd.

The Lady soon had heard enough;She turned to hear Sir DenysDiscourse in language vastly gruffAbout his skill at Tennis;While smooth Sir Guy described the stuffHis mistress wore at Venice.

The Lady smiled one radiant smile,And the Lady rode away--There is not a Lady in all our Isle,I have heard a Poet say,Who can listen more than a little whileTo a poet’s sweetest lay.--

His mother’s voice was fierce and shrillAs she set the milk and fruit:“Out on thine unrewarded skill,And on thy vagrant lute;Let the strings be broken an they will,And the beggar lips be mute!”

Peace, peace! the Pilgrim as he wentForgot the Minstrel’s song,But the blessing that his wan lips sentWill guard the Minstrel long,And keep his spirit innocent,And turn his hand from wrong.

Belike the child had little thoughtOf the moral the Minstrel drew;But the dream of a deed of kindness wrought--Brings it not peace to you?And does not a lesson of virtue taughtTeach him that teaches too?

And if the Lady sighed no sighFor the Minstrel or his hymn,--Yet when he shall lie ’neath the moonlit sky,Or lip the goblet’s brim,What a star in the mist of memoryThat smile will be to him!