THE SIGN OF THE LYRE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 76 (Supplement)

THE SIGN OF THE LYRE.

THANKSGIVING FOR POETS (By Edwin Markham, Author of “The Man With The Hoe.”) I thank Thee, Father, for my books! Each is a friend with kindly looks; Each a peculiar treasure brings; Each is a messenger of kings: Homer, the liigu, melodious source That gives all Ivric rt "earns J -heir ; The mighty Florentine, with soul All tears and me, and amooie, Who on the fateful circles saw Love is the final name of law; Chaucer, whose golden gossip runs With colour of the April suns And the wild freshness of the rose In that frail hour her ore it goes; Spenser, whose magic brings the feel Of lilies and the loves that kneel. Next Moliere, the heart’s best friend, Who keeps us laughing to the end, Tickling the ribs of - life with fun To Let the sweeter wrinkles run ; Cervantes, too, called into earth To medicine the rmnd with mirth; Rare Ben, so great his plunderings, He has a place among the kings; Shakespeare, who- comes alone, aloof, Looking on all without reproof, Without offence, his soul at one With the large tolerance of the sun— He leans tC' neither good nor ill, But whispers out each separate will; So the vast fabrics of his rhyme Seem only parts of earth and time. A chorus of archangels high Against the ardours of the sky, A gulf of darkness beyond sleep Where chafe the anarchs of the deep, A beamy world of elfin art, Blown thro’ by sylvan pipes apart—< This is the Milton of my heart. Now, Wordsworth, separate and austere, Telling the world that God is near, And kneeling where His feet have stood By the green altars of the wood ; And Coleridge too>: some elfin king Draws round his soul the magic ring. The realm of spell and whispering. Not Hybla hives more honeyed sweets Than this heart-kindling book of Keats. He drank earth’s beauty with a thirst— A gust the young gods felt at first; And Shelley, on his sky-way lone Sends back a far aeolian tone; And earth is sweeter for the light Shook downward from his starry flight. Browning, who probed the world to find Some truth'to prop the mortal mind, And found earth one of many goals, A place where God is making souls; And be, the bard, whose music bore King Arthur to the deathless shore. Who called a kingdom f'-om the dust, Knights from their tombs, swords from their rust, And by the magic of a rhyme Gave them to splendour and to time. Pne, the earth-baffled, he that held Converse with Love and Death and Eld, Shaken by harmonies that shine Thro’ Euclid, Kepler and tire Nine; And, last of all, the winged one— Gray Wisdom fluting in the sun— Our Emerson with shell so thin It let the starry music in :—- I thank Thee, Father, for these friends, Trustworthy to the end of ends— For all their high-erected rhyme Exempted from the spite of time. They oome to shorten the long day With boughs of warbling on the way.