The Last Poet
“When will your bards be weary
Of rhyming on? How long
Ere it is sung and ended,
The old, eternal song?
“It is not, long since, empty,
The horn of full supply;
And all the posies gathered,
And all the fountains dry?”
As long as the sun’s chariot
Yet keeps its azure track,
And but one human visage
Gives answering glances back;
As long as skies shall nourish
The thunderbolt and gale,
And, frightened at their fury,
One throbbing heart shall quail;
As long as after tempests
Shall spring one showery bow,
One breast with peaceful promise
And reconcilement glow;
As long as night the concave
Sows with its starry seed,
And but one man those letters
Of golden writ can read;
Long as a moonbeam glimmers,
Or bosom sighs a vow;
Long as the wood-leaves rustle
To cool a weary brow;
As long as roses blossom,
And earth is green in May;
As long as eyes shall sparkle
And smile in pleasure’s ray;
As long as cypress shadows
The graves more mournful make,
Of one cheek ‘s wet with weeping,
Or one poor heart can break;–
So long on earth shall wander
The goddess Poesy,
And with her, one exulting
Her votarist to be.
And singing on, triumphing,
The old earth-mansion through,
Out marches the last minstrel;
He is the last man too.
The Lord holds the creation
Forth in his hand meanwhile,
Like a fresh flower just opened;
And views it with a smile.
When once this Flower Giant
Begins to show decay,
And earths and suns are flying
Like blossom-dust away;
Then ask – if of the question
Not weary yet,– “How long
Ere it is sung and ended,
The old, eternal song?”
.
.