I PERADVENTURE of old, some bard in Ionian Islands, | |
| Walking alone by the sea, hearing the wash of the waves, | |
| Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac, | |
| Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea. | |
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| For as the wave of the sea, upheaving in long undulations, | 5 |
| Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and turns, and retreats, | |
| So the Hexameter, rising and singing, with cadence sonorous, | |
| Falls; and in refluent rhythm back the Pentameter flows. | |
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II Not in his youth alone, but in age, may the heart of the poet | |
| Bloom into song, as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring. | 10 |
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III Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are the rhymes of our poet; | |
| Though it be Jacob’s voice, Esau’s, alas! are the hands. | |
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IV Let us be grateful to writers for what is left in the inkstand; | |
| When to leave off is an art only attained by the few. | |
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V How can the Three be One? you ask me; I answer by asking, | 15 |
| Hail and snow and rain, are they not three, and yet one? | |
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VI By the mirage uplifted, the land floats vague in the ether, | |
| Ships and the shadows of ships hang in the motionless air; | |
| So by the art of the poet our common life is uplifted, | |
| So, transfigured, the world floats in a luminous haze. | 20 |
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VII Like a French poem is Life; being only perfect in structure | |
| When with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are. | |
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VIII Down from the mountain descends the brooklet, rejoicing in freedom; | |
| Little it dreams of the mill hid in the valley below; | |
| Glad with the joy of existence, the child goes singing and laughing, | 25 |
| Little dreaming what toils lie in the future concealed. | |
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IX As the ink from our pen, so flow our thoughts and our feelings | |
| When we begin to write, however sluggish before. | |
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X Like the Kingdom of Heaven, the Fountain of Youth is within us; | |
| If we seek it elsewhere, old shall we grow in the search. | 30 |
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XI If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; | |
| Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth. | |
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XII Wisely the Hebrews admit no Present tense in their language; | |
| While we are speaking the word, it is already the Past. | |
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XIII In the twilight of age all things seem strange and phantasmal, | 35 |
| As between daylight and dark ghost-like the landscape appears. | |
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XIV Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending; | |
| Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse. | |
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