This is not for you, in the splendour of a new age, in the democratic
triumph!
Listen to the clashing cymbals, the big drums, the brazen trumpets of
your poets."

But the people made no answer, following in their hearts the simpler
music:
For it seemed to them, noise-weary, nothing could be better worth the
hearing
Than the melodies which brought sweet order into life's confusion.

So the shepherd sang his way along, until he came unto a mountain:
And I know not surely whether the mountain was called Parnassus,
But he climbed it out of sight, and still I heard the voice of one
singing.

January, 1907.



THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH


I

BIRTHDAY VERSES, 1906

Dear Aldrich, now November's mellow days
Have brought another _Festa_ round to you,
You can't refuse a loving-cup of praise