GROCYN AT OXFORD


_THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE_

1491

As she who in some village-child unknown,
With rustic grace and fantasy bedeck'd
And in her simple loveliness alone,
A sister finds;--and the long years' neglect
Effaces with warm love and nursing care,
And takes her heart to heart,
And in her treasured treasures bids her freely share,

And robes with radiance new, new strength and grace:--
Hellas and England! thus it was with ye!
Though distanced far by centuries and by space,
Sisters in soul by Nature's own decree.
And if on Athens in her glory-day
The younger might not look,
Her living soul came back, and reinfused our clay.

--It was not wholly lost, that better light,
Not in the darkest darkness of our day;
From cell to cell, e'en through the Danish night,
The torch ran on its firefly fitful way;
And blazed anew with him who in the vale
Of fair Aosta saw