28.10.2007, 10:51
ON CERTAIN CRITICS.
THERE are who bid us chant this modern age,
With all its shifting hopes and crowded cares,
School-boards and land-laws, tithes and state-affairs,
And, one by one, the puny wars we wage ;
They charge us with our lyric flutes assuage
The hunger that the lean-ribbed peasant bears,
Or wreathe our laurel round the last grey hairs
Of the old pauper in his workhouse-cage,
Not wisely ; for the round world spins so fast,
Leaps in the air, staggers, and shoots, and halts,
We know not what is false or what is true ;
But in the firm perspectives of the past
We see the picture duly, and its faults
Are softly moulded by a filmy blue.
THERE are who bid us chant this modern age,
With all its shifting hopes and crowded cares,
School-boards and land-laws, tithes and state-affairs,
And, one by one, the puny wars we wage ;
They charge us with our lyric flutes assuage
The hunger that the lean-ribbed peasant bears,
Or wreathe our laurel round the last grey hairs
Of the old pauper in his workhouse-cage,
Not wisely ; for the round world spins so fast,
Leaps in the air, staggers, and shoots, and halts,
We know not what is false or what is true ;
But in the firm perspectives of the past
We see the picture duly, and its faults
Are softly moulded by a filmy blue.