Home Pastorals, Ballads and Lyrics/Ad Amicos
AD AMICOS.
MOUNT CUBA, OCTOBER 10, 1874.
Sometimes an hour of Fate's serenest weather Strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams;Somewhere above us, in elusive ether, Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.
So, when the wayward time and gift have blended, When hope beholds relinquished visions won,The heavens are broken and a blue more splendid Holds in its bosom an enchanted sun.
Then words unguessed, in faith's own shyness guarded, To ears unused their welcome music bear:Then hands help on that doubtingly retarded, And love is liberal as the Summer air.
The thorny chaplet of a slow probation Becomes the laurel Fate so long denied;The form achieved smiles on the aspiration, And dream is deed and Art is justified!
Ah, nevermore the dull neglect, that smothers The bard's dependent being, shall return;Forgotten lines are on the lips of others, Extinguished thoughts in other spirits burn!
Still hoarded lives what seemed so spent and wasted, And echoes come from dark or empty years;Here brims the golden cup, no more untasted, But fame is dim through mists of grateful tears.
I sang but as the living spirit taught me, Beat towards the light, perchance with wayward wing;And still must answer, for the cheer you've brought me: I sang because I could not choose but sing.
From that wide air, whose greedy silence swallows So many voices, even as mine seemed lost,I hear you speak, and sudden glory follows, As from a falling tongue of Pentecost.
So heard and hailed by you, that, standing nearest, Blend love with faith in one far-shining flame.I hold anew the earliest gift and dearest, The happy Song that cares not for its fame!B. T.