Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/180

These faces were not multiplied
Beyond your count, but side by side
Did front the altar, glorified;

Still as a vision, yet exprest
Full as an action—look and geste
Of buried saint, in risen rest!

The poet knew them. Faint and dim
His spirit seemed to sink in him,
Then, like a dolphin, change and swim

The current—These were poets true
"Who died for Beauty, as martyrs do
For Truth—the ends being scarcely two.

God's prophets of the Beautiful
These poets were—of iron rule,
The rugged cilix, serge of wool.

Here, Homer, with the broad suspense
Of thunderous brows, and lips intense
Of garrulous god-innocence.

There, Shakspeare! on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world! Oh, eyes sublime—
With tears and laughters for all time!

Here, Æschylus,—the women swooned
To see so awful when he frowned
As the gods did,—he standeth crowned.

Euripides, with close and mild
Scholastic lips,—that could be wild,
And laugh or sob out like a child

Right in the classes. Sophocles,
With that king's look which down the trees,
Followed the dark effigies

Of the lost Theban! Hesiod old,
Who, somewhat blind, and deaf, and cold,
Cared most for gods and bulls! and bold