THE SESSIONS OF PARNASSUS.
225
My Croton Ode, sung by three hundred men,
You must have heard it! made sensation then.
I've stood the fire on Independence Day,
And braved the muddy perils of Broadway."
"That needs some courage!" growled the god of war;
"In short, great king! my aim has been, so far
As strength is mine, to wield the sword and lyre.
I'm called the "Western Körner by my choir."
Apollo smiled, and shook his radiant head:
"Wouldst serve two masters? better one instead;
For Mars disowns thee, and each muse above
Would spurn the proffers of divided love.
Be ruled by me, and hold to song alone,
Wherein thy genial gifts have fairest shown:
Touches of Nature wed with graceful Art
That rarely fail to move the common heart.
Nor seek with double chaplets to be crowned:
One Körner only in one age is found!
You must have heard it! made sensation then.
I've stood the fire on Independence Day,
And braved the muddy perils of Broadway."
"That needs some courage!" growled the god of war;
"In short, great king! my aim has been, so far
As strength is mine, to wield the sword and lyre.
I'm called the "Western Körner by my choir."
Apollo smiled, and shook his radiant head:
"Wouldst serve two masters? better one instead;
For Mars disowns thee, and each muse above
Would spurn the proffers of divided love.
Be ruled by me, and hold to song alone,
Wherein thy genial gifts have fairest shown:
Touches of Nature wed with graceful Art
That rarely fail to move the common heart.
Nor seek with double chaplets to be crowned:
One Körner only in one age is found!
"Now, from his rural mountain-home afar,
Go summon Willis to our royal bar!"
He comes; no sooner said than done the deed:
More swift mercurial than electric speed.
To whom bright Phœbus: "Can it then be true
That thou, too, shunn'st us as the laggards do?
Thou! whom thy lady-friends with zealous glow
Once dubbed 'a young Apollo' down below?"
"Great King of Rhyme-dom! you must be aware
Nature's a feminality, most fair,
Most jealous, too, and keeps me closely tied,
With delving, sowing, reaping, at her side.
That needs my 'jottings' be confined to prose,
And 'oats-pease-bean-dom' scarce leaves time for those."
"Plausibly argued"—here Apollo smiled—
"To shield from blame thy truly idle wild.
Be Nature fair—sure poets should rehearse
Such fairest charms in fairest strains—of verse;
If jealous, surely 'ballad to her brow'
Is lover's remedy for lover's woe.
Nature 's no Quaker; and the drab of prose
Is not the tint to represent the rose.
Go summon Willis to our royal bar!"
He comes; no sooner said than done the deed:
More swift mercurial than electric speed.
To whom bright Phœbus: "Can it then be true
That thou, too, shunn'st us as the laggards do?
Thou! whom thy lady-friends with zealous glow
Once dubbed 'a young Apollo' down below?"
"Great King of Rhyme-dom! you must be aware
Nature's a feminality, most fair,
Most jealous, too, and keeps me closely tied,
With delving, sowing, reaping, at her side.
That needs my 'jottings' be confined to prose,
And 'oats-pease-bean-dom' scarce leaves time for those."
"Plausibly argued"—here Apollo smiled—
"To shield from blame thy truly idle wild.
Be Nature fair—sure poets should rehearse
Such fairest charms in fairest strains—of verse;
If jealous, surely 'ballad to her brow'
Is lover's remedy for lover's woe.
Nature 's no Quaker; and the drab of prose
Is not the tint to represent the rose.
