To The Querulous Poets

THROW by the trappings of your tinsel rhyme!
Hush the crude voice, whose neverending wail
Blights the sweet song of thrush, or nightingale,--
Set to the treble of our querulous time;
Is earth grown dim? Hath heaven her grace sublime,
Her pomp of clouds, and winds, and sunset showers
Merged in the twilight of funereal hours,
And Time's death-signal struck its iron chime?
O! false, frail dreamer! not one tiniest note
From yonder green-girt copse, but whispers, "shame!"--
Love, beauty, rapture, swell the warbler's throat,--
The self-same joy, the passion blithe and young,
Thrilled by the force of whose immaculate flame,
The first glad stars, the stars of morning, sung!