Timrod

THEOCRITUS, who in some April tide
Came through the dusk unto the battle plain,
By the camp fires took up his pipe again,
And richly blew down the sad countryside.
The shepherd waxes old, and is forgot;
Forgot the chieftain and his red delight ;
But the slim reed keeps fast the fold, the fight;
Song sits among the suns, and changes not.
How shall we praise him save with his own song ?
The distant note, the delicate strain is there,
Of bees and sedge, of fields dim and apart;
Then, keen with men, affairs, loss, glory, wrong,
A various music storms along the air,
Sweeps past the years, and shakes us to the heart!

Lizette Woodworth Reese.