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Poem by Edmund William Gosse Greece and England Would this sunshine be completer, Or these violets smell sweeter, Or the birds sing more in metre, If it all were years ago, When the melted mountain-snow Heard in Enna all the woe Of the poor forlorn Demeter? Would a stronger life pulse o'er us If a panther-chariot bore us, If we saw, enthroned before us, Ride the leopard-footed god, With a fir-cone tip the rod, Whirl the thyrsus round, and nod To a drunken Maenad-chorus? Bloomed there richer, redder roses Where the Lesbian earth incloses All of Sappho? where reposes Meleager, laid to sleep By the olive-girdled deep; Where the Syrian maidens weep, Bringing serpolet in posies? Ah! it may be! Greece had leisure For a world of faded pleasure; We must tread a tamer measure, To a milder, homelier lyre; We must tend a paler fire, Lay less perfume on the pyre, Be content with poorer treasure! Were the brown-limbed lovers bolder? Venus younger, Cupid older? Down the wood-nymph's warm white shoulder Trailed a purpler, madder vine? Were the poets more divine? Brew we no such golden wine Here, where summer suns are colder? Yet for us too life has flowers, Time a glass of joyous hours, Interchange of sun and showers, And a wealth of leafy glades, Meant for loving men and maids, Full of warm green lights and shades, Trellis-work of wild-wood bowers. So while English suns are keeping Count of sowing-time and reaping, We've no need to waste our weeping, Though the glad Greeks lounged at ease Underneath their olive-trees, And the Sophoclean bees Swarmed on lips of poets sleeping! Edmund William Gosse Edmund William Gosse's other poems: 1291 Views |
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