Impressions 



Diluted Homer, Virgil, Horace, those 



Who framed a worthy song; who sang like men — 

 A weak solution of majestic prose 



And mightier verse from Shakespeare's magic pen • 

 Faint echo of the songs that poets writ 



When Bj'ron flashed like meteor in the sky — 

 The ghastly relic of a noble wit — 



Such modern poetry is, alas! And why? 



Is there no story worth the telling left? 



Must rhythm never leave the time-worn rut? 

 Are we of novel thought and deed bereft. 



No unsealed mountain from our outlook jut, 

 O'er which to clamber, giving view unthought 



Of this wide world? Or, is all commonplace? 

 To a dead level human action brought, 



Outworn, old Earth; exhausted time and space? 



123 



