'Thou dost not wisely, Bard. A double voice is Truth's, to use at will: One, with the abysmal scorn of good for ill, Smiting the brutish ear with doctrine hard, Wherein She strives to look as near a lie As can comport with her divinity; The other tender-soft as seem The embraces of a dead Love in a dream. These thoughts, which you have sung In the vernacular, Should be, as others of the Church's are, Decently cloak'd in the Imperial Tongue. Have you no fears Lest, as Lord Jesus bids your sort to dread, Yon acorn-munchers rend you limb from limb, You, with Heaven's liberty affronting theirs!' So spoke my monitor; but I to him, 'Alas, and is not mine a language dead?' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO THE WATER NYMPHS DRINKING AT THE FOUNTAIN by ROBERT HERRICK THE PORTENT by HERMAN MELVILLE HELIOTROPE by HARRY THURSTON PECK BUILDING BLOCKS by VIRGINIA A. ALLIN THE ENGINE by ALEXANDER ANDERSON CHRISTMAS HYMN by HARRIET AUBER NOVEMBER 4TH, 1937 by LEONARD BACON (1887-1954) |