Why should I strive through weary moons
To make my music true?
Only the dead men knew the tunes
The live world dances to.
CORYDON'S FAREWELL TO HIS PIPE
Yea, it is best, dear friends, who have so oft
Fed full my ears with praises sweet and soft,
Sweeter and softer than my song should win,
Too sweet and soft--I must not listen more,
Lest its dear perilous honey make me mad,
And once again an overweening lad
Presume against Apollo. Nay, no more!
'Tis not to pipes like mine sing stars at morn,
Nor stars at night dance in their solemn dance:
Nay, stars! why tell of stars? the very thrush
Putteth my daintiest cunning to the blush
And boasteth him the hedgerow laureate.
Yea, dimmest daisies lost amid the grass,
One might have deemed blessed us for looking at,
Would rather choose,--yea, so it is, alas!--
The meanest bird that from its tiny throat
Droppeth the pearl of one monotonous note,
Than any music I can bring to pass.
So, let me go: for, while I linger here,
Piping these dainty ditties for your ear,
To win that dearer honey for my own,
Daylong my Thestylis doth sit alone,
Weeping, mayhap, because the gods have given
Song but not sheep--the rarer gift of heaven;
And little Phyllis solitary grows,
And little Corydon unheeded goes.
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