THE SONG

Let now the King his ear arouse

And toss the bosky ringlets from his brows,

The while, our bond to implement,

My muse relates and praises his descent.

Bride of the shark, her valour first I sing

Who on the lone seas quickened of a King.

She, from the shore and puny homes of men,

Beyond the climber’ s sea-discerning ken,

Swam, led by omens; and devoid of fear,

Beheld her monstrous paramour draw near.

She gazed; all round her to the heavenly pale,

The simple sea was void of isle or sail —

Sole overhead the unsparing sun was reared —

When the deep bubbled and the brute appeared.

But she, secure in the decrees of fate,

Made strong her bosom and received the mate,

And, men declare, from that marine embrace

Conceived the virtues of a stronger race.

Her stern descendant next I praise,

Survivor of a thousand frays:—

In the hall of tongues who ruled the throng;

Led and was trusted by the strong;

And when spears were in the wood,

Like a tower of vantage stood:—

Whom, not till seventy years had sped,

Unscarred of breast, erect of head,

Still light of step, still bright of look,

The hunter, Death, had overtook.

His sons, the brothers twain, I sing,

Of whom the elder reigned a King.

No Childeric he, yet much declined

From his rude sire’ s imperious mind,

Until his day came when he died,

He lived, he reigned, he versified.

But chiefly him I celebrate

That was the pillar of the state,

Ruled, wise of word and bold of mien,

The peaceful and the warlike scene;

And played alike the leader’ s part

In lawful and unlawful art.

His soldiers with emboldened ears

Heard him laugh among the spears.

He could deduce from age to age

The web of island parentage;

Best lay the rhyme, best lead the dance,

For any festal circumstance:

And fitly fashion oar and boat,

A palace or an armour coat.

None more availed than he to raise

The strong, suffumigating blaze,

Or knot the wizard leaf: none more,

Upon the untrodden windward shore

Of the isle, beside the beating main,

To cure the sickly and constrain,

With muttered words and waving rods,

The gibbering and the whistling gods.

But he, though thus with hand and head

He ruled, commanded, charmed, and led,

And thus in virtue and in might

Towered to contemporary sight —

Still in fraternal faith and love,

Remained below to reach above,

Gave and obeyed the apt command,

Pilot and vassal of the land.

My Tembinok’ from men like these

Inherited his palaces,

His right to rule, his powers of mind,

His cocoa-islands sea-enshrined.

Stern bearer of the sword and whip,

A master passed in mastership,

He learned, without the spur of need,

To write, to cipher, and to read;

From all that touch on his prone shore

Augments his treasury of lore,

Eager in age as erst in youth

To catch an art, to learn a truth,

To paint on the internal page

A clearer picture of the age.

His age, you say? But ah, not so!

In his lone isle of long ago,

A royal Lady of Shalott,

Sea-sundered, he beholds it not;

He only hears it far away.

The stress of equatorial day

He suffers; he records the while

The vapid annals of the isle;

Slaves bring him praise of his renown,

Or cackle of the palm-tree town;

The rarer ship and the rare boat

He marks; and only hears remote,

Where thrones and fortunes rise and reel,

The thunder of the turning wheel.

For the unexpected tears he shed

At my departing, may his lion head

Not whiten, his revolving years

No fresh occasion minister of tears;

At book or cards, at work or sport,

Him may the breeze across the palace court

For ever fan; and swelling near

For ever the loud song divert his ear.