Grass of Parnassus   By: Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

Grass of Parnassus

Contents:

Grass of Parnassus Deeds of men: Seekers for a city The white Pacha Midnight, January 25, 1886 Advance, Australia Colonel Burnaby Melville and Coghill Rhodocleia: To Rhodocleia on her melancholy singing Ave: Clevedon church Twilight on Tweed Metempsychosis Lost in Hades A star in the night A sunset on yarrow Another way Hesperothen: The seekers for Phaeacia A song of Phaeacia The departure from Phaeacia A ballad of departure They hear the sirens for the second time Circe's Isle revisited The limit of lands Verses: Martial in town April on Tweed Tired of towns Scythe song Pen and ink A dream The singing rose A review in rhyme Colinette A sunset of Watteau Nightingale weather Love and wisdom Good bye An old prayer A la belle Helene Sylvie et Aurelie A lost path The shade of Helen Sonnets: She Herodotus in Egypt Gerard de Nerval Ronsard Love's miracle Dreams Two sonnets of the sirens Translations: Hymn to the winds Moonlight The grave and the rose A vow to heavenly Venus Of his lady's old age Shadows of his lady April An old tune Old loves A lady of high degree Iannoula The milk white doe Heliodore The prophet Lais Clearista The fisherman's tomb Of his death Rhodope To a girl To the ships A late convert The limit of life To Daniel Elzevir The Last Chance

To E. M. S.

Prima dicta mihi, summa dicenda Camena.

The years will pass, and hearts will range, YOU conquer Time, and Care, and Change. Though Time doth still delight to shed The dust on many a younger head; Though Care, oft coming, hath the guile From younger lips to steal the smile; Though Change makes younger hearts wax cold, And sells new loves for loves of old, Time, Change, nor Care, hath learned the art To fleck your hair, to chill your heart, To touch your tresses with the snow, To mar your mirth of long ago. Change, Care, nor Time, while life endure, Shall spoil our ancient friendship sure, The love which flows from sacred springs, In 'old unhappy far off things,' From sympathies in grief and joy, Through all the years of man and boy.

Therefore, to you, the rhymes I strung When even this 'brindled' head was young I bring, and later rhymes I bring That flit upon as weak a wing, But still for you, for yours, they sing!

Many of the verses and translations in this volume were published first in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872). Though very sensible that they have the demerits of imitative and even of undergraduate rhyme, I print them again because people I like have liked them. The rest are of different dates, and lack (though doubtless they need) the excuse of having been written, like some of the earlier pieces, during College Lectures. I would gladly have added to this volume what other more or less serious rhymes I have written, but circumstances over which I have no control have bound them up with Ballades, and other toys of that sort.

It may be as well to repeat in prose, what has already been said in verse, that Grass of Parnassus, the pretty Autumn flower, grows in the marshes at the foot of the Muses' Hill, and other hills, not at the top by any means.

Several of the versions from the Greek Anthology have been published in the Fortnightly Review, and the sonnet on Colonel Burnaby appeared in Punch. These, with pieces from other serials, are reprinted by the courteous permission of the Editors.