The
Muse and the Wheel
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The
poet took his wheel one day
A-wandering to go,
But soon fell out beside the way,
The leaves allured him so.
He leaned his wheel against a tree
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5 |
And
in the shade lay down;
And more to him were bloom and bee
Than all the busy town.
He listened to the Phœbe-bird
And learned a thing worth
knowing.
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10 |
He lay
so still he almost heard
The merry grasses growing.
He lay so still he dropped asleep;
And then the Muse came
by.
The stars were in her garment’s sweep,
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15 |
| But
laughter in her eye.
"Poor boy!" she said, "how tired
he seems!"
His vagrant feet must
follow
So many loves, so many dreams,—
(To find them mostly hollow!)
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20 |
"No marvel if he does not feel
My old familiar nearness!"
And then her gaze fell on his wheel
And wondered at its queerness.
"Can you be Pegasus," she mused,
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25 |
"To
modern mood translated,
But poorly housed, and meanly used,
And grown attenuated?
"Ah, no, you’re quite another breed
From him who once would
follow
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30 |
Across
the clear Olympian mead
The calling of Apollo!
"No Hippocrene would leap to light
If you should stamp your
hoof.
You never knew the pastures bright
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.35 |
| Wherein
we lie aloof.
"You never drank of Helicon,
Or strayed in Tempe’s
vale.
You never soared against the sun
Till earth grew faint
and pale.
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40 |
"You bear my poor deluded boy
Each latest love to see!
But Pegasus would mount with joy
And bring him straight to
me!"
He woke. The olden spell was strong
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45 |
Within
his eager bosom;
And so he wrote a mystic song
Upon the nearest blossom.
He wrote, until a sudden whim
Set all his bosom trembling;
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50 |
Then
sped to woo a maiden slim
His latest love resembling. |
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