Bards of Passion and of Mirth, written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher's Tragi-Comedy 'The Fair Maid of the Inn'
Lines:40Movement:Romanticism
BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,Ye have left your souls on earth!Have ye souls in heaven too,Doubled-lived in regions new?Yes, and those of heaven communeWith the spheres of sun and moon;With the noise of fountains wondrous,And the parle of voices thund'rous;With the whisper of heaven's treesAnd one another, in soft easeSeated on Elysian lawnsBrowsed by none but Dian's fawns;Underneath large blue-bells tented,Where the daisies are rose-scented,And the rose herself has gotPerfume which on earth is not;Where the nightingale doth singNot a senseless, tranced thing,But divine melodious truth;Philosophic numbers smooth;Tales and golden historiesOf heaven and its mysteries. Thus ye live on high, and thenOn the earth ye live again;And the souls ye left behind youTeach us, here, the way to find you,Where your other souls are joying,Never slumber'd, never cloying.Here, your earth-born souls still speakTo mortals, of their little week;Of their sorrows and delights;Of their passions and their spites;Of their glory and their shame;What doth strengthen and what maim.Thus ye teach us, every day,Wisdom, though fled far away. Bards of Passion and of Mirth,Ye have left your souls on earth!Ye have souls in heaven too,Double-lived in regions new!