XXII. 66 O fret away the fabric walls of Fame, And grind down marble Cæsars with the dust: Make tombs inscriptionless-raze each high name, And waste old armours of renown with rust: XXIII. “Frail feeble sprites!—the children of a dream! Leased on the sufferance of fickle men, Like motes dependent on the sunny beam, Living but in the sun's indulgent ken, And when that light withdraws, withdrawing then ; So do we flutter in the glance of youth And fervid fancy, and so perish when The eye of faith grows aged ;-in sad truth, Feeling thy sway, O Time! though not thy tooth! XXIV. "Where be those old divinities forlorn, That dwelt in trees, or haunted in a stream? Like the remainder tatters of a dream : So will it fare with our poor thrones, I deem ;- XXV. Now as she ended, with a sigh, to name Of fortune's giddy wheel and brought to shame, XXVI. Pity it was to hear the elfins' wail Rise up in concert from their mingled dread ; Gaze on the grass as for a dying bed ;- That hung between two branches of a briar, For him no present grief could long inspire. XXVII. Meanwhile the Queen with many piteous drops, Falling like tiny sparks full fast and free, Bedews a pathway from her throne ;—and stops Before the foot of her arch enemy, And with her little arms enfolds his knee, That shows more gristly from that fair embrace; But she will ne'er depart. "Alas! "quoth she, "My painful fingers I will here enlace Till I have gain'd your pity for our race. XXVIII. What have we ever done to earn this grudge, Look o'er our labours and our lives, and judge For we are very kindly creatures, dating XXIX. Anon I saw one of those elfin things, Clad all in white like any chorister, Come fluttering forth on his melodious wings, That made soft music at each little stir, But something louder than a bee's demur And thus 'gan he with Saturn to confer, And O his voice was sweet, touch'd with the gloom Of that sad theme that argued of his doom! XXX. Quoth he, "We make all melodies our care, That singeth with her breast against a thorn. XXXI. We gather in loud choirs the twittering race, That make a chorus with their single note; And tend on new-fledged birds in every place, That duly they may get their tunes by rote; And oft, like echoes, answering remote, We hide in thickets from the feather'd throng, |