Canto XXI

I sing to him that rests below,

      And, since the grasses round me wave,

      I take the grasses of the grave,

And make them pipes whereon to blow.

The traveller hears me now and then,

      And sometimes harshly will he speak:

      'This fellow would make weakness weak,

And melt the waxen hearts of men.'

Another answers, 'Let him be,

      He loves to make parade of pain,

      That with his piping he may gain

The praise that comes to constancy.'

A third is wroth: 'Is this an hour

      For private sorrow's barren song,

      When more and more the people throng

The chairs and thrones of civil power?

A time to sicken and to swoon,

      When Science reaches forth her arms

      To feel from world to world, and charms

Her secret from the latest moon?'

Behold, ye speak an idle thing:

      Ye never knew the sacred dust:

      I do but sing because I must,

And pipe but as the linnets sing:

And unto one her note is gay,

      For now her little ones have ranged;

      And unto one her note is changed,

Because her brood is stol'n away.