ONE ballade more before we say good-night, <br />O dying Muse, one mournful ballade more! <br />Then let the new men fall to their delight, <br />The Impressionist, the Decadent, a score <br />Of other fresh fanatics who adore <br />Quaint demons, and disdain thy golden shrine; <br />Ah! faded goddess, thou wert held divine <br />When we were young! But now each laurelled head <br />Has fallen, and fallen the ancient glorious line; <br />The last is gone, since Banville too is dead. <br /> <br />Peace, peace a moment, dolorous Ibsenite! <br />Pale Tolstoist, moaning from the Euxine shore! <br />Psychology, to dreamland take thy flight! <br />And, fell Heredity, forbear to pour <br />Drop after drop thy dose of hellebore, <br />For we look back to-night to ruddier wine <br />And gayer singing than these moans of thine! <br />Our skies were azure once, our roses red, <br />Our poets once were crowned with eglantine; <br />The last is gone, since Banville too is dead. <br /> <br />With flutes and lyres and many a lovely rite <br />Through the mad woodland of our youth they bore <br />Verse, like pure ichor in a chrysolite, <br />Secret yet splendid, and the world forswore, <br />For one brief space, the mocking mask it wore. <br />Then failed, then fell those children of the vine,-- <br />Sons of the sun,--and sank in slow decline; <br />Pulse after pulse their radiant lives were shed; <br />To silence we their vocal names consign; <br />The last is gone, since Banville too is dead. <br /> <br />ENVOI: <br />Prince-jeweller, whose facet-rhymes combine <br />All hues that glow, all rays that shift and shine, <br />Farewell! thy song is sung, thy splendour fled! <br />No bards to Aganippe's wave incline; <br />The last is gone, since Banville too is dead.<br /><br />Edmund William Gosse<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballade-for-the-funeral-of/
