I hear a piper piping on a reed
To listening flocks of sheep and bearded goats;
I hear the larks shrill-warbling o’er the mead
Their silver sonnets from their golden throats;
And in my boyhood’s clover-fields I hear
The twittering swallows and the hum of bees. 
Ah, sweeter to my heart and to my ear
Than any idyl poet ever sung,
The low, sweet music of their melodies;
Because I listened when my soul was young,
In those dear meadows under maple trees. 
My heart they molded when its clay was moist,
And all my life the hum of honey-bees
Hath waked in me a spirit that rejoiced,
And touched the trembling chords of tenderest memories.

I hear loud voices and a clamorous throng
With braying bugles and with bragging drums—­
Bards and bardies laboring at a song. 
One lifts his locks, above the rest preferred,
And to the buzzing flies of fashion thrums
A banjo.  Lo him follow all the herd. 
When Nero’s wife put on her auburn wig,
And at the Coliseum showed her head,
The hair of every dame in Rome turned red;
When Nero fiddled all Rome danced a jig. 
Novelty sets the gabbling geese agape,
And fickle fashion follows like an ape. 
Aye, brass is plenty; gold is scarce and dear;
Crystals abound, but diamonds still are rare. 
Is this the golden age, or the age of gold? 
Lo by the page or column fame is sold. 
Hear the big journal braying like an ass;
Behold the brazen statesmen as they pass;
See dapper poets hurrying for their dimes
With hasty verses hammered out in rhymes: 
The Muses whisper—­’"Tis the age of brass.” 
Workmen are plenty, but the masters few—­
Fewer to-day than in the days of old. 
Rare blue-eyed pansies peeping pearled with dew,
And lilies lifting up their heads of gold,
Among the gaudy cockscombs I behold,
And here and there a lotus in the shade;
And under English oaks a rose that ne’er will fade.

Fair barks that flutter in the sun your sails,
Piping anon to gay and tented shores
Sweet music and low laughter, it is well
Ye hug the haven when the tempest roars,
For only stalwart ships of oak or steel
May dare the deep and breast the billowy sea
When sweeps the thunder-voiced, dark hurricane,
And the mad ocean shakes his shaggy mane,
And roars through all his grim and vast immensity.

The stars of heaven shine not till it is dark. 
Seven cities strove for Homer’s bones, ’tis said,
“Through which the living Homer begged for bread.” 
When in their coffins they lay dumb and stark
Shakespeare began to live, Dante to sing,
And Poe’s sweet lute began its werbelling. 
Rear monuments of fame or flattery—­
Think ye their sleeping souls are made aware? 
Heap o’er their heads sweet praise or calumny—­
Think ye their moldering ashes hear or care? 
Nay, praise and fame are by the living sought;
But he is wise who scorns their flattery,
And who escapes the tongue of calumny
May count himself an angel or a naught: 
Lo over Byron’s grave a maggot writhes distraught.