Magyar H. P. Lovecraft Portál - hplovecraft.hu
To Arthur Goodenough, Esq.
Szerző: Howard Phillips Lovecraft • Év: 1918
When fading faith with mangled morals vies
To drive Astraea to the shelt’ring skies;
When brazen times the silver age succeed,
And genius smothers in the folds of greed;
Amidst the wreck one ling’ring lamp behold,
Bright with the lustre of the age of gold;
Whilst virtue flickers, threat’ning to expire,
Brave Goodenough preserves the sacred fire!
Immortal bard, whose limpid lines sustain
Aonia’s pow’r, and Saturn’s blissful reign;
Whose skill Amphion vainly might contest;
Whose pious pen the fav’ring Gods have bless’d:
‘Tis thine with art to cleanse our dismal day,
Lift up the soul, and smooth each sin away!
Happy the hour when first thy Doric reed
Thrill’d verdant mounts, and charm’d the flow’ring mead;
Pan with his pipes a softer strain rehears’d,
Content to copy where he once was first:
And since that time thy carols ne’er have ceas’d;
In number, as in melody, increas’d.
Whate’er thy manner, and whate’er thy theme,
Pierian ripples deck the copious stream,
Strength without bombast, virtue without cant;
The Nine to thee an endless genius grant:
Unstudy’d ease thy fecund pow’rs supply;
Full flows the fountain, never running dry.
We view thy songs, the fruit of many a year,
And as we gaze, fresh witcheries appear;
In vain we seek the loftiest to select,
For all excel, where lingers no defect:
Helpless to know what verses most to praise,
We laud the whole, and grant abounding bays.
How throb the pulses as we scan the page
Where low’r the portents of celestial rage,
Or as with sharp expectancy we turn
To read of Eric and his golden urn.
France’s dead Queen thy bitt’rest scorn forgives,
So much of genius in thy censure lives;
Nor can we murmur when thy Roundhead pride
Contemns poor Charles, and sings the Regicide.
Great Milton thus thro’ his Parnassian song
Made ev’n rebellion savour less of wrong.
What pleasures rise when in thy Attic strain
We hear the glories of our native plain:
There sachems stalk, and soldiers play their part,
And shades ancestral stir the Saxon heart;
The past in thee to second life is grown,
And old New-England claims thee as her own.
How swells the mind that knows thy sacred store,
And eager counts thy living lyrics o’er;
Verse upon verse diffuse a new delight,
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Magyar H. P. Lovecraft Portál - hplovecraft.hu
Till each succeeding stanza seems more bright:
Tmolus the wise his classic judgment mends,
For Phoebus fails when Goodenough contends.
2/2. oldal
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