Century Magazine/Volume 47/Issue 3/Andrew Lang

... battles, sieges, fortunes, Of moving accidents by flood and field, Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach.

Or else the core his name enveloped Was from a solar myth developed Which, hunted to its primal shoot, Takes refuge in a Sanskrit root, Thereby to instant death explaining The little poetry remaining. Try it with Zeus, 't is just the same; The thing evades, we hug a name; Nay, scarcely that—perhaps a vapor Born of some atmospheric caper.

A mist of memory broods and floats, The Border waters flow: The air is full of ballad notes, Borne out of long ago,

Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal, Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide, You never heard the ringing reel, The music of the water-side!

Though gods have walked your woods among, Though nymphs have fled your banks along, You speak not that familiar tongue Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.

My cradle song—nor other hymn I'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear Than Tweed's, that through death's twilight dim Mourned in the last Minstrel's ear.

The face that launch'd a thousand ships And burnt the topless towers of Ilium