Horatian Ode On The Tercentenary Of "Don Quixote"

A poem by Henry Austin Dobson

(Published at Madrid, by Francisco de Robles, January 1605)

"Para mi sola nacio don Quixote, y yo para el."--CERVANTES.


Advents we greet of great and small;
Much we extol that may not live;
Yet to the new-born Type we give
No care at all!

This year,[1]--three centuries past,--by age
More maimed than by LEPANTO'S fight,--
This year CERVANTES gave to light
His matchless page,

Whence first outrode th' immortal Pair,--
The half-crazed Hero and his hind,--
To make sad laughter for mankind;
And whence they fare

Throughout all Fiction still, where chance
Allies Life's dulness with its dreams--
Allies what is, with what but seems,--
Fact and Romance:--

O Knight of fire and Squire of earth!--
O changing give-and-take between
The aim too high, the aim too mean,
I hail your birth,--

Three centuries past,--in sunburned SPAIN,
And hang, on Time's PANTHEON wall,
My votive tablet to recall
That lasting gain!