When Byron's eyes were shut in death, We bowed our head and held our breath. He taught us little; but our soul Had felt him like the thunder's roll. With shivering heart the strife we saw Of passion with eternal law; And yet with reverential awe
We watched the fount of fiery life
Which served for that Titanic strife.
When Goethe's death was told, we said: Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. Physician of the iron age,
Goethe has done his pilgrimage.
He took the suffering human race,
He read each wound, each weakness clear; And stuck his finger on the place,
And said: Thou ailest here, and here! He looked on Europe's dying hour
Of fitful dream and feverish power; His eye plunged down the weltering strife,
The turmoil of expiring life
He said: The end is everywhere,
Art still has truth, take refuge there! And he was happy, if to know Causes of things, and far below His feet to see the lurid flow Of terror, and insane distress, And headlong fate, be happiness.
And Wordsworth!-Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! For never has such soothing voice Been to your shadowy world conveyed,
Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade
Heard the clear song of Orpheus come Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. Wordsworth has gone from us—and ye, Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! He too upon a wintry clime Had fallen-on this iron time
Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. He found us when the age had bound Our souls in its benumbing round; He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears. He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth, Smiles broke from us and we had ease; The hills were round us, and the breeze Went o'er the sun-lit fields again; Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. Our youth returned; for there was shed On spirits that had long been dead, Spirits dried up and closely furled, The freshness of the early world.
Ah! since dark days still bring to light Man's prudence and man's fiery might, Time may restore us in his course Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force; But where will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing power? Others will teach us how to dare, And against fear our breast to steel; Others will strengthen us to bear— But who, ah! who, will make us feel? The cloud of mortal destiny, Others will front it fearlessly— But who, like him, will put it by?
Keep fresh the grass upon his grave, O Botha, with thy living wave! Sing him thy best! for few or none Hear thy voice right, now he is gone.
IN MEMORY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
BACK to the flower-town, side by side, The bright months bring,
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride, Freedom and spring.
The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, Filled full of sun;
All things come back to her, being free; All things but one.
In many a tender wheaten plot Flowers that were dead
Live, and old suns revive; but not That holier head.
By this white wandering waste of sea, Far north, I hear
One face shall never turn to me As once this year:
Shall never smile and turn and rest On mine as there,
Nor one most sacred hand be prest Upon my hair.
I came as one whose thoughts half linger, Half run before;
The youngest to the oldest singer That England bore.
I found him whom I shall not find Till all grief end,
In holiest age our mightest mind, Father and friend.
But thou, if anything endure, If hope there be,
O spirit that man's life left pure, Man's death set free,
Not with disdain of days that were Look earthward now;
Let dreams revive the reverend hair, The imperial brow;
Come back in sleep, for in the life Where thou art not
We find none like thee. Time and strife And the world's lot
Move thee no more; but love at least
And reverent heart
May move thee, royal and released,
Soul, as thou art.
And thou, his Florence, to thy trust Receive and keep,
Keep safe his dedicated dust,
His sacred sleep.
So shall thy lovers, come from far, Mix with thy name
As morning-star with evening star His faultless fame.
HELEN, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently o'er a perfumed sea, The weary way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!
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