You might have won the Poet's name,

If such be worth the winning now,

And gain'd a laurel for your brow Of sounder leaf than I can claim;

But you have made the wiser choice,
A life that moves to gracious ends
Thro' troops of unrecording friends,
A deedful life, a silent voice:

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom
Of those that wear the Poet's crown:
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown
Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.

For now the Poet cannot die

Nor leave his music as of old,

But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry:

"Proclaim the faults he would not show:
Break lock and seal: betray the trust:
Keep nothing sacred: 't is but just
The many-headed beast should know."

Ah shameless! for he did but sing
A song that pleased us from its worth;
No public life was his on earth,
No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.

He gave the people of his best:

His worst he kept, his best he gave.

My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave Who will not let his ashes rest!

Who make it seem more sweet to be

The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tree,

Than he that warbles long and loud
And drops at Glory's temple-gates,
For whom the carrion vulture waits
To tear his heart before the crowd!

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE. 273

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE.

LLYRIAN woodlands, echoing falls

Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,
With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there :

And trust me while I turn'd the page,

And track'd you still on classic ground,

For me the torrent ever pour'd

And glisten'd here and there alone
The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown
By fountain-urns ; — and Naiads oar'd

A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom

From him that on the mountain lea

By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,
To him who sat upon the rocks,
And fluted to the morning sea.

*

IT

LADY CLARE.

T was the time when lilies blow, And clouds are highest up in air, Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe To give his cousin, Lady Clare.

I trow they did not part in scorn:
Lovers long-betroth'd were they :
They two will wed the morrow morn;
God's blessing on the day!

"He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well," said Lady Clare.

In there came old Alice the nurse,

Said, "Who was this that went from thee?" "It was my cousin,” said Lady Clare,

"To-morrow he weds with me."

"O God be thank'd!" said Alice the nurse, "That all comes round so just and fair : Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,

And you are not the Lady Clare.”

"Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?" Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild?"

"As God's above," said Alice the nurse,

"I speak the truth: you are my child.

"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;
I speak the truth, as I live by bread!
I buried her like my own sweet child,
And put my child in her stead."

"Falsely, falsely have ye done,

O mother," she said, "if this be true,
To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due."

66 Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret for your life,
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's,
When you are man and wife."

"If I'm a beggar born," she said,
"I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off, the broach of gold,
And fling the diamond necklace by.”

"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret all ye can."

She said "Not so: but I will know
If there be any faith in man."

"Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse, "The man will cleave unto his right." "And he shall have it," the lady replied, "Tho' I should die to-night."

"Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!
Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee."
"O mother, mother, mother," she said,
"So strange it seems to me.