He and his dusky braves One instant stood, and then Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame, Which wrapped him, held him, gave him not again, But in its trampled ashes left to Fame An everlasting name! III That was indeed to live- That day at Roncevaux, With foot upon the ramparts of the foe! For heroes dying so! No room for sigh or tear, Save such rich tears as happy eyelids know. Of battle, and youth's gold about his brow; Not his, at peril's frown, And parley hold with Fate, His gauntlet at her feet. O soul of loyal valor and white truth, Thy serried ranks about thee as of yore, Stand thou for evermore In thy undying youth! The tender heart, the eagle eye! Oh, unto him belong The homages of Song; Our praises and the praise To him belong To him, to him, the dead that shall not die! Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907] MEMORABILIA [1792-1822] AH, did you once see Shelley plain, But you were living before that, My starting moves your laughter! I crossed a moor, with a name of its own For there I picked up on the heather Robert Browning [1816-1889] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON In his old gusty garden of the North, Now there were two rang silverly and long; Gold-belted sailors, bristling buccaneers, The flashing soldier, and the high, slim dame, His was the unstinted English of the Scot, Clear, nimble, with the scriptural tang of Knox No frugal Realist, but quick to laugh, To see appealing things in all he knew, He plucked the sun-sweet corn his fathers grew, David and Keats, and all good singing men, Lizette Woodworth Reese [1856 BAYARD TAYLOR [1825-1878] "AND where now, Bayard, will thy footsteps tend?" My sister asked our guest one winter's day. Smiling he answered in the Friends' sweet way Common to both: "Wherever thou shalt send! What wouldst thou have me see for thee?" She laughed, Her dark eyes dancing in the wood-fire's glow: "Loffoden isles, the Kilpis, and the low Unsetting sun on Finmark's fishing-craft." "All these and more I soon shall see for thee!" He answered cheerily: and he kept his pledge On Lapland snows, the North Cape's windy wedge, And Tromsö freezing in its winter sea. He went and came. But no man knows the track He brought us wonders of the new and old; We shared all climes with him. The Arab's tent To him its story-telling secret lent, And, pleased, we listened to the tales he told. O Vale of Chester! trod by him so oft, Green as thy June turf keep his memory. Let Strange lands that hold him; let the messages Itself interprets; and its utterance here John Greenleaf Whittier [1807-1892] LACRIME MUSARUM [ALFRED TENNYSON, 1809-1892] Low, like another's, lies the laureled head: Or woodlands old, like Druid couches spread, Death's little rift hath rent the faultless lute: Lo, in this season pensive-hued and grave, For him whose leaf shall fade not, neither fall. He hath fared forth, beyond these suns and showers Him the eternal spring of fadeless fame What needs his laurel our ephemeral tears, Rapt though he be from us, Virgil salutes him, and Theocritus; Catullus, mightiest-brained Lucretius, each Coleridge, his locks aspersed with fairy foam, His equal friendship crave: And godlike spirits hail him guest, in speech Nay, he returns to regions whence he came. Him doth the spirit divine |