Sadly their mound with garlands we adorn
Of violet, lily, laurel, and the flowering thorn,-
Sadly above them wave
The wailing pine-trees of their native strand;
Sadly the distant billows smite the shore,
Plash in the sunlight, or at midnight roar :
All sounds of melody, all things sweet and fair,
On earth, in sea or air,
Droop and grow silent by the poet's grave.
Yet wherefore weep? Old age is but a tomb,
A living hearse, slow creeping to the gloom
And utter silence. He from age is freed
Who meets the stroke of death, and rises thence
Victor o'er every woe; his sure defence
Is swift defeat, by that he doth succeed:
Death is the poet's friend, I speak it sooth;
Death shall restore him to his golden youth,
Unlock for him the portal of renown,
And on Fame's tablet write his verses down
For every age in endless time to read.
With us Death's quarrel is; he takes away
Joy from our eyes, from this dark world the day, When other skies he opens to the poet's ray.
Lonely these meadows green,
Silent these warbling woodlands must appear
To us, by whom our Poet-sage was seen
Wandering among their beauties, year by year,—
Listening with delicate ear
To each fine note that fell from tree or sky,
Or rose from earth on high,
Glancing his falcon eye,
In kindly radiance, as of some young star,
At all the shows of Nature near and far,
Or on the tame procession plodding by
Of daily toil and care, and all Life's pageantry; Then darting forth warm beams of wit and love, Wide as the sun's great orbit, and as high above These paths wherein our lowly tasks we ply.
His was the task and his the lordly gift
Our eyes, our hearts, bent earthward, to uplift;
He found us chained in Plato's fabled cave,
Our faces long averted from the blaze
Of Heaven's broad light, and idly turned to gaze
On shadows, flitting ceaseless as the wave
That dashes ever idly on some isle enchanted;
By shadows haunted
amused in youth, in manhood daunted,
In vacant age forlorn, then slipped within the grave,
The same dull chain still clasped around our shroud.
These captives, bound and bowed,
He from their dungeon like that angel led,
Who softly to imprisoned Peter said,
"Arise up quickly! gird thyself and flee!"
We wist not whose the thrilling voice, we knew our
Ah! blest those years of youthful hope,
When every breeze was zephyr, every morning
Then, as we bravely climbed the slope
Of life's steep mount, we gained a wider scope
At every stair, and could with joy survey
The track beneath us, and the upward way;
Both lay in light, - round both the breath of love
Fragrant and warm from Heaven's own tropic blew;
Beside us what glad comrades smiled and strove !
Beyond us what dim visions rose to view!
With thee, dear Master, through that morning land
We journeyed happy; thine the guiding hand,
Thine the far-looking eye, the dauntless smile;
Thy lofty song of hope did the long march beguile.
Now scattered wide and lost to loving sight
The gallant train
That heard thy strain!
'Tis May no longer, shadows of the night
Beset the downward path, thy light withdrawn,—
And with thee vanished that perpetual dawn
Of which thou wert the harbinger and seer.
Yet courage! comrades, though no more we hear
Each other's voices, lost within this cloud
That Time and Chance about our way have cast, –
Still his brave music haunts the hearkening ear,
As 'mid bold cliffs and dewy passes of the Past.
Be that our countersign! for chanting loud,
His magic song, though far apart we go,
Best shall we thus discern both friend and foe.
LIKE some old Titan of majestic height,
His march has been with grand and solemn tread,
The brain profoundly working, while the head,
Circled by mists, was often hid from sight;
Yet from its cloud, when great thought flashed to light,
That mighty brain by the elect was read;
The many saw not, turned away instead,
His brightness, veiled, to them was only night.
But, as he walked, anon at either side
Fell pregnant seeds of thought, which, taking root
In minds long barren, showed the tender shoot
That later blossomed: clouds might genius hide,
Yet everywhere the great man planted foot,
His mark remains, and shall through time abide.
DEAR Nature's Child, he nestled close to Her! She to his heart had whispered deeper things Than Science from the wells of learning brings: His still small voice the human soul could stir, For Nature made him her interpreter,
And gave her favorite son far-reaching wings,
He soared and sang (as Heaven's lark only sings)
Devout in praise, Truth's truest worshipper.
With eyes anointed in his upward flight,
He quick discerned what was divine in men,
Reading the humblest spirit's tongue aright:
Oh, Prophet, Poet, Leader! in thy light
How many saw beyond their natural ken,
Who follow now the star which led them then!
NEW CASTLE, N. H., Sept. 5, 1884.
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