Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been:
The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;
This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the friend
If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore,
This work of thine I blame not, but commend;
This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

O'tis a passionate Work!-yet wise and well,
Well chosen is the spirit that is here;
That Hulk which labors in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,
I love to see the look with which it braves,
-Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time—
The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

-Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known,

Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne!

Such sights, or worse, as are before me here:-
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

WILLIAM BLAKE

[1757-1827]

He came to the desert of London town,

Gray miles long;

He wandered up and he wandered down,
Singing a quiet song.

He came to the desert of London town,
Mirk miles broad;

He wandered up and he wandered down,

Ever alone with God.

There were thousands and thousands of human kind

In that desert of brick and stone:

But some were deaf and some were blind,

And he was there alone.

At length the good hour came; he died
As he had lived, alone:

He was not missed from the desert wide,

Perhaps he was found at the Throne.

James Thomson [1834-1882]

E. B. B.

[1806-1861]

THE white-rose garland at her feet,

The crown of laurel at her head,
Her noble life on earth complete,
Lay her in the last low bed
For the slumber calm and deep:
"He giveth His beloved sleep."

Soldiers find their fittest grave
In the field whereon they died;
So her spirit pure and brave

Leaves the clay it glorified

To the land for which she fought
With such grand impassioned thought.

Keats and Shelley sleep at Rome,
She in well-loved Tuscan earth;
Finding all their death's long home
Far from their old home of birth.
Italy, you hold in trust

Very sacred English dust.

Therefore this one prayer I breathe,—
That you yet may worthy prove
Of the heirlooms they bequeath

Who have loved you with such love:
Fairest land while land of slaves

Yields their free souls no fit graves.

James Thomson [1834-1882]

ROBERT BURNS

[1759-1796]

ALL Scottish legends did his fancy fashion,

All airs that richly flow,

Laughing with frolic, tremulous with passion,

Broken with love-lorn woe;

Ballads whose beauties years have long been stealing

And left few links of gold,

Under his quaint and subtle touch of healing

Grew fairer, not less old.

Gray Cluden, and the vestal's choral cadence,

His spell awoke therewith;

Till boatmen hung their oars to hear the maidens
Upon the banks of Nith.

His, too, the strains of battle nobly coming

From Bruce, or Wallace wight,

Such as the Highlander shall oft be humming
Before some famous fight.

Nor only these-for him the hawthorn hoary
Was with new wreaths enwrought,

The "crimson-tippèd daisy" wore fresh glory,
Born of poetic thought.

From the "wee cowering beastie" he could borrow

A moral strain sublime,

A noble tenderness of human sorrow,

In wondrous wealth of rhyme.

The Tomb of Charlemagne

3365

Oh, but the mountain breeze must have been pleasant

Upon the sunburnt brow

Of that poetic and triumphant peasant

Driving his laureled plow!

William Alexander [1824-1911]

ON THE DEATHS OF THOMAS CARLYLE
AND GEORGE ELIOT

Two souls diverse out of our human sight

Pass, followed one with love and each with wonder:
The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder,
Clothed with loud words and mantled in the might
Of darkness and magnificence of night;

And one whose eye could smite the night in sunder,
Searching if light or no light were thereunder,
And found in love of loving-kindness light.
Duty divine and Thought with eyes of fire
Still following Righteousness with deep desire
Shone sole and stern before her and above,
Sure stars and sole to steer by; but more sweet
Shone lower the loveliest lamp for earthly feet,
The light of little children, and their love.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

THE OPENING OF THE TOMB OF
CHARLEMAGNE

[742-814]

AMID the cloistered gloom of Aachen's aisle
Stood Otho, Germany's imperial lord,
Regarding, with a melancholy smile,
A simple stone, where, fitly to record
A world of action by a single word,
Was graven "Carlo-Magno." Regal style

Was needed none; that name such thoughts restored
As sadden, yet make nobler, men the while,

With sudden gasp,

They rolled the marble back.

A moment o'er the vault the Kaiser bent,
Where still a mortal monarch seemed to reign.
Crowned on his throne, a scepter in his grasp,
Perfect in each gigantic lineament,

Otho looked face to face on Charlemagne.

Aubrey De Vere [1788-1846]

ELEGY ON WILLIAM COBBETT

[1762-1835]

O BEAR him where the rain can fall,
And where the winds can blow;
And let the sun weep o'er his pall
As to the grave ye go!

And in some little lone churchyard,
Beside the growing corn,

Lay gentle Nature's stern prose bard,
Her mightiest peasant-born.

Yes! let the wild-flower wed his grave,

That bees may murmur near,
When o'er his last home bend the brave,
And say "A man lies here!"

For Britons honor Cobbett's name,

Though rashly oft he spoke;
And none can scorn, and few will blame,
The low-laid heart of oak.

See, o'er his prostrate branches, see!
E'en factious hate consents

To reverence, in the fallen tree,

His British lineaments.

Though gnarled the storm-tossed boughs that braved

The thunder's gathered scowl,

Not always through his darkness raved

The storm-winds of the soul.