Which tells us how thou hidd'st thy head Ye slumber in your silent grave!— Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, Sons of the world, oh, speed those years; Allow them! We admire with awe The exulting thunder of your race; 165 You give the universe your law, You triumph over time and space! We are like children rear'd in shade 170 Beneath some old-world abbey wall, Forgotten in a forest-glade, And secret from the eyes of all. Deep, deep the greenwood round them waves, 175 But, where the road runs near the stream, Oft through the trees they catch a glance Of passing troops in the sun's beamPennon, and plume, and flashing lance! Forth to the world those soldiers fare, 180 To life, to cities, and to war! And through the wood, another way, The banners flashing through the trees 190 Arrests them with a charm'd surprise. O children, what do ye reply?— 66 Action and pleasure, will ye roam 195 Through these secluded dells to cry And call us?-but too late ye come! Too late for us your call ye blow, Whose bent was taken long ago. "Long since we pace this shadow'd nave; 200 We watch those yellow tapers shine, Emblems of hope over the grave, In the high altar's depth divine. The organ carries to our ear Its accents of another sphere. 205 "Fenced early in this cloistral round Of reverie, of shade, of prayer, How should we grow in other ground? -Pass, banners, pass, and bugles, cease; 210 And leave our desert to its peace!" GEIST'S GRAVE (January, 1881) Four years!-and didst thou stay above 5 Only four years those winning ways, That loving heart, that patient soul, 10 Had they indeed no longer span, To run their course, and reach their goal, That liquid, melancholy eye, From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled And temper of heroic mould— 20 What, was four years their whole short day? Yes, only four!-and not the course Of nature, with her countless sum 25 Of figures, with her fulness vast Stern law of every mortal lot! 30 Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, And builds himself I know not what Of second life I know not where. But thou, when struck thine hour to go, 35 A meek last glance of love didst throw, Yet would we keep thee in our heart— 40 And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. And so there rise these lines of verse Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou! 45 We stroke thy broad brown paws again, We see the flaps of thy large ears Nor to us only art thou dear Who mourn thee in thine English home; 55 Thou hast thine absent master's tear, Dropt by the far Australian foam. Thy memory lasts both here and there, Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, 65 We lay thee, close within our reach, Where oft we watch'd thy couchant form, Asleep, yet lending half an ear 70 To travellers on the Portsmouth road;- Then some, who through this garden pass, People who lived here long ago DOVER BEACH (From New Poems, 1867) The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits;-on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, 5 Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. |