Well may we mourn, when the head
Of a sacred poet lies low

In an age which can rear them no more.
The complaining millions of men
Darken in labor and pain;

But he was a priest to us all

Of the wonder and bloom of the world,
Which we saw with his eyes, and were glad.
He is dead, and the fruit-bearing day

Of his race is past on the earth;
And darkness returns to our eyes.

For oh, is it

you, is it you,

Moonlight, and shadow, and lake,
And mountains, that fill us with joy,
Or the Poet who sings you so well?
Is it you, O Beauty, O Grace,

O Charm, O Romance, that we feel,
Or the voice which reveals what you are?
Are ye, like daylight and sun,
Shar'd and rejoic'd in by all?
Or are ye immers'd in the mass
Of matter, and hard to extract,
Or sunk at the core of the world
Too deep for the most to discern?

Like stars in the deep of the sky,
Which arise on the glass of the sage,
But are lost when their watcher is gone.

66

"They are here - I heard, as men heard In Mysian Ida the voice

Of the Mighty Mother, or Crete,

The murmur of Nature reply

"Loveliness, Magic, and Grace,

They are here.

they are set in the world

They abide and the finest of souls

Has not been thrill'd by them all,
Nor the dullest been dead to them quite.
The poet who sings them may die,
But they are immortal, and live,
For they are the life of the world.

Will ye not learn it, and know,
When ye mourn that a poet is dead,
That the singer was less than his themes,

Life, and Emotion, and I?

"More than the singer are these.

Weak is the tremor of pain

That thrills in his mournfullest chord

To that which once ran through his soul.

Cold the elation of joy

In his gladdest, airest song,

To that which of old in his youth

Fill'd him and made him divine.

Hardly his voice at its best

Gives us a sense of the awe,

The vastness, the grandeur, the gloom
Of the unlit gulph of himself.

"Ye know not yourselves and your bards, The clearest, the best, who have read

Most in themselves, have beheld

Less than they left unreveal'd.
Ye express not yourselves

can ye make

With marble, with color, with word,
What charm'd you in others re-live?
Can thy pencil, O Artist, restore
The figure, the bloom of thy love,
As she was in her morning of spring?
Canst thou paint the ineffable smile
Of her eyes as they rested on thine?
Can the image of life have the glow,
The motion of life itself?

"Yourselves and your fellows ye know not

and me

The Mateless, the One, will ye know?
Will ye scan me, and read me, and tell
Of the thoughts that ferment in my breast,
My longing, my sadness, my joy?
Will ye claim for your great ones the gift
To have render'd the gleam of my skies,
To have echoed the moan of my seas,
Utter'd the voice of my hills?

When your great ones depart, will ye say

All things have suffer'd a loss

Nature is hid in their grave?

"Race after race, man after man, Have dream'd that my secret was theirs, Have thought that I liv'd but for them, That they were my glory and joy.—

They are dust, they are chang'd, they are gone. I remain."

THE YOUTH OF MAN.

WE, O Nature, depart:

Thou survivest us: this,

This, I know, is the law.

Yes, but more than this,
Thou who seest us die

Seest us change while we live;
Seest our dreams one by one,

Seest our errors depart:

Watchest us, Nature, throughout,

Mild and inscrutably calm.

Well for us that we change!

Well for us that the Power
Which in our morning prime
Saw the mistakes of our youth,
Sweet, and forgiving, and good,
Sees the contrition of age!

Behold, O Nature, this pair! See them to-night where they stand, Not with the halo of youth