But still thy soul rides on with fiery plume,
Thy wild song rings in ocean's yearning speech!
August, 1906.
ROBERT BROWNING
How blind the toil that burrows like the mole,
In winding graveyard pathways underground,
For Browning's lineage! What if men have found
Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll
Of his forbears? Did they beget his soul?
Nay, for he came of ancestry renowned
Through all the world,--the poets laurel-crowned
With wreaths from which the autumn takes no toll.
The blazons on his coat-of-arms are these:
The flaming sign of Shelley's heart on fire,
The golden globe of Shakespeare's human stage,
The staff and scrip of Chaucer's pilgrimage,
The rose of Dante's deep, divine desire,
The tragic mask of wise Euripides.
November, 1906.
TENNYSON
In Lucem Transitus, October, 1892
From the misty shores of midnight, touched with splendours of the moon,
To the singing tides of heaven, and the light more clear than noon,
Passed a soul that grew to music till it was with God in tune.
Brother of the greatest poets, true to nature, true to art;
Lover of Immortal Love, uplifter of the human heart;
Who shall cheer us with high music, who shall sing, if thou depart?
Silence here--for love is silent, gazing on the lessening sail;
Silence here--for grief is voiceless when the mighty minstrels fail;
Silence here--but far beyond us, many voices crying, Hail!
"IN MEMORIAM"
The record of a faith sublime,
And hope, through clouds, far-off discerned;
The incense of a love that burned
Through pain and doubt defying Time:
The story of a soul at strife
That learned at last to kiss the rod,
And passed through sorrow up to God,
From living to a higher life:
A light that gleams across the wave
Of darkness, down the rolling years,
Piercing the heavy mist of tears--
A rainbow shining o'er a grave.
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