V I I cannot think he wished so soon to die With all his senses full of eager heat, And rosy years that stood expectant by To buckle the winged sandals on their feet, He that was friends with Earth, and all her sweet Took with both hands unsparingly: To lie in buttercups and clover-bloom, 420 Is better than long waiting in the tomb; Only once more to see the moon Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of the elms Curve her mild sickle in the West Sweet with the breath of hay-cocks, were a boon Το Them overtakes the doom 450 snap the half-grown flower upon the loom (Trophy that was to be of life-long pain), The thread no other skill can ever knit again. 'T was so with him, for he was glad to live, 'T was doubly so, for he left work begun; Could not this eagerness of Fate forgive Till all the allotted flax were spun ? It matters not; for, go at night or noon, A friend, whene'er he dies, has died too soon, 460 And, once we hear the hopeless He is Nature rebels at: and it is not true Of those most precious parts of him we knew: THREE MEMORIAL POEMS 'Coscienza fusca O della propria o dell' altrui vergogna If I let fall a word of bitter mirth1 When public shames more shameful pardon won, In no polluted course from sire to son; With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow. 60 Crimson stained; and, as to and fro Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw; 71 Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar: Where now our broad-browed poet sleeps, Who did great things,, unconscious they were great. They dreamed not what a die was cast With that first answering shot; what then? There was their duty; they were men Schooled the soul's inward gospel to obey, Though leading to the lion's den. They felt the habit-hallowed world give Widening each year their leafy coronet ? Felt they no pang of passionate regret From all heaven's caverns rushing unconfined, For those unsolid goods that seem so much I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge: I abide I hear the voice, and unaffrighted bow; Heralds of ill, that darkening fly Between my vision and the rainbowed sky, Or on the left your hoarse forebodings croak From many a blasted bough 210 That once was green, Hope of the West, as thou: Yet pardon if I tremble while I boast; X Away, ungrateful doubt, away! At least she is our own to-day. Break into rapture, my song, |