XIII.
Mourn, Muse beyond the sea! Ausonian Muse!
Mourn, where thy vinelands watch the day depart!
Mourn for him, where thy sunsets interfuse,
Who loved thy beauty with no alien heart,
And sang it in his not all alien line!
Muse of the passionate thought and austere art!
O Dante's Muse! lament his son and thine.
[XIV.]
AND thou, divine one of this western beach!
A double loss has left thee desolate;
Two rooms are vacant in thy House of Speech,
Two ghosts have vanished through the open gate,
The Attic spirit, epicure of light,
The Doric heart, strong, simple, passionate,
Thy priest of Beauty, and thy priest of Right.
[XV.]
Last of the elder choir save one whose smile
Is gentler for its memories, they rest.
Mourn, goddess, come apart and mourn awhile.
Come with thy sons, lithe Song-Queen of the West—
The poet Friend of Poets, the great throng
Of seekers on the long elusive quest,
And the lone voice of Arizonian song.
[XVI.]
NOR absent they, thy latest-born, O Muse,
My young companions in Art's wildwood ways;
She whose swift verse speaks words that smite and bruise
With scarlet suddenness of flaming phrase,
Virginia's hawk of Song; and he who sings
Alike his people's homely rustic lays
And his fine spirit's high imaginings.
[XVII.]
Far-stretching Indiana's melodist,
Quaint, humorous, full of quirks and wanton whims,
Full-throated, with imagination kissed;
With these, two pilgrims from auroral streams,
The Greek revealer of Canadian skies
And thy close darling, voyager of dreams,
Carman, the sweetest, strangest voice that cries.
[XVIII.]
AND thou, friend of my heart, in fireside bonds
Near to the dead, not with the poet's bay
Brow-bound but eminent with kindred fronds,
Paint us some picture of the summer day
For his memorial—the distant dune,
The marshes stretching palpitant away
And blue sea fervid with the stress of noon.