THRENODIA.
ADDRESSED TO ALFRED TENNYSON, P.L., IN RESPONSE TO VERSES OF HIS "ON A LATE EVENT IN ENGLAND."
I heard you In your English home,—
I read you by my little brook,
Thousands of miles from British foam,
Hid in my dear New England nook:
But heard you with a sullen look;
But read you with a gloomy brow;
And thus unto my Muse I spoke:—
Who is there to write history now?
Hallam is dead! and Prescott gone!
And Irving sleeps at Sunnyside!
And now that Lord has wandered on,
Whose laurels must with theirs abide:
I greatly mourned the man who died
First on this dismal roll of death,—
And him, of all observers eyed,
My townsman here, who spent his breath
In telling of the things of Spain,
And doing friendly things to friends,
Prescott, well known beyond the main
And past the Pillars, to earth's ends:
Both had my tears: but England sends
Another word across the seas,
Might rouse the dying from his bed:
Oh, bear it gently, ocean-breeze!
That bitter word,—Thy friend is dead!
Macaulay dead, who made to live
Past kingdoms, with his vivid brain!
Who could such warmth to shadows give,
By the mere magic of his pen,
That Charles and England rose again!
Well sleeps he 'mid the Abbey's dust:
And, Laureate! thy funereal verse
Shall have such echo as it must
From hearts just wrung at Irving's hearse.
These are two names to mark the year
As one of memorable woe,
Two men to the two nations dear
Laid in one fatal winter low!
About the streets the mourners go;
But I within my chamber rest,
Or walk the room with measured tread,
Murmuring, with head upon my breast,
My God! and is Macaulay dead?