He was the first who dared to draw
Mankind the mixture that he saw;
Not wholly good nor ill, but both,
With fine intricacies of growth.
He pulled the wraps of flesh apart,
And showed the working human heart;
He scorned to drape the truthful nude
With smooth, decorous platitude!
He was too frank, may be; and dared
Too boldly. Those whose faults he bared,
Writhed in the ruthless grasp that brought
Into the light their secret thought.
Therefore the Tartuffe-throng who say
"Couvrez ce sein," and look that way,—
Therefore the Priests of Sentiment
Rose on him with their garments rent.
Therefore the gadfly swarm whose sting
Plies ever round some generous thing,
Buzzed of old bills and tavern-scores,
Old "might-have-beens" and "heretofores";—
Then, from that garbled record-list,
Made him his own Apologist.
And was he? Nay,—let who has known
Nor Youth nor Error, cast the stone!
If to have sense of Joy and Pain
Too keen,—to rise, to fall again,
To live too much,—be sin, why then,
This was no pattern among men.
But those who turn that later page,
The Journal of his middle-age,
Watch him serene in either fate,—
Philanthropist and Magistrate;
Watch him as Husband, Father, Friend,
Faithful, and patient to the end;
Grieving, as e'en the brave may grieve,
But for the loved ones he must leave:
These will admit—if any can—
That 'neath the green Estrella trees,
No Artist merely, but a Man,
Wrought on our noblest island-plan,
Sleeps with the alien Portuguese.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
"Nec turpem senectam
Degere, nec cithara carentem."
—Hor. i. 31.
"Not to be tuneless in old age!"
Ah! surely blest his pilgrimage,
Who, in his Winter's snow,
Still sings with note as sweet and clear
As in the morning of the year
When the first violets blow!
Blest!—but more blest, whom Summer's heat,
Whom Spring's impulsive stir and beat,
Have taught no feverish lure;
Whose Muse, benignant and serene,
Still keeps his Autumn chaplet green
Because his verse is pure!
Lie calm, O white and laureate head!
Lie calm, O Dead, that art not dead,
Since from the voiceless grave,
Thy voice shall speak to old and young
While song yet speaks an English tongue
By Charles' or Thamis' wave!
CHARLES GEORGE GORDON.
"Rather be dead than praised," he said,
That hero, like a hero dead,
In this slack-sinewed age endued
With more than antique fortitude!