Weep, England, weep! if thou hast tears to shed—
Thy master-son of song has passed away;
The Arthur of thy poets far has sped,
As the long-toiling light fades out of day
Into an unseen land; no later lay,
To cheer thy heart and make thy soul more strong,
Shall sound within thy walls of sea-girt gray,
From the rare voice of him who gave so long
The noblest numbers of new English song.
Around the world the echoes of that song
Swiftly rebound, all English hearts to fill,
And o’er each peak of empire speed along
In roseate splendour, as the sudden thrill
Of sunrise tips with beauty each new hill;
From east and west the glory of his fame
Rolls back to Albion’s shores, and ever will—
For east and west can show no poet’s name
More true and pure, more free from blot and shame.
He died in dear old England—in the land
Where Chaucer first sang tales of jovial cheer;
Where Spenser chanted forth his pæans grand,
And Shakespeare left a word supreme and clear;
Where Milton bade the epic reappear,
And Wordsworth, later, gained a deathless name;
With these great five, this memorable year
Has yielded Tennyson, for future fame
The sixth true English poet to acclaim.
The moon streamed through the lattice where he lay,
In that last struggle of the living powers,
And round his brow her glory ’gan to play,
As when he wooed her in sweet English bowers,
’Midst silent birds and open-hearted flowers,
Till scenes of old-time beauty through his brain
Before him passed; thus kindly death endowers
The last sad moments, lulling them from pain,
And memory brings her sweetest stores again.
THE SONNET.
The sonnet is a diamond flashing round
From every facet true rare colored lights;
A gem of thought carved in poetic nights
To grace the brow of art by fancy crowned;
A miniature of soul wherein are found
Marvels of beauty and resplendent sights;
A drop of blood with which a lover writes
His heart’s sad epitaph in its own bound;
A pearl gained from dark waters when the deep
Rocked in its frenzied passion; the last note
Heard from a heaven-saluting skylark’s throat;
A cascade small flung in a canyon steep
With crystal music. At this shrine of song
High priests of poesy have worshipped long.
THE POET.
Men call him mad because he weaves
The glory of the golden corn
And paints the beauty of the sheaves
They gather night and morn.