I
GENOA

Where Genoa spreads white arms crescent-wise,
Her feet o’er well-packed bale and polished spar
Step on the quay with men of every star.
Her heart stays with her people; but her eyes
From those high garden-terraces devise
New realms of peaceful conquest, where afar
Ocean’s white horses at the harbour-bar
Wait ever for their rider to arise.

Here boy Columbus stood, and o’er the blue
Immeasurable fields imagined new.
Here young Mazzini, while for men he yearned,
Another world within their eyes discerned—
The one Republic without place or date.
So both for men lived,—and died execrate.

January, 1873.

II
BEETHOVEN

Betwixt the actual and unseen, alone,
Companionless, deaf, in dread solitude
Of soul amid the faithless multitude,
He lived, and fought with life, and held his own;
Knew poverty, and shame which is not shown,
Pride, doubt, and secret heart-despair of good,—
Insolent praise of men and petty feud:
Yet fell not from his purpose, framed and known.

For, as a lonely watcher of the night,
When all men sleep, sees the tumultuous stars
Move forward from the deep in squadrons bright,
And notes them, he through this life’s prison bars
Heard all night long the spheric music clear
Beat on his heart,—and lived that men might hear.

January, 1873.

III
IN MORTEM. F. D. MAURICE

So day by day my life, thus nearer drawn
Down the dark avenues unto the dawn,
Cries to Thee: O Lord, Lord of life and death,
Whom from our gaze the sad night sundereth,
Reveal Thyself; be unto us no more
A darkly-felt thick darkness by the shore;
But like the wind, that wingeth cold and clear
Before the dawn by meadow-land and mere,
Blow on us; scatter from our sickly brains
The feverish fancies that ill conscience feigns;
Raise us to stand like men to meet the strife,
Fearless and grand, because within thy life
Our lives are hidden,—as is his to-day,
Thy servant who from sight hath passed away.