IV
WILLIAM SMITH
(AUTHOR OF “THORNDALE,” ETC.)
Such courage in so sensitive a frame
Had given the world rebuke, but that it came
In such light exquisite companionship
Of gentle glance and laughter-loving lip
That few, beholding, could forebode the force
Wherewith that inward current kept its course
In wave-like large emotion, calm and free,
Towards Truth, the high compelling deity.
So when, obedient to the heavenly guide,
Night-long the sea with stedfast-flowing tide
Rises along the land and searches o’er
Each bay and inlet of its bounding shore,
The moving goddess doth her empire trace
In lines of silver laughter on its face.
* * *
V
INSCRIBED ON A GRAVE
TO THE READER
O child of light and shadow: though I pass,
The mountains and the plains where we two played
Our part of earthly pleasance still are laid
Out in the open world of sun and grass,—
For thy fruition. Not in stone or brass
Seek any sign of me. Let no tear braid
Thy light-fringed lids because my path is made
Beyond the bounds thy sight cannot surpass.
Turn thee again unto the sunlit plain,
Let all pure influences of the air
And sweet sad fellowship of mortal pain
Wreathe round thy head immortal fancies fair.
Where’er suns rise on men or late moons wane,
I leave thee at this stone to meet thee there.
VI
DEATH
Since, small or great, and every man on earth,
Must know thee at the last, thy lonely gloom
Is bright with something of diviner birth—
The lamp of human love, that o’er our doom
Sheds undivided radiance. For in this
Our modern world of finely graded life,
The soul is nursed knowing nothing of the bliss
Of sorrow borne, since human. In this strife
Of complex individual interests
Poor man and princely, side by side, share not
One pain or passion of a common lot,
Till death, more liberal than life, invests
All men alike in his wide winding-sheet,
And in that suit of sorrow makes them meet.
* * *