I know that God is good, though evil dwells
Among us, and doth all things holiest share;
That there is joy in heaven, while yet our knells
Sound for the souls which He has summoned there:
That painful love unsatisfied hath spells
Earned by its smart to soothe its fellows care:
But yet this atom cannot in the whole
Forget itself—it aches a separate soul.
(He speaks.)
But, Madam, to my Poet I return.
With his sweet cadences of woven words
He made their rude untutored hearts to burn
And melt like gold refined. No brooding birds
Sing better of the love that doth sojourn
Hid in the nest of home, which softly girds
The beating heart of life; and, strait though it be,
Is straitness better than wide liberty.
He taught them, and they learned, but not the less
Remained unconscious whence that lore they drew,
But dreamed that of their native nobleness
Some lofty thoughts, that he had planted, grew;
His glorious maxims in a lowly dress
Like seed sown broadcast sprung in all men's view.
The sower, passing onward, was not known,
And all men reaped the harvest as their own.
It may be, Madam, that those ballads sweet,
Whose rhythmic words we sang but yesterday,
Which time and changes make not obsolete,
But (as a river blossoms bears away
That on it drop) take with them while they fleet—
It may be his they are, from him bear sway:
But who can tell, since work surviveth fame?—
The rhyme is left, but lost the Poet's name.
He worked, and bravely he fulfilled his trust—
So long he wandered sowing worthy seed,
Watering of wayside buds that were adust,
And touching for the common ear his reed—
So long to wear away the cankering rust
That dulls the gold of life—so long to plead
With sweetest music for all souls oppressed,
That he was old ere he had thought of rest.
Old and gray-headed, leaning on a staff,
To that great city of his birth he came,
And at its gates he paused with wondering laugh
To think how changed were all his thoughts of fame
Since first he carved the golden epitaph
To keep in memory a worthy name,
And thought forgetfulness had been its doom
But for a few bright letters on a tomb.
The old Astronomer had long since died;
The friends of youth were gone and far dispersed,
Strange were the domes that rose on every side;
Strange fountains on his wondering vision burst;
The men of yesterday their business plied;
No face was left that he had known at first;
And in the city gardens, lo, he sees
The saplings that he set are stately trees.
Upon the grass beneath their welcome shade,
Behold! he marks the fair white monument,
And on its face the golden words displayed,
For sixty years their lustre have not spent;
He sitteth by it and is not afraid,
But in its shadow he is well content;
And envies not, though bright their gleamings are,
The golden letters of the vanished star.
He gazeth up; exceeding bright appears
That golden legend to his aged eyes,
For they are dazzled till they fill with tears,
And his lost Youth doth like a vision rise;
She saith to him, "In all these toilsome years,
What hast thou won by work or enterprise?
What hast thou won to make amends to thee,
As thou didst swear to do, for loss of me?