Between the wet trees and the sorry steeple,
Keep, Time, in dark Soho, what once was Hazlitt,
Seeker of Truth, and finder oft of Beauty;
Beauty's a sinking light, ah, none too faithful;
But Truth, who leaves so here her spent pursuer,
Forgets not her great pawn: herself shall claim it.
Therefore sleep safe, thou dear and battling spirit,
Safe also on our earth, begetting ever
Some one love worth the ages and the nations!
Falleth no thing that was to thee eternal.
Sleep safe in dark Soho: the stars are shining,
Titian and Wordsworth live; the People marches.
[The Vigil-at-Arms]
Keep holy watch with silence, prayer, and fasting
Till morning break, and every bugle play;
Unto the One aware from everlasting
Dear are the winners: thou art more than they.
Forth from this peace on manhood's way thou goest,
Flushed with resolve, and radiant in mail;
Blessing supreme for men unborn thou sowest,
O knight elect! O soul ordained to fail!
[A Friend’s Song for Simoisius]
The breath of dew and twilight's grace
Be on the lonely battle-place,
And to so young, so kind a face,
The long protecting grasses cling!
(Alas, alas,
That one inexorable thing!)
In rocky hollows cool and deep,
The honey-bees unrifled sleep;
The early moon from Ida steep
Comes to the empty wrestling-ring;
Upon the widowed wind recede
No echoes of the shepherd's reed;
And children without laughter lead
The war-horse to the watering;
With footstep separate and slow
The father and the mother go,
Not now upon an urn they know
To mingle tears for comforting.
Thou stranger Ajax Telamon!
What to the lovely hast thou done,
That nevermore a maid may run
With him across the flowery Spring?
The world to me has nothing dear
Beyond the namesake river here:
Oh, Simois is wild and clear!
And to his brink my heart I bring;
My heart, if only this might be,
Would stay his waters from the sea,
To cover Troy, to cover me,
To haste the hour of perishing.
(Alas, alas,
That one inexorable thing!)