His voice was low and clear, yet it could rise
And beat in indignation at the skies;
Then no man dared to meet his fire-filled eyes,
And even I, his own friend, did not dare.
With humorous wistfulness he spoke to us,
Yet there was something more mysterious,
Beyond his words or silence, glorious:
I know not what, but we could feel it there.
I mind now how we sat one winter night
While past his open window raced the bright
Snow-torrent golden in the hot firelight....
I see him smiling at the streamered air.
I watched him to the open window go,
And lean long smiling, whispering to the snow,
Play with his hands amid the fiery flow
And when he turned it flamed amid his hair.
Without arose a sudden bell's huge clang
Until a thousand bells in answer rang
And midnight Oxford hummed and reeled and sang
Under the whitening fury of the air.
His figure standing in the fiery room....
Behind him the snow seething through the gloom....
The great bells shaking, thundering out their doom....
Soft Fiery Snow and Night his being were.
Yet he could be simply glad and take his choice,
Walking spring woods, mimicking each bird voice;
When he was glad we learned how to rejoice:
If the birds sing, 'tis to my spite they dare.
All women loved him, yet his mother won
His tenderness alone, for Moon and Sun
And Rain were for him sister, brother, lovèd one,
And in their life he took an equal share.
Strength he had, too; strength of unrusted will
Buttressed his natural charity, and ill
Fared it with him who sought his good to kill:
He was its Prince and Champion anywhere.
Yet he had weakness, for he burned too fast;
And his unrecked-of body at the last
He in impatience on the bayonets cast,
Body whose spirit had outsoared them there.