(WRITTEN MAY, 1832.)
All, as he left it!—even the pen,
So lately at that mind's command,
Carelessly lying, as if then
Just fallen from his gifted hand.
Have we then lost him? scarce an hour,
A little hour, seems to have past,
Since Life and Inspiration's power
Around that relic breathed their last.
Ah, powerless now—like talisman
Found in some vanished wizard's halls,
Whose mighty charm with him began,
Whose charm with him extinguisht falls.
Yet, tho', alas! the gifts that shone
Around that pen's exploring track,
Be now, with its great master, gone,
Nor living hand can call them back;
Who does not feel, while thus his eyes
Rest on the enchanter's broken wand,
Each earth-born spell it worked arise
Before him in succession grand?
Grand, from the Truth that reigns o'er all;
The unshrinking truth that lets her light
Thro' Life's low, dark, interior fall,
Opening the whole, severely bright:
Yet softening, as she frowns along,
O'er scenes which angels weep to see—
Where Truth herself half veils the Wrong,
In pity of the Misery.
True bard!—and simple, as the race
Of true-born poets ever are,
When, stooping from their starry place,
They're children near, tho' gods afar.
How freshly doth my mind recall,
'Mong the few days I've known with thee,
One that, most buoyantly of all,
Floats in the wake of memory;[2]