There rest the heroes of lost causes lorn,
On their calm brows more fadeless chaplets far
Than all their conquerors' could e'er adorn,
When shone effulgent Fame's ascendant star;
There fallen patriots reap the glorious prize
Of deathless memory of their precious sacrifice.
There many a dream-faced maid and matron dwells,
From Argive Helen on through gliding time;
There drink the poets draughts from crystal wells,
And choir high music to their harps sublime:
And there the great philosophers discourse
Divine Philosophy in due and tranquil course.
There not alone the great and lofty sing;
But silent poets too find there the song
They only sang in dreams when wandering
Amazed and lost amid the earthly throng;
Their hearts unfettered all from worldly fears.
Attuned to meet the spacious music of the spheres:
Gray, wrinkled men, the sea-salt in their hair,
Their eyes set deep with peering through the gloom,
Their voices low with speaking ever, where
The surges break beneath the mountains' loom;
But deep within their yearning, burning eyes
The light reflected ever from those radiant skies.
There fadeless Youth, unknowing of annoy,
Walks aye with changeless Love; and Sorrow there
Is but a memory to hallow Joy,
With chastened Happiness so deep and rare,
Well-nigh the Heart aches with its rich content,
And Hope with full fruition evermore is blent.
Constant Penelope, her web complete,
Rests there content at last and smiling down
On worn Ulysses basking at her feet;
Calm Beatrice wears joyously the crown
Bestowed by exiled Dante in his grief,
And Laura, kind, gives Petrarch's tuneful heart relief.
'Mid bloomy meadows laved by limpid streams,
Repose the Muses and the Graces sweet;
There kiss we lips we only kissed in dreams
Meshed in the grosser world; and there we meet
The fair and flower-like lost loves of our Youth,
When unafraid we trod the ways with radiant Truth.
Those who return have pressed alone the coast;
But tell of some lost in that charmèd strond:
Aspiring souls who loving Honor most,
Have sought the crystal mountain-tops beyond,
And striven upward, heedless of their scars,
To where all paths lead ever to the shining stars.