Like listless lullabies of sail-swept seas
Heard from still coves, and dulcet-soft as these,
Such is the echo of his perfect song,
It lives, it lingers long!
We love him more than all his wonder tales,
Sweeter his own song than his nightingale's;
No voice speaks, in the century that has fled,
So deathless from the dead!
How many stately epics have been tossed
Rudely against Time's shore, and wrecked and lost,
While Keats, the dreaming boy, floats down Time's
sea
His lyric argosy!
FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES. Wesleyan Literary Monthly.
~George Du Maurier.~
"Ah, if we knew; if we only knew for certain."
"Ah, if we only knew!" he said,
The master—now laid cold and dead—
Under the sweetest song joy sang
This, like a burden, ever rang—
"Ah, if we only knew!" can we,
Now death shows him the certainty,
Now he has won his peace thro' pain,
Wish him back to the doubt again?
Nay, pass! thou great prince Gentle Heart!
Crowned with the deathless days of Art—
To that far country—old, yet ever new—
The land where all the dreams are true.
ARTHUR KETCHUM. Williams Literary Monthly.