Not thus, the dying poet asketh a cheerful grave,—
Lay him in the sunshine, friends, nor sorrow that a Christian hath departed!
Yea; it is the poetry of Death, an Orpheus gladdening Hadës,
To care with mindful love for all so dear—and dead;
To think of them in hope, to look for them in joy, and—but for its simple vanity,—
To pray with all the earnestness of nature for souls who cannot change.
For the tree is felled, and boughed, and bare, and the Measurer standeth with His line;
The chance is gone for ever, and is past the reach of prayer:
For men and angels, good and ill, have rendered all their witness;
The trial is over, the jury are gone in, and none can now be heard;