I

The autumn dusk, not yearly but eternal, Is haunted by thy voice. Who turns his way far from the valleys vernal And by dark choice Disturbs those heights which from the low-lying land Rise sheerly toward the heavens, with thee may stand And hear thy thunders down the mountains strown. But none save him who shares thy prophet-sight Shall thence behold what cosmic dawning-light Met thy soul's own.

II

Master of music! unmelodious singing Must build thy praises now. Master of vision! vainly come we, bringing Words to endow Thy silence,—where, beyond our clouded powers, The sun-shot glory of resplendent hours Invests thee of the Dionysiac flame. Yet undissuaded come we, here to make Not thine enrichment but our own who wake Thy echoing fame.

III

Not o'er thy dust we brood,—we who have never Looked in thy living eyes. Nor wintry blossom shall we come to sever Where thy grave lies. Let witlings dream, with shallow pride elate, That they approach the presence of the great When at the spot of birth or death they stand. But hearts in whom thy heart lives, though they be By oceans sundered, walk the night with thee In alien land.

IV

For them, grief speaks not with the tidings spoken That thou art of the dead. No lamp extinguished when the bowl is broken, No music fled When the lute crumbles, art thou nor shalt be; But as a great wave, lifted on the sea, Surges triumphant toward the sleeping shore, Thou fallest, in splendor of irradiant rain, To sweep resurgent all the ocean plain Forevermore.

V

The seas of earth with flood tides filled thy bosom; The sea-winds to thy voice Lent power; the Grecian with the English blossom Twined, to rejoice Upon thy brow in chaplets of new bloom; And over thee the Celtic mists of doom Hovered to give their magics to thy hand; And past the moon, where Music dwells alone, She woke, and loved, and left her starry zone At thy command.