| |
| GOETHE in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, | |
| Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease. | |
| But one such death remain’d to come; | |
| The last poetic voice is dumb— | |
| We stand to-day by Wordsworth’s tomb. | 5 |
| |
| When Byron’s eyes were shut in death, | |
| We bow’d our head and held our breath. | |
| He taught us little; but our soul | |
| Had felt him like the thunder’s roll. | |
| With shivering heart the strife we saw | 10 |
| Of passion with eternal law; | |
| And yet with reverential awe | |
| We watch’d the fount of fiery life | |
| Which serv’d for that Titanic strife. | |
| |
| When Goethe’s death was told, we said: | 15 |
| Sunk, then, is Europe’s sagest head. | |
| Physician of the iron age, | |
| Goethe has done his pilgrimage. | |
| He took the suffering human race, | |
| He read each wound, each weakness clear: | 20 |
| And struck his finger on the place, | |
| And said: Thou ailest here, and here! | |
| He look’d on Europe’s dying hour | |
| Of fitful dream and feverish power; | |
| His eye plunged down the weltering strife, | 25 |
| The turmoil of expiring life— | |
| He said: The end is everywhere, | |
| Art still has truth, take refuge there! | |
| And he was happy, if to know | |
| Causes of things, and far below | 30 |
| His feet to see the lurid flow | |
| Of terror, and insane distress, | |
| And headlong fate, be happiness. | |
| |
| And Wordsworth!—Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice! | |
| For never has such soothing voice | 35 |
| Been to your shadowy world convey’d, | |
| Since erst, at morn, some wandering shade | |
| Heard the clear song of Orpheus come | |
| Through Hades, and the mournful gloom. | |
| Wordsworth has gone from us—and ye, | 40 |
| Ah, may ye feel his voice as we! | |
| He too upon a wintery clime | |
| Had fallen—on this iron time | |
| Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears. | |
| He found us when the age had bound | 45 |
| Our souls in its benumbing round; | |
| He spoke, and loos’d our hearts in tears. | |
| |
| He laid us as we lay at birth | |
| On the cool flowery lap of earth, | |
| Smiles broke from us, and we had ease; | 50 |
| The hills were round us, and the breeze | |
| Went o’er the sun-lit fields again; | |
| Our foreheads felt the wind and rain. | |
| Our youth return’d; for there was shed | |
| On spirits that had long been dead, | 55 |
| Spirits dried up and closely furl’d, | |
| The freshness of the early world. | |
| |
| Ah! since dark days still bring to light | |
| Man’s prudence and man’s fiery might, | |
| Time may restore us in his course | 60 |
| Goethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force; | |
| But where will Europe’s latter hour | |
| Again find Wordsworth’s healing power? | |
| Others will teach us how to dare, | |
| And against fear our breast to steel; | 65 |
| Others will strengthen us to bear— | |
| But who, ah! who, will make us feel? | |
| The cloud of mortal destiny, | |
| Others will front it fearlessly— | |
| But who, like him, will put it by? | 70 |
| Keep fresh the grass upon his grave, | |
| O Rotha, with thy living wave! | |
| Sing him thy best! for few or none | |
| Hears thy voice right, now he is gone. | |
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