Obiit MDCCCXXXIII, CIX–CXVI

The churl in spirit up or down, Along the scale of ranks, thro’ all To who may grasp a golden ball By blood a king, at heart a clown;

The churl in spirit, howe’er he veil His want in forms for fashion’s sake, Will let his coltish nature break At seasons thro’ the gilded pale:

For who can always act? but he, To whom a thousand memories call, Not being less but more than all The gentleness he seem’d to be,

So wore his outward best, and join’d Each office of the social hour, To noble manners, as the flower And native growth of noble mind;

Nor ever narrowness or spite, Or villain fancy fleeting by, Drew in the expression of an eye, Where God and Nature met in light,

And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan, And soil’d with all ignoble use.

High wisdom holds my wisdom less, That I, who gaze with temperate eyes On glorious insufficiencies, Set light by narrower perfectness.

But thou, that fillest all the room Of all my love, art reason why I seem to cast a careless eye On souls, the lesser lords of doom.

For what wert thou? some novel power Sprang up for ever at a touch, And hope could never hope too much, In watching thee from hour to hour,

Large elements in order brought, And tracts of calm from tempest made, And world-wide fluctuation sway’d In vassal tides that followed thought.

’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise; Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee Which not alone had guided me, But served the seasons that may rise;

For can I doubt who knew thee keen In intellect, with force and skill To strive, to fashion, to fulfil— I doubt not what thou wouldst have been:

A life in civic action warm, A soul on highest mission sent, A potent voice of Parliament, A pillar steadfast in the storm,

Should licensed boldness gather force, Becoming, when the time has birth, A lever to uplift the earth And roll it in another course,

With many shocks that come and go, With agonies, with energies, With overthrowings, and with cries, And undulations to and fro.

Who loves not knowledge? Who shall rail Against her beauty? May she mix With men and prosper! Who shall fix Her pillars? Let her work prevail.

But on her forehead sits a fire: She sets her forward countenance And leaps into the future chance, Submitting all things to desire.

Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain— She cannot fight the fear of death. What is she, cut from love and faith, But some wild Pallas from the brain

Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst All barriers in her onward race For power. Let her know her place; She is the second, not the first.

A higher hand must make her mild, If all be not in vain; and guide Her footsteps, moving side by side With wisdom, like the younger child:

For she is earthly of the mind, But wisdom heavenly of the soul. O, friend, who camest to thy goal So early, leaving me behind,

I would the great world grew like thee, Who grewest not alone in power And knowledge, but from hour to hour In reverence and in charity.

Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drown’d in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, The flocks are whiter down the vale, And milkier every milky sail On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives In yonder greening gleam, and fly The happy birds, that change their sky To build and brood; that live their lives.

From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens too; and my regret Becomes an April violet, And buds and blossoms like the rest.

Is it, then, regret for buried time That keenlier in sweet April wakes, And meets the year, and gives and takes The colours of the crescent prime?

Not all: the songs, the stirring air, The life re-orient out of dust, Cry thro’ the sense to hearten trust In that which made the world so fair.

Not all regret: the face will shine Upon me, while I muse alone; The dear, dear voice that I have known Will speak to me of me and mine:

Yet less of sorrow lives in me For days of happy commune dead; Less yearning for the friendship fled, Than some strong bond which is to be.

O days and hours, your work is this, To hold me from my proper place, A little while from his embrace, For fuller gain of after bliss:

That out of distance might ensue Desire of nearness doubly sweet; And unto meeting, when we meet, Delight a hundredfold accrue,

For every grain of sand that runs, And every span of shade that steals, And every kiss of toothed wheels, And all the courses of the suns.

Contemplate all this work of Time, The giant labouring in his youth; Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature’s earth and lime;

But trust that those we call the dead, Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends. They say, The solid earth whereon we tread

In tracts of fluent heat began, And grew to seeming-random forms, The seeming prey of cyclic storms, Till at the last arose the man;

Who throve and branch’d from clime to clime, The herald of a higher race, And of himself in higher place, If so he type this work of time

Within himself, from more to more; And, crown’d with attributes of woe Like glories, move his course, and show That life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears; And dipp’d in baths of hissing tears, And batter’d with the shocks of doom

To shape and use. Arise and fly The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die.