But there

to some one of his race:

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold,

I see thee what thou art, and know Thy likeness to the wise below, Thy kindred with the great of old.

more than I can see,

And what I see I leave unsaid,

Nor speak it, knowing Death has made

His darkness beautiful with thee.

LXXIII.

I LEAVE thy praises unexpressed

In verse that brings myself relief,
And by the measure of my grief
I leave thy greatness to be guessed;

What practice, howsoe'er expert,

In fitting aptest words to things,
Or voice the richest-toned that sings,
Hath power to give thee as thou wert?

I care not, in these fading days,

To raise a cry that lasts not long, And round thee with the breeze of song To stir a little dust of praise.

Thy leaf has perished in the green,

And, while we breathe beneath the sun,
The world which credits what is done

Is cold to all that might have been.

So here shall silence guard thy fame;
But somewhere, out of human view,
Whate'er thy hands are set to do
Is wrought with tumult of acclaim.

LXXIV.

TAKE wings of fancy, and ascend,

And in 1 moment set thy face
Where all the starry heavens of space
Are sharpened to a needle's end;

Take wings of foresight; lighten through
The secular abyss to come,

And lo! thy deepest lays are dumb
Before the mouldering of a yew;

And if the matin songs, that woke

The darkness of our planet, last, Thine own shall wither in the vast, Ere half the lifetime of an oak.

Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain;

And what are they when these remain

The ruined shells of hollow towers?

LXXV.

WHAT hope is here for modern rhyme
To him, who turns a musing eye

On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie Foreshortened in the tract of time?

These mortal lullabies of pain

May bind a book, may line a box, May serve to curl a maiden's locks; Or, when a thousand moons shall wane,

A man upon a stall may find,

And, passing, turn the page that tells A grief, then changed to something else, Sung by a long forgotten mind.

But what of that? My darkened ways
Shall ring with music all the same;
To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise.