| |
| THE GRASS of fifty Aprils hath waved green | |
| Above the spent heart, the Olympian head, | |
| The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen, | |
| Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled; | |
| Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower, | 5 |
| His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour; | |
| Wide spread the laden branches dropping dew | |
| On the low, laurelled brow misunderstood, | |
| That bent not, neither bowed, until subdued | |
| By the last foe who crowned while he o’er-threw. | 10 |
| |
| Fair was the Easter Sabbath morn when first | |
| Men heard he had not wakened to its light: | |
| The end had come, and time had done its worst, | |
| For the black cloud had fallen of endless night. | |
| Then in the town, as Greek accosted Greek, | 15 |
| ’T was not the wonted festal words to speak, | |
| “Christ is arisen,” but “Our chief is gone,” | |
| With such wan aspect and grief-smitten head | |
| As when the awful cry of “Pan is dead!” | |
| Filled echoing hill and valley with its moan. | 20 |
| |
| “I am more fit for death than the world deems,” | |
| So spake he as life’s light was growing dim, | |
| And turned to sleep as unto soothing dreams. | |
| What terrors could its darkness hold for him, | |
| Familiar with all anguish, but with fear | 25 |
| Still unacquainted? On his martial bier | |
| They laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown— | |
| Meed of the warrior, but not these among | |
| His voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrung | |
| Shall wait—how long?—for touches like his own. | 30 |
| |
| An alien country mourned him as her son, | |
| And hailed him hero: his sole, fitting tomb | |
| Were Theseus’ temple or the Parthenon, | |
| Fondly she deemed. His brethren bare him home, | |
| Their exiled glory, past the guarded gate | 35 |
| Where England’s Abbey shelters England’s great. | |
| Afar he rests whose very name hath shed | |
| New lustre on her with the song he sings. | |
| So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings, | |
| Sleeping at peace midst the unhonored dead. | 40 |
| |
| And fifty years suffice to overgrow | |
| With gentle memories the foul weeds of hate | |
| That shamed his grave. The world begins to know | |
| Her loss, and view with other eyes his fate. | |
| Even as the cunning workman brings to pass | 45 |
| The sculptor’s thought from out the un-wieldy mass | |
| Of shapeless marble, so Time lops away | |
| The stony crust of falsehood that concealed | |
| His just proportions, and, at last revealed, | |
| The statue issues to the light of day, | 50 |
| |
| Most beautiful, most human. Let them fling | |
| The first stone who are tempted even as he, | |
| And have not swerved. When did that rare soul sing | |
| The victim’s shame, the tyrant’s eulogy, | |
| The great belittle, or exalt the small, | 55 |
| Or grudge his gift, his blood, to disenthrall | |
| The slaves of tyranny or ignorance? | |
| Stung by fierce tongues himself, whose rightful fame | |
| Hath he reviled? Upon what noble name | |
| Did the winged arrows of that barbed wit glance? | 60 |
| |
| The years’ thick, clinging curtains backward pull, | |
| And show him as he is, crowned with bright beams, | |
| “Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful | |
| As he hath been or might be; Sorrow seems | |
| Half of his immortality.” He needs | 65 |
| No monument whose name and song and deeds | |
| Are graven in all foreign hearts; but she, | |
| His mother, England, slow and last to wake, | |
| Needs raise the votive shaft for her fame’s sake: | |
| Hers is the shame if such forgotten be! | 70 |
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