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To L. E. L., Referring to Her Monody on the Poetess
THOU bay-crowned living One that o’er the bay-crowned Dead art bowing, | |
| And o’er the shadeless moveless brow the vital shadow throwing, | |
| And o’er the sighless songless lips the wail and music wedding, | |
| And dropping o’er the tranquil eyes the tears not of their shedding!— | |
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| Take music from the silent Dead whose meaning is completer, | 5 |
| Reserve thy tears for living brows where all such tears are meeter. | |
| And leave the violets in the grass to brighten where thou treadest, | |
| No flowers for her! no need of flowers, albeit ‘bring flowers,’ thou saidest. | |
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| Yes, flowers, to crown the ‘cup and lute,’ since both may come to breaking, | |
| Or flowers, to greet the ‘bride’—the heart’s own beating works its aching; | 10 |
| Or flowers, to soothe the ‘captive’s’ sight, from earth’s free bosom gathered, | |
| Reminding of his earthly hope, then withering as it withered: | |
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| But bring not near the solemn corse a type of human seeming, | |
| Lay only dust’s stern verity upon the dust undreaming: | |
| And while the calm perpetual stars shall look upon it solely, | 15 |
| Her spherëd soul shall look on them with eyes more bright and holy. | |
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| Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning: | |
| Would she have lost the poet’s fire for anguish of the burning? | |
| The minstrel harp, for the strained string? the tripod, for the afflated | |
| Woe? or the vision, for those tears in which it shone dilated? | 20 |
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| Perhaps she shuddered while the world’s cold hand her brow was wreathing, | |
| But never wronged that mystic breath which breathed in all her breathing, | |
| Which drew from rocky earth and man, abstractions high and moving, | |
| Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love, if not the loving. | |
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| Such visionings have paled in sight; the Saviour she descrieth, | 25 |
| And little recks who wreathed the brow which on His bosom lieth: | |
| The whiteness of His innocence o’er all her garments, flowing, | |
| There learneth she the sweet ‘new song’ she will not mourn in knowing. | |
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| Be happy, crowned and living One! and as thy dust decayeth | |
| May thine own England say for thee what now for Her it sayeth— | 30 |
| ‘Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was ringing, | |
| The foot-fall of her parting soul is softer than her singing.’ | |
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