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(Died April 9, 1882)
ALL pomps and gorgeous rites, all visions old, | |
| Nursed by the ancient Spouse of Christ serene | |
| Within the solemn precincts of her fold, | |
| To him were dear, as angel-wings once seen | |
| Across a ruined minster’s spires of gold | 5 |
| To some old priest in exile might have been. | |
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| The gloom, the splendor of the apse, the cloud | |
| Of streaming incense swung aloft the choir, | |
| The murmuring organ, muffled now, now loud, | |
| The great rose-window like a flower on fire, | 10 |
| The choral shout, the countless faces bowed.— | |
| These were the plectrum and his soul the lyre. | |
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| In leaving these he wrought his instinct wrong,— | |
| He sprang from no protesting ancestry; | |
| Those ancient signs of worship waked his song, | 15 |
| And though a pagan he might feign to be, | |
| In Arcady he never wandered long, | |
| Nor truly loved the goddess of the sea. | |
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| His mighty spirit was an outlaw yet | |
| In this bright garish modern life of ours; | 20 |
| His statue should with gothic kings’ be set, | |
| Engarlanded with saints and carven flowers, | |
| Or on some dim Italian altar, wet | |
| With votive tears and sprinkled hyssop-showers. | |
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| He is made one with all the Easter fires, | 25 |
| With all the perfume and the rainbow-light, | |
| His voice is mingled with the ascending choir’s, | |
| Broken and spent through traceries infinite; | |
| Above the rich triforium, past the spires, | |
| The answering music melts into the night. | 30 |
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| Farewell! though time hath vanquished our desire, | |
| We shall not be as though he had not been; | |
| Some love of mystic thought in strange attire, | |
| Of things unseen reflected in the seen, | |
| Of heights towards which the sons of flesh aspire, | 35 |
| Shall haunt us with a yearning close and keen. | |
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| Farewell! upon the marble of his tomb | |
| Let some great sculptor carve a knight in prayer, | |
| Who dreams he sees the holy vision come. | |
| Now let the night-wind pass across his hair; | 40 |
| Him can no more vain backward hope consume, | |
| Nor the world vex him with her wasting care. | |
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