Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN MEMORIAM: CHARLES ELIOT NORTON, by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

IN MEMORIAM: CHARLES ELIOT NORTON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Why comes the wandered poet back
Last Line: So may you live, so be your memory fair.
Subject(s): Death; Memory; Norton, Charles Eliot (1827-1908); Dead, The


WHY comes the wandered poet back
To tread again his boyhood track
Where all must changed be?
Long since the brood of youth is flown;
The woods are still; the paths are lone;
He hangs on one memorial stone
A wreath of memory.

Envy me not, whose hand the Master took,
His firstling charge, boy-leader of the host
Of those who followed in the after-time;
Meet is it that I praise him, -- who forsook
All else to travel the steep heavenly coast
Where what he told me of is won or lost,
And aye the lone soul to its sun doth climb.

He hardened me to breathe the burning frost
Where Truth on all things pours its naked ray;
He taught me to neglect all worldly cost
And through that shining element make way
Where Reason doth the spirit of light obey.
Yet, with prophetic forecast, evermore
He brought forth things of beauty from his store;
And in my bosom fed love's fiery core
With wisdom sternly tender, warmly high,
That through love only doth man live and die,
Howe'er his nature may through art refine;
Thus had he from the deathless Florentine
Intelligence of love, the poet's power;
And oft he led me to the Muse's bower.

O cherished privacy that seems my own,
And memories sacred unto me alone!
A thousand hearts such youthful records bear
Of him who gave their souls to breathe free air,
Broke up their pent horizons, winged their feet;
And after him their wondering lips repeat
Honor and courtesy and truth; each word,
Dropped from his mouth, seemed gospels newly heard.
So did he lead them in those pastures sweet,
Loved of all youth, where Beauty's self doth dwell,
And the fair soul is its own oracle.

A grave demeanor masked his solitude,
Like the dark pines of his seigniorial wood;
But there within was hid how warm a hearth
Hospitable, and bright with children's mirth.
How many thence recall his social grace,
The general welcome beaming from his face,
The shy embarrassment of his good-will
Chafing against the forms that held it still;
Or, in more private hours, the high discourse,
With soft persuasion veiling moral force;
The reticent mouth, the sweet reserved style;
Something unsaid still lingered in his smile;
For more he felt than ever he expressed,
Then silent most when in his conscious breast
Most intimate with some long-cherished guest;
He struck the dying log, and still the spark
Flashed on the incommunicable dark;
Or by his open window's leafy screen
Mused on the world's inscrutable fair scene;
Or, seeking for the soul its hermitage,
He, meditative, turned the poet's page.
Ay me, how many pictures line the wall
Of that long memory, and his face in all!

Others with critic judgment shall refine
Censure and praise, and his just place assign,
And the historic portrait nicely blend,
The artists' comrade, and the poets' friend;
And all that doth in eulogy have end
Others shall speak, and lesser loves shall sing;
My thoughts of him on vaster orbits swing;
The star revolves about its parent fire;
Still from his ashes leaps my young desire;
Not what he was, but what he gave, is mine,
Inspiriting the loyalties divine
That hold men true, and in their actions shine.
So full of heavenly impulse life may be,
And even on earth breed immortality.

Fain would I paint for coming youth to view
Him whose lone light, a generation through,
The fairest flower of Harvard to him drew,
Our guide and prophet of the life ideal.
He through himself best made his great appeal,
Lover of beauty found, in every art,
And that fair treasure could to us impart,
The loveliness that shall eternal be,
The spirit of divine antiquity
Immortal borne, whatever age assail;
So doth the soul of Greece o'er time avail.
This his chief charge, who from the fountain-head
Poured baptism on our eyes, and inward shed
On the young soul the drop of ecstasy
That makes the soul itself beauty to be;
We seemed to carve ourselves in noble lines,
And sculptured on life's walls our great designs.
What could we else, whom Athens moulded there,
Whose breath was Italy? The wise and fair
Of every land mingled that golden air
That bathed our youth. O life beyond compare,
When we shot up in that dear Master's care!

Ah, long ago the inexorable years
Dismissed us to life's labor with our peers,
Yet not from him divided did we go;
His counsel stayed us; still would memory show
The man we honored, who, all else below,
Laying of character the cornerstone,
Taught us, in this rude world, to stand alone;
Nor seldom, o'er the ever-widening years,
Far-shining on the public view appears
That private stamp that most a friend endears;
And proud we saw him, justly eminent
Whatever clamor rose, grow eloquent,
When gusts of folly swept the commonweal;
Still from his hillside-peace swift words he sent,
Whether the sentence sweet or bitter fell;
The man of principle, our Abdiel,
Still faithful found to his unshared ideal.

Now he is gone, O how the heart grows still!
How deep a silence lies on Shady Hill! --
Joy be to you, ye listening youth, rejoice,
From whom another age awaits its voice!
In you is He who comes; but we depart;
In you beats high the rising century's heart.
O faring forth from this soul-nurturing air,
So may you live, so be your memory fair.





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