BECAUSE your hand Grew tired and laid the busy brush aside; Because your weary eyes forewent their sight, Shall none of all the pictures you had planned Take form and colour for the world's delight -- Because you died? THE hope that kept Through patient years of uncongenial toil Your spirit's lamp sustained with sacred oil, The dream and the desire that never slept -- Did all the wonder-world that was your art Stop with your heart? A TIME so brief After your long probation, to declare Your hoarded visions -- strangely hard it seems! Is even God so rich beyond belief That he from his eternity could spare Your waiting dreams? HE does not waste. A thought once born, forevermore must live. Bountiful spirit, that so loved to give, With what a high delight you now dispense In glorious largess, without stint or haste, Your opulence! I SEE you guide The hand of some young painter to reveal The truth you lived so many years to feel, Your joy in his achievement doubly deep. Your joy . . . ah, how have we the heart to weep Because you died? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE TOWER OF SKULLS by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE PROBLEM by RALPH WALDO EMERSON SONNET: WRITTEN ON THE DAY THAT MR. LEIGH HUNT LEFT PRISON by JOHN KEATS SANTA FILOMENA by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW SUMMER STORM by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL THE MARCH INTO VIRGINIA by HERMAN MELVILLE A BRIDGE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN JACK FROST AND THE CATY-DID by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD |