NO tears for him! his light was not your light; From earth to heaven his spirit went and came, Seeing, where ye but saw the blank, black night, The golden breaking of the day of fame. Faded by the diviner life, and worn, Dust has returned to dust, and what ye see Is but the ruined house wherein were borne The birth-pangs of his immortality. Hither and thither drifting drearily, The glory of serener worlds he won, As some strange shifting column of the sea Catches the steadfast splendor of the sun. What was your shallow love? or what the gleam Of smiles that chance and accident could chill, To him whose soul could make its mate a dream, And wander through the universe at will? When your weak hearts to stormy passion woke, His from its loftier bent was only stirred, As is the broad green bosom of the oak By the light flutter of the summer bird. His joys, in realms forbidden to you, he sought, And bodiless servitors, at his commands, Hovered about the watchfires of his thought On the dim borders of poetic lands. The times he lived in, like a hard, dark wall, He grandly painted with his woes and wrongs -- Come nearer, friends, and see how brightly all Is joined with silvery mortises of songs. Weep for yourselves bereft, but not for him; Wrong reaches to the compensating right, And clouds that make the day of genius dim, Shine at the sunset with eternal light. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FLAME LIGHTS UP by DAVID IGNATOW THE MASTER'S TOUCH by HORATIO (HORATIUS) BONAR LONGFELLOW by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY SERENADE by JEAN FRANCOIS VICTOR AICARD ECSTACY by KENNETH SLADE ALLING THERE IS NO LOVING AFTER DEATH by ASCLEPIADES OF SAMOS THE BALLAD OF BITTER FRUIT by THEODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE SOLILOQUIES OF A SMALL-TOWN TAXI-DRIVER: ON THE EMOTIONS by EDGAR BARRATT |