ANOTHER star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas; Another heart that beat for freedom stopped, -- What mournful words are these! O Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, And lullest it upon thy heart, Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth To teach men what thou art! His was a spirit that to all thy poor Was kind as slumber after pain: Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door And call him home again? Freedom needs all her poets: it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings. Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind, O Love Divine, for't is thy will That gracious natures leave their love behind To work for Freedom still. Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs, Let anthems peal for other dead, Rustling the bannered depth of minster-glooms With their exulting spread. His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone, No lichen shall its lines efface, He needs these few and simple lines alone To mark his resting-place: -- "Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to thee His claim to memory be obscure, If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he, Go, ask it of the poor." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE COTTON CLUB by CLARENCE MAJOR THE FUNERAL OF YOUTH: THRENODY by RUPERT BROOKE THE RETIRED CAT by WILLIAM COWPER GLOIRE DE DIJON by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE HARVEST MOON: 1914 by JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY FOR A DEAD LADY by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |