forth its solemn note, and every heart
Chills, and sad tears to many an eyelid start.

Sad tears in sooth! And yet not wholly so.
Exquisite echoes of his own swan-song
Forbid mere murmuring mournfulness; the glow
Of its great hope illumes us. Sleep, thou strong
Full tide, as over the unmeaning bar
Fares this unfaltering darer of the deep,
Beaconed by a Great Light, the pilot-star
Of valiant souls, who keep
Through the long strife of thought-life free from scathe
The luminous guidance of the larger faith.

No sadness of farewell? Great Singer, crowned
With lustrous laurel, facing that far light,
In whose white radiance dark seems whelmed and drowned,
And death a passing shade, of meaning slight;
Sunset, and evening star, and that clear call,
The twilight shadow, and the evening bell,
Bring naught of gloom for thee. Whate'er befall
Thou must indeed fare well.
But we--we have but memories now, and love
The plaint of fond regret will scarce reprove.

Great singer, he, and great among the great,
Or greatness hath no sure abiding test.
The poet's splendid pomp, the shining state
Of royal singing robes, were his, confest,
By slowly growing certitude of fame,
Since first, a youth, he found fresh-opening portals
To Beauty's Pleasure-House. Ranked with acclaim
Amidst the true Immortals,
The amaranth fields with native ease he trod,
Authentic son of the lyre-bearing god.

Fresh portals, untrod pleasaunces, new ways
In Art's great Palace, shrined in Nature's heart,
Sought the young singer, and his limpid lays,
O'er sweet, perchance, yet made the quick blood start
To many a cheek mere glittering; rhymes left cold.
But through the gates of Ivory or of Horn
His vivid vision flocked, and who so bold
As to repulse with scorn
The shining troop because of shadowy birth.
Of bodiless passion, or light tinkling mirth?

But the true god-gift grows. Sweet, sweet, still sweet
As great Apollo's lyre, or Pan's plain reed,
His music flowed, but slowly he out-beat
His song to finer issues. Fingers fleet,
That trifled with the pipe-stops, shook grand sound
From the great organ's golden mouths anon.
A mellow-measured might, a beauty bound
(As Venus with her zone)
By that which shaped from chaos Earth, Air, Sky,
The unhampering restraint of Harmony.

Hysteric ecstasy,