ds, and to reach
And touch the master-string that like a sigh
Thrills in their souls, as if it would beseech
Some hand to sound it, and to satisfy
Its yearning for expression: but no word
Till poet touch it hath to make its music heard.

(_He thinks_.)

I know that God is good, though evil dwells
Among us, and doth all things holiest share;
That there is joy in heaven, while yet our knells
Sound for the souls which He has summoned there:
That painful love unsatisfied hath spells
Earned by its smart to soothe its fellows care:
But yet this atom cannot in the whole
Forget itself--it aches a separate soul.

(_He speaks._)

But, Madam, to my Poet I return.
With his sweet cadences of woven words
He made their rude untutored hearts to burn
And melt like gold refined. No brooding birds
Sing better of the love that doth sojourn
Hid in the nest of home, which softly girds
The beating heart of life; and, strait though it be,
Is straitness better than wide liberty.

He taught them, and they learned, but not the less
Remained unconscious whence that lore they drew,
But dreamed that of their native nobleness
Some lofty thoughts, that he had planted, grew;
His glorious maxims in a lowly dress
Like seed sown broadcast sprung in all men's view.
The sower, passing onward, was not known,
And all men reaped the harvest as their own.

It may be, Madam, that those ballads sweet,
Whose rhythmic words we sang but yesterday,
Which time and changes make not obsolete,
But (as a river blossoms bears away
That on it drop) take with them while they fleet--
It may be his they are, from him bear sway:
But who can tell, since work surviveth fame?--
The rhyme is left, but lost the Poet's name.

He worked, and bravely he fulfilled his trust--
So long he wandered sowing worthy seed,
Watering of wayside buds that were adust,
And touching for the common ear his reed--
So long to wear away the cankering rust
That dulls the gold of life--so long to plead
With sweetest music for all souls oppressed,
That he was old ere he had thought of rest.

Old and gray-headed, leaning on a staff,
To that great city of his birth he came,
And at its gates he paused with wondering laugh
To think how changed were all his thoughts of fame
Since first he carved the golden epitaph
To keep in memory a worthy name,
And thought forgetfulness had been its doom
But for a few bright letters on a tomb.

The old Astrono