681 To God who best taught song by gift of thee, -Never conclude, but raising hand and head In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, EPILOGUE AT the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where by death, fools think, imprisonedLow he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, -Pity me? Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? -Being-who? One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake. No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 682 EMILY BRONTE [1818-1848] LAST LINES No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. O God within my breast, As I-undying Life-have power in Thee! Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts: unutterably vain; Or idlest froth amid the boundless main, To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by Thine infinity; So surely anchor'd on The steadfast rock of immortality. With wide-embracing love Thy Spirit animates eternal years, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears. Though earth and man were gone, There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: And what Thou art may never be destroyed. 683 684 THE OLD STOIC RICHES I hold in light esteem, And if I pray, the only prayer Is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear, Yes, as my swift days near their goal, In life and death a chainless soul ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER [1804-1875] AND SHALL TRELAWNY DIE? A GOOD Sword and a trusty hand! And have they fixed the where and when? Here's twenty thousand Cornish mei Out spake their captain brave and bold, 'If London Tower were Michael's hold, 'We'll cross the Tamar, land to land, With "one and all,” and hand in hand, And when we come to London Wall, Come forth! come forth, ye cowards all, 'Trelawny he's in keep and hold, But here's twenty thousand Cornish bold 685 COVENTRY PATMORE [1823-1896] DEPARTURE It was not like your great and gracious ways! Of how, that July afternoon, You went, With sudden, unintelligible phrase, And frighten'd eye, Upon your journey of so many days I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, Well, it was well To hear you such things speak, And I could tell What made your eyes a growing gloom of love, 686 And it was like your great and gracious ways To let the laughter flash, Whilst I drew near, Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. But all at once to leave me at the last, More at the wonder than the loss aghast, With huddled, unintelligible phrase, And frighten'd eye, And go your journey of all days With not one kiss, or a good-bye, And the only loveless look the look with which you pass'd: 'Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways. WILLIAM (JOHNSON) CORY [1823-1892] HERACLITUS THEY told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept as I remember'd how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky. And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, 687 MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH You promise heavens free from strife, Pure truth, and perfect change of will; But sweet, sweet is this human life, So sweet, I fain would breathe it still: Your chilly stars I can forego, |