POEMS OF OCCASION
Winter, with beard and raiment blown before,
That was so seeming like our poet old and hoar.
What forms are these amid the pageant fair,
Harping with hands that falter? What sad throng?
They wait in vain, a mournful brotherhood,
And listen where their laurelled elder stood
For some last music fallen through the air.
"What cold, thin atmosphere now hears thy song?"
They ask, and long have wooed
The woods and waves that knew him, but can learn
Naught save the hollow, haunting cry, "Return! return!"
1878.
W. W.
Good-bye, Walt!
Good-bye, from all you loved of earth—
Rock, tree, dumb creature, man and woman—
To you, their comrade human.
The last assault
Ends now; and now in some great world has birth
A minstrel, whose strong soul finds broader wings,
More brave imaginings.
Stars crown the hilltop where your dust shall lie,
Even as we say good-bye,
Good-bye, old Walt!
Lines sent to his funeral
with an ivy wreath,
March 30, 1892.
BYRON
A hundred years, 't is writ,—O presage vain!—
Earth wills her offspring life, ere one complete
His term, and rest from travail, and be fain
To lay him down in natural death and sweet.
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