OUR ELDER POETS
(1878)
He is gone! We shall not see again
That reverend form, those silver locks;
Silent at last the iron pen
And words that poured like molten rocks.
He is gone, and we who thought him cold
Miss from our lives a generous heat,
And know that stolid form did hold
A fire that burned, a heart that beat.
He is gone, but other bards remain—
Our gray old prophet, young at heart;
Our scholar-poet's patriot strain;
And he of the wise and mellow art.
And he who first to Science sought,
But to the Merry Muses after;
Who learned a secret never taught—
The knowledge of men's tears and laughter.
He also in whose music rude
Our peopled hills and prairies speak,
Resounding, in his modern mood,
The tragic fury of the Greek.
And he, too, lingers round about
The darling city of his birth—
The bard whose gray eyes looking out
Find scarce one peer in all the earth.
