AY, it is well! Crush back your selfish tears;
For from the half-veiled face of earthly spring
Hath he not risen on heaven-aspiring wing
To reach the spring-tide of the eternal years?
With life full-orbed, he stands amid his peers,
The grand immortals! a fair, mild-eyed king,
Flushing to hear their potent welcomes ring
Round the far circle of those luminous spheres.
Mock not his heavenly cheer with mortal wail,
Unless some human-hearted nightingale,
Pierced by grief's thorn, shall give such music birth
That he, the new-winged soul, the crowned and shriven,
May lean beyond the effulgent verge of heaven,
To catch his own sweet requiem, borne from earth!
Such marvellous requiem were a pæan too--
(Woe touched and quivering with triumphant fire);
For him whose course flashed always high and higher,
Is lost beyond the strange, mysterious blue:
Ah! yet, we murmur, can this thing be true?
Forever silent here, that tender lyre,
Tuned to all gracious themes, all pure desire,
Whose notes dropped sweet as honey, soft as dew?
No tears! you say--since rounded, brave, complete,
The poet's work lies radiant at God's feet.
Nay! nay! our hearts with grief must hold their tryst:
How dim grows all about us and above!
Vainly we grope through death's bewildering mist,
To feel once more his clasp of human love!
