One of poetry's traditional public services is the presentation of elegies in honor of the dead. Here James McKean remembers a colorful friend and neighbor.

In May

© Madison Julius Cawein

I

When you and I in the hills went Maying,

A Manual, More Ancient Than The Art Of Printing, And Not To Be Found In Any Catalogue

© William Cowper

There is a book, which we may call
(Its excellence is such)
Alone a library, though small;
The ladies thumb it much.

What Man Dare Say?

© George Ade

What man dare say that he is quite immune

From charms and spells that ev'ry girl possesses ?

The Dunciad: Book I.

© Alexander Pope

The Mighty Mother, and her son who brings

The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings,

Interlude: Songs Out Of Sorrow

© Sara Teasdale

This is the spot where I will lie
When life has had enough of me,
These are the grasses that will blow
Above me like a living sea.

An heroic address to [Oxford], concerning the combined utility and dignity of military affairs and o

In thy breast is noble blood, Courage animates thy brow, Mars lives in thy tongue,
Minerva strengthen thy right hand, Bellona reigns in thy body, within thee burns the fire of Mars.
Thine eyes flash fire, thy countenance shakes a spear;
who would not swear that Achilles had come to life again?

The Two Poets

© Henry Lawson

Two poets were born where the skies were fair,
To live in the land thereafter;
And one was a singer of sorrow and care,
And one was a bard of laughter.

Mrs. Effingham's Swan Song

I am growing old: I have kept youth too long,

But I dare not let them know it now.

Native Land

I love my native land with such perverse affection!
My better judgement has no standing here.
Not glory, won in bloody action,
nor yet that calm demeanour, trusting and austere,
nor yet age-hallowed rites or handed-down traditions;
not one can stir my soul to gratifying visions.

A sudden thought I raptur'd feel,
Which, as the whetstone points the steel,
Brightens my sense, and bids me warbling raise
To the soft-breathing flute, the kindred notes of praise.