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He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,
The dark and silent room;

And, as he entered, darker grew, and deeper,
The silence and the gloom.

He did not pause to parley or dissemble,

But smote the Warden hoar;

Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble And groan from shore to shore.

Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,
The sun rose bright o'erhead;
Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated
That a great man was dead.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [1807-1882]

MEMORIAL VERSES

[WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850]

GOETHE in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
But one such death remained to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb-
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.

When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bowed our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw
Of passion with eternal law;

And yet with reverential awe

We watched the fount of fiery life

Which served for that Titanic strife.

When Goethe's death was told, we said:
Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.
Physician of the iron age,

Goethe has done his pilgrimage.

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Ah! since dark days still bring to light
Man's prudence and man's fiery might,
Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Others will teach us how to dare,
And against fear our breast to steel;
Others will strengthen us to bear--
But who, ah! who, will make us feel?
The cloud of mortal destiny,
Others will front it fearlessly—
But who, like him, will put it by?

Keep fresh the grass upon his grave,
O Rotha, with thy living wave!
Sing him thy best! for few or none
Hears thy voice right, now he is gone.

Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE

I

THE old rude church, with bare, bald tower, is here;
Beneath its shadow high-born Rotha flows;
Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near,
And with cool murmur lulling his repose.

Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near.

His hills, his lakes, his streams are with him yet. Surely the heart that reads her own heart clear Nature forgets not soon: 'tis we forget.

We that with vagrant soul his fixity

Have slighted; faithless, done his deep faith wrong; Left him for poorer loves, and bowed the knee To misbegotten strange new gods of song.

Yet, led by hollow ghost or beckoning elf

Far from her homestead to the desert bourn,

The vagrant soul returning to herself

Wearily wise, must needs to him return.

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wandering wave!

what birth-gift hadst thou then? that the Immortals gave,

- in thy turn to men?

lunar music thine;

dless, boundless human view;

e on peaks divine;

light Coleridge knew.

uld make so large amends and thy peers possessed, eans to radiant ends?— feet, the gift of rest.

low or thunderous haze, t-anger, tempest-mirth, found-not blast and blaze, eavens, but peace on earth.

Lethe, scentless flower, rs to decline and cease; are also rapture, power, for these are parts of peace.

III

e is with us still;-ed than of yore,

s wondrous skill

felt no more.

Not such the authentic Presence pure, that made
This valley vocal in the great days gone!—
In his great days, while yet the spring-time played
About him, and the mighty morning shone.

No word-mosaic artificer, he sang

A lofty song of lowly weal and dole. Right from the heart, right to the heart it sprang, Or from the soul leapt instant to the soul.

He felt the charm of childhood, grace of youth,
Grandeur of age, insisting to be sung.
The impassioned argument was simple truth
Half-wondering at its own melodious tongue.

Impassioned? ay, to the song's ecstatic core!
But far removed were clangor, storm, and feud;
For plenteous health was his, exceeding store
Of joy, and an impassioned quietude.

IV

A hundred years ere he to manhood came,
Song from celestial heights had wandered down,
Put off her robe of sunlight, dew, and flame,
And donned a modish dress to charm the Town.

Thenceforth she but festooned the porch of things; Apt at life's lore, incurious what life meant. Dextrous of hand, she struck her lute's few strings; Ignobly perfect, barrenly content.

Unflushed with ardor and unblanched with awe,
Her lips in profitless derision curled,

She saw with dull emotion-if she saw-
The vision of the glory of the world.

The human masque she watched, with dreamless eyes In whose clear shallows lurked no trembling shade: The stars, unkenned by her, might set and rise; Unmarked by her, the daisies bloom and fade.

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