Among six boys, head under head, and look'd A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, : The long line of the approaching rookery swerve More joyful than the city-roar that hails But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, Perchance upon the future man: the walls And gradually the powers of the night, That range above the region of the wind, Deepening the courts of twilight, broke them up Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. Last little Lilia, rising quietly, Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph From those rich silks, and home, well-pleased, we went. IN MEMORIAM STRONG Son of God, immortal Love, Thine are these orbs of light and shade, Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just. Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of thee And thou, O Lord, art more than they. We have but faith: we cannot know; And not from man, O Lord, to thee. Forgive my grief for one removed, Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise. 1849. I HELD it truth, with him who sings But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? The far-off interest of tears? Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let darkness keep her raven gloss: Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground, Than that the victor Hours should scorn II. OLD yew, which graspest at the stones Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again, O not for thee the glow, the bloom, Nor branding summer suns avail And gazing on thee, sullen tree, Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood And grow incorporate into thee. III. ( SORROW, cruel fellowship, O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip? "The stars," she whispers, "blindly run; A web is wov'n across the sky; From out waste places comes a cry, And murmurs from the dying sun : "And all the phantom, Nature, stands - A hollow form with empty hands.” And shall I take a thing so blind, Embrace her as my natural good; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind? IV. To Sleep I give my powers away; O heart, how fares it with thee now, That thou should'st fail from thy desire, |