There must be other nobler work to do For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill What know we greater than the soul? On God and Godlike men we build our trust. The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears: The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; He is gone who seem'd so great. Gone; but nothing can bereave him Speak no more of his renown, Lay your earthly fancies down, And in the vast cathedral leave him. God accept him, Christ receive him. 1852. THE DAISY. WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH. O LOVE, what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, What Roman strength Turbìa show'd How like a gem, beneath, the city How richly down the rocky dell To meet the sun and sunny waters, What slender campanili grew By bays, the peacock's neck in hue; Where, here and there, on sandy beaches A milky-bell'd amaryllis blew. How young Columbus seem'd to rove, Now watching high on mountain-cornice, And steering, now, from a purple cove, Now pacing mute by ocean's rim; I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto, Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen Where oleanders flush'd the bed We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, A princely people's awful princes, At Florence too what golden hours, In bright vignettes, and each complete, Or palace, how the city glitter'd, But when we crost the Lombard plain And stern and sad (so rare the smiles O Milan, O the chanting quires, The height, the space, the gloom, the glory! A mount of marble, a hundred spires! I climb'd the roofs at break of day; I stood among the silent statues, How faintly flush'd, how phantom-fair, A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys Remember how we came at last Had blown the lake beyond his limit, From Como, when the light was gray, The rich Virgilian rustic measure Like ballad-burden music, kept, To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept; Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake The moonlight touching o'er a terrace What more? we took our last adieu, But ere we reach'd the highest summit I pluck'd a daisy, I gave it you. It told of England then to me, O love, we two shall go no longer So dear a life your arms enfold Yet here to-night in this dark city, I found, tho' crush'd to hard and dry, Still in the little book you lent me, And I forgot the clouded Forth, The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, The bitter east, the misty summer And gray metropolis of the North. Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, Perchance, to dream you still beside me, My fancy fled to the South again. TO THE REV. F. D. MAURICE. COME, when no graver cares employ, Your presence will be sun in winter, For, being of that honest few, Should all our churchmen foam in spite Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight; Where, far from noise and smoke of town, All round a careless-order'd garden You'll have no scandal while you dine, And only hear the magpie gossip For groves of pine on either hand, And further on, the hoary Channel Where, if below the milky steep And on thro' zones of light and shadow We might discuss the Northern sin Dispute the claims, arrange the chances; |