So great his song we deem a little while
  That Song itself with his great voice hath fled,
So grand the toga-sweep of his great style,
  So vast the theme on which his song was fed.

One sings a flower, and one a face, and one
  Screens from the world a corner choice and small,
Each toy its little laureate hath, but none
  Sings of the whole:  yea, only he sang all.

Poor little bards, so shameless in your care
  To snatch the mighty laurel from his head,
Have you no fear, dwarfs in the giant’s chair,
  How men shall laugh, remembering the dead?

Great is advertisement! ’tis almost fate,
  But, little mushroom-men, of puff-ball fame,
Ah, do you dream to be mistaken great
  And to be really great are just the same?

Ah, fools! he was a laureate ere one leaf
  Of the great crown had whispered on his brows;
Fame shrilled his song, Love carolled it, and Grief
  Blessed it with tears within her lonely house.

Fame loved him well, because he loved not Fame,
  But Peace and Love, all other things before,
A man was he ere yet he was a name,
  His song was much because his love was more.

PROFESSOR MINTO

Nature, that makes Professors all day long,
And, filling idle souls with idle song,
Turns out small Poets every other minute,
Made earth for men—­but seldom puts men in it.

Ah, Minto, thou of that minority
Wert man of men—­we had deep need of thee! 
Had Heaven a deeper?  Did the heavenly Chair
Of Earthly Love wait empty for thee there?

March 1, 1893.

ON MR. GLADSTONE’S RETIREMENT

The world grows Lilliput, the great men go;
  If greatness be, it wears no outer sign;
  No more the signet of the mighty line
Stamps the great brow for all the world to know. 
Shrunken the mould of manhood is, and lo! 
  Fragments and fractions of the old divine,
  Men pert of brain, planned on a mean design,
Dapper and undistinguished—­such we grow.

No more the leonine heroic head,
  The ruling arm, great heart, and kingly eye;
No more th’ alchemic tongue that turned poor themes
    Of statecraft into golden-glowing dreams;
  No more a man for man to deify: 
Laurel no more—­the heroic age is dead.

OMAR KHAYYAM

(To the Omar KHAYYAM club)

Great Omar, here to-night we drain a bowl
Unto thy long-since transmigrated soul,
  Ours all unworthy in thy place to sit,
Ours still to read in life’s enchanted scroll.

For us like thee a little hour to stay,
For us like thee a little hour of play,
  A little hour for wine and love and song,
And we too turn the glass and take our way.