April 20, 1882.

A DEATH ON EASTER DAY

The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise,
  Rise and make revel, as of old men said,
  Like dancing hearts of lovers newly wed: 
A light more bright than ever bathed the skies
Departs for all time out of all men’s eyes. 
  The crowns that girt last night a living head
  Shine only now, though deathless, on the dead: 
Art that mocks death, and Song that never dies. 
Albeit the bright sweet mothlike wings be furled,
  Hope sees, past all division and defection,
    And higher than swims the mist of human breath,
The soul most radiant once in all the world
  Requickened to regenerate resurrection
    Out of the likeness of the shadow of death.

April 1882.

ON THE DEATHS OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND GEORGE ELIOT

Two souls diverse out of our human sight
  Pass, followed one with love and each with wonder: 
  The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder,
Clothed with loud words and mantled in the might
Of darkness and magnificence of night;
  And one whose eye could smite the night in sunder,
  Searching if light or no light were thereunder,
And found in love of loving-kindness light. 
Duty divine and Thought with eyes of fire
Still following Righteousness with deep desire
  Shone sole and stern before her and above,
Sure stars and sole to steer by; but more sweet
Shone lower the loveliest lamp for earthly feet,
  The light of little children, and their love.

AFTER LOOKING INTO CARLYLE’S REMINISCENCES

I

Three men lived yet when this dead man was young
  Whose names and words endure for ever:  one
  Whose eyes grew dim with straining toward the sun,
And his wings weakened, and his angel’s tongue
Lost half the sweetest song was ever sung,
  But like the strain half uttered earth hears none,
  Nor shall man hear till all men’s songs are done: 
One whose clear spirit like an eagle hung
Between the mountains hallowed by his love
And the sky stainless as his soul above: 
  And one the sweetest heart that ever spake
The brightest words wherein sweet wisdom smiled. 
These deathless names by this dead snake defiled
  Bid memory spit upon him for their sake.

II

Sweet heart, forgive me for thine own sweet sake,
  Whose kind blithe soul such seas of sorrow swam,
  And for my love’s sake, powerless as I am
For love to praise thee, or like thee to make
Music of mirth where hearts less pure would break,
  Less pure than thine, our life-unspotted Lamb. 
  Things hatefullest thou hadst not heart