April, 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 soulHad felt him like the thunder’s roll.With shivering heart the strife we sawOf passion with eternal law;And yet with reverential aweWe watched the fount of fiery lifeWhich 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.He took the suffering human race,He read each wound, each weakness clear;And struck his finger on the place,And said, Thou ailest here, and here!He looked on Europe’s dying hourOf fitful dream and feverish power;His eye plunged down the weltering strife,The turmoil of expiring life:He said, The end is everywhere,Art still has truth, take refuge there!And he was happy, if to knowCauses of things, and far belowHis feet to see the lurid flowOf terror, and insane distress,And headlong fate, be happiness.

And Wordsworth! Ah, pale ghosts, rejoice!For never has such soothing voiceBeen to your shadowy world conveyed,Since erst, at morn, some wandering shadeHeard the clear song of Orpheus comeThrough Hades and the mournful gloom.Wordsworth has gone from us; and ye,Ah, may ye feel his voice as we!He too upon a wintry climeHad fallen,--on this iron timeOf doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.He found us when the age had boundOur souls in its benumbing round;He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.He laid us as we lay at birthOn the cool flowery lap of earth:Smiles broke from us, and we had ease;The hills were round us, and the breezeWent o’er the sunlit fields again;Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.Our youth returned; for there was shedOn spirits that had long been dead,Spirits dried up and closely furled,The freshness of the early world.

Ah! since dark days still bring to lightMan’s prudence and man’s fiery might,Time may restore us in his courseGoethe’s sage mind and Byron’s force;But where will Europe’s latter hourAgain 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 noneHear thy voice right, now he is gone.