 | Sonnets by the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] |  |
26
GODDARD AND LYCIDAS.
Two dirges by two poets have I read,By two great masters of our English tongue;
One for the youth who rests his drownèd head
Upon the mighty harp of him who sung
The loss of Eden; and the other, warm
From Wordsworth's gentle heart
‘The first human consolation that the afflicted mother felt was derived from this tribute to her son's memory; a fact which the author learned at his own residence from her daughter who visited Europe some years afterwards.’—From a note by Wordsworth to his Elegiac Stanzas on Frederick William Goddard, who was drowned in the Lake of Zurich.
By Keller raised, near Zurich's stormy wave—
Both beautiful, with each its proper charm;
The one so glorious—we are fain to blend
The name of Lycidas with that wild sea,
Where sank to deathless fame the poet's friend:
The other, with a humbler purpose penned,
Set one poor mother's stifled sorrows free,
And gained, by lowlier means, a sweeter end.
| Sonnets by the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] | |