University of Virginia Library


54

To the Memory of Lady Jane Franklin.

JULY 23RD, 1875.
Quiet and cold, and white as frozen snow!
Well has the Master's cunning hand exprest
The honours on thine honourable breast,
The speaking eye, the calm command of brow—
Ah! if those eyes could weep, they would weep now!
To-day we carry to a well-earned rest
One who hath need not any more of quest—
Whose love was champion of her marriage vow.
She needs no tomb, her monument shall be
The ancient bergs that build the Northern sea;
And when to summer waters melting slip
Those giant crystals that enshrine thy ship,
The men that sail where thou and thine were found,
Shall tell the love no Arctic winter bound.

On the morning of Lady Franklin's funeral, I was shown in Noble's studio the bust of Sir John Franklin, now in Westminster Abbey, which he had just completed.