Lyrical Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

They arose and heard he was gone;
And a thrill of electric pain
Smote through each English breast,
World-wide from East to West,
That we never should hear him again.

2

And wherever the English speech,
Binding the nations in one,
Like a river round earth has roll'd
Its girdle of stubborn gold,
A splendour fell from the sun.

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3

The spell that on millions at once
Work'd laughter and tears at his will:
The glory of genius that flamed
O'er the landscape his fancy had framed;
The voice of the charmer is still.

4

The flame of that generous wrath
Which wither'd the oppressor is cold,—
The champion of all who endure,
The voice of the voiceless and poor,
The heart that could never grow old.

5

Yes! From the whole world's sky
We knew 'twas a star that had fled
When the lightnings that circle the earth,
Mute flashes of sadness and mirth,
Told East and West, ‘He is dead.’

6

—How should we measure it, Fame?
How balance diffusion and weight?

135

How discern if the years far away
Will re-echo the shout of to-day,
‘Great in the ranks of the great’?

7

—Twice in our century, twice
Only, that cry has been heard
By a nation's unison swell'd,
‘All bosoms his magic has held,
And his name is a household word.’

8

Our fathers that unison heard
In youth, as we hear it now,
When, toward his own country-side led
By the spirit within him, the head
Of ‘the whole world's darling’ lay low.

9

And loud-tongued dispensers of fame,

See the reviews ofScott by Lord Jeffrey, Mr. Carlyle, &c. The estimate of Scott here given is more fully worked out in my Essay, prefixed to the Globe Edition of his poems.

Judges with envy-dim eye,
Said ‘The tale and the legend were gay
Manufactures well wrought for the day,
And his spell with the day would go by.’

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10

Not so! The wild Past that he loved,
The heroic adventure and strife,
Lake, glen, that we never may see,
In the light of that witchery,
Glow yet with the fulness of life.

11

Lord of Romance and the North!
Whilst Melrose in twilight is gray,
Whilst Eildon the triple pride
Of his crest lifts over Strathclyde,
In the hearts of men is thy sway.

12

There only is durable reign!
—Auroral flashings of wit;
Touches of tragical might
Fraught with such strange delight
That we cannot fathom it;

13

Wonders of exquisite art;
Beauty that earth cannot give;

137

The spell that lays bare the dim, gray
Caves of the soul to the day;
—In their magic awhile we may live.

14

But the fame that the whole world's heart
In its golden girdle shall bind,
Must have root in a richer soil,
And its lamp be made bright with the oil
Of love for all humankind.

15

And the work must not only be true,
But intense with the passion of truth,
The hatred of coldness and lie;
To the nobler nature must cry,
That shall merit eternal youth.

16

And the verse that will never grow old
With a life-blood current must roll,
In the music of heaven have part,—
The cry of the heart to the heart
And the song of the soul in the soul.