 | English Roses |  |
ELEGY.
Unhonoured thou by men but all my own,Dear heart, the better loved the better known,
And truly great in gifts that fashion men
To guide through conflict or in danger; then
Supreme and kingly and a sheltering tower,
By that calm wisdom which with heaven is power
And conquers earth. Yet what thou couldest dare,
None but myself might ever be aware.
And now betwixt me and thy foreign grave,
Rise up a thousand leagues of wind and wave
With stern forbidding arms and thrust me back,
If thought would try to follow thy far track
And mark the footsteps. Nor can mortal trace
The lowly spot that is thy resting-place;
Whether among the blazing flowers that nod
Beneath the blazing sky, where the palm's rod
Springs like a prayer in blessing for the land
Of thirst, or tossing with the tawny sand
That shifts its bound and shape for ever. Still,
If thy low bed be under tree or hill,
My guardian love doth sweetly fence it round
With benediction and makes holy ground,
Where'er it be, and screens from glare and gust—
Though others pass thy unremembered dust.
| English Roses | |