 | Thought and word |  |
66
THE CRUCIBLE.
I.
Is he shrunk to Name and Date,Painted on a coffin plate?
II.
With golden talismans bedeck'd,Deep this single man was sheathed
In atmosphere of soft respect,
Which everyone around him breathed.
Well he was served, well attended,
Well becourted, well befriended;
Many labours stopt or sped
By the turning of his head;
Many lives toil'd like bees
To make the honey of his ease.
III.
And leave you him all aloneBeneath a stone,
Now when comes the twilight cold
Down the bare wold,
And winds are crying to the darken'd foam;
When thoughts of glowing rooms and faces
And the dear domestic graces
Draw all men home?
On this stone the ragged rooks will meet,
The gusty rain-storm rave and beat,
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To and from her nest in the bield,
The wide-falling winter snow will cover it,
With other stones of the field.
Black Rook, white Snow, how can they know
This stone has a costly vault below?
Brown Mouse, wild Rain, 'tis too, too plain,
Won't spare this grave from the common disdain.
IV.
Oh, you say it is not heYou are laying by the sea;
Leaving in the graveyard lonely;
'Tis not he—his body only.
Darkness is its dwelling fit,
And a stone to cover it.
He Himself, His Soul, you say,
God has call'd him far away.
V.
Would that men would well discernWhat a lesson they might learn
From this natural separation,
Chemist Death's elimination
Of the drossy and the fleeting,
Past all further trick or cheating;
And in the actual be so wise
As to justly analyse
The elements of life, while blended,
Which they rank, when all is ended,
Thus concluded, proved, and past,
In a truer rate at last.
Long his Life: and in the whole
How much worship earn'd his Soul?
| Thought and word | |