No More Learning

TO MY BROTHER

Brother, where dost thou dwell?
What sun shines for thee now?
Dost thou indeed fare well,
As we wished thee here below?

What season didst thou find?
'Twas winter here.
Are not the Fates more kind
Than they appear?

Is thy brow clear again
As in thy youthful years?
And was that ugly pain
The summit of thy fears?

Yet thou wast cheery still;
They could not quench thy fire;
Thou didst abide their will,
And then retire.

Where chiefly shall I look
To feel thy presence near?
Along the neighboring brook
May I thy voice still hear?

Dost thou still haunt the brink
Of yonder river's tide?
And may I ever think
That thou art by my side?

What bird wilt thou employ
To bring me word of thee?
For it would give them joy--
'T would give them liberty--
To serve their former lord
With wing and minstrelsy.
A sadder strain mixed with their song,
They've slowlier built their nests;
Since thou art gone
Their lively labor rests.

Where is the finch, the thrush,
I used to hear?
Ah, they could well abide
The dying year.

Now they no more return,
I hear them not;
They have remained to mourn,
Or else forgot.


GREECE[11]

When life contracts into a vulgar span,
And human nature tires to be a man,
I thank the gods for Greece,
That permanent realm of peace.
For as the rising moon far in the night
Checkers the shade with her forerunning light,
So in my darkest hour my senses seem
To catch from her Acropolis a gleam.

Greece, who am I that should remember thee,
Thy Marathon and thy Thermopylae?
Is my life vulgar, my fate mean,
Which on such golden memories can lean?


THE FUNERAL BELL

One more is gone
Out of the busy throng
That tread these paths;
The church-bell tolls,
Its sad knell rolls
To many hearths.

Flower-bells toll not,
Their echoes roll not
Upon my ear;
There still, perchance,
That gentle spirit haunts
A fragrant bier.

Low lies the pall,
Lowly the mourners all
Their passage grope;
No sable hue
Mars the serene blue
Of heaven's cope.

In distant dell
Faint sounds the funeral bell;
A heavenly chime;
Some poet there
Weaves the light-burthened air
Into sweet rhyme.


THE MOON

Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed.

RALEIGH.

The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.

She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless;
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.