• Still we say as we go,—
• “Strange to think by the way,
• Whatever there is to know,
• That shall we know one day.”

• The sky leans dumb on the sea,
• 50 Aweary with all its wings;
• And oh! the song the sea sings
• Is dark everlastingly.
• Our past is clean forgot,
• Our present is and is not,
• Our future's a sealed seedplot,
• And what betwixt them are we?—
• We who say as we go,—
• “Strange to think by the way,
• Whatever there is to know,
• 60 That shall we know one day.”

       

• Turn not the prophet 's page, O Son! He knew
• All that thou hast to suffer, and hath writ.
• Not yet thine hour of knowledge , .. Infinite
• The sorrows that thy manhood's lot must rue
• And dire acquaintance of thy grief. That clue ,
• The spirits of thy mournful ministerings
• Seek through yon scroll in silence. For these
• things
• The angels have desired to look into.

• Still before Eden waves the fiery sword,—
• 10 Her Tree of Life unransomed: whose sad Tree
• Of Knowledge yet to growth of Calvary
• Must yield its Tempter,—Hell the earliest dead
• Of Earth resign,—and yet, O Son and Lord,
• The Seed o' the Woman bruise the serpent's
• head.

   

• What masque of what old wind-withered New-Year
• Honours this Lady? ¹ Flora, wanton-eyed
• For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and pied:
• Aurora, Zephyrus, with mutual cheer
• Of clasp and kiss: the Graces circling near,
• 'Neath bower-linked arch of white arms glorified:
• And with those feathered feet which hovering
• glide
• O'er Spring's brief bloom, Hermes the harbinger.

• Birth-bare, not death-bare yet, the young stems
• stand,
• 10 This Lady's temple-columns: o'er her head
• Love wings his shaft. What mystery here is read
• Of homage or of hope? But how command
• Dead Springs to answer? And how question here
• These mummers of that wind-withered New-
• Year?

       

• With Shakspeare's manhood at a boy's wild
• heart,—
• Through Hamlet's doubt to Shakspeare near
• allied,
• And kin to Milton through his Satan's pride,—
• At Death's sole door he stooped, and craved a dart;
• And to the dear new bower of England's art,—
• Even to that shrine Time else had deified,
• The unuttered heart that soared against his
• side,—
• Drove the fell point, and smote life's seals apart.

• Thy nested home-loves, noble Chatterton;
• 10 The angel-trodden stair thy soul could trace
• Up Redcliffe's spire; and in the world's armed
• space
• Thy gallant sword-play:—these to many an one
• Are sweet for ever; as thy grave unknown
• And love-dream of thine unrecorded face.

   

• This is the place. Even here the dauntless soul,
• The unflinching hand, wrought on; till in that
• nook,
• As on that very bed, his life partook
• New birth, and passed. Yon river's dusky shoal,
• Whereto the close-built coiling lanes unroll,
• Faced his work-window, whence his eyes would
• stare,
• Thought-wandering, unto nought that met them
• there,
• But to the unfettered irreversible goal.

• This cupboard, Holy of Holies, held the cloud
• 10 Of his soul writ and limned; this other one,
• His true wife's charge, full oft to their abode
• Yielded for daily bread the martyr's stone,
• Ere yet their food might be that Bread alone,
• The words n e ow home-speech of the mouth of God.

   

• His Soul fared forth (as from the deep home-grove
• The father-songster plies the hour-long quest,)
• To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest;
• But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above
• Their callow fledgling progeny still hove
• With tented roof of wings and fostering breast
• Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest
• From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human
• Love.

• Yet ah! Like desart pools that show the stars
• 10 Once in long leagues,—even such the scarce-
• snatched hours
• Which deepening pain left to his lordliest
• powers:—
• Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars.
• Five Six years, from seventy sixty saved! Yet kindling
• skies
• Own them, a beacon to our centuries.

   

• The w i eltering London ways where children weep
• And girls whom none call maidens laugh,—
• strange road
• Miring his outward steps, who inly trode
• The bright Castalian brink and Latmos' steep:—
• Even such his life's cross-paths; till deathly deep
• He toiled through sands of Lethe; and long pain,
• Weary with labour spurned and love found vain,
• In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his
• sleep.

• O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips
• 10And heart-strung lyre awoke the Moon's eclipse,—
• Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er,—
• Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ
• But rumour'd in water, while the fame of it
• Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore.

   

• 'Twixt those twin worlds,—the world of Sleep,
• which gave
• No dream to warn,—the tidal world of Death,
• Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth,—
• Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave,
• Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave
• Only the sea?—or did man's deed of hell
• Engulph his bark 'mid mists impenetrable? . . . .
• No eye discerned, nor any power might save.

• When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil
• 10 Was rent from thee, to whom far-darkling Truth
• Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief age-
• less youth?
• Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?—Hush! All-
• Hail,
• Past doubt, thou gav'st it; and in Truth's bright
• sphere ,
• Art first of praisers, being most prais e èd here.

   

• Upon the landscape of his coming life
• A youth high-gifted gazed, and found it fair:
• The heights of work, the floods of praise, were
• there.
• What friendships, what desires, what love, what
• wife?—
• All things to come. The fanned springtide was rife
• With imminent solstice; and the ardent air
• Had summer sweets and autumn fires to bear;—
• Heart's ease full-pulsed with perfect strength for
• strife.

• A mist has risen: we see the youth no more:
• 10 Does he see on and strive on? And may we
• Late-tottering worldworn hence, find his to be
• The young strong hand which helps us up that
• shore?
• Or, echoing the No More with Nevermore,
• Must Night be ours and his? We hope: and he?

       

• How dear the sky has been above this place!
• Small treasures of this sky that we see here
• Seen weak through prison-bars from year to
• year;
• Eyed with a painful prayer upon God's grace
• To save, and tears that stayed along the face
• Lifted at S sunset. Yea, how passing dear,
• Those nights when through the bars a wind left
• clear
• The heaven, and moonlight soothed the limpid
• space!

• So was it, till one night the secret kept
• 10 Safe in low vault and stealthy corridor
• Was blown abroad on gospel-tongues of flame.
• O ways of God, mysterious evermore!
• How many on this spot have cursed and wept
• That all might stand here now and own Thy
• Name.