Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) | Page 4

of ardours felt on
high,
Make onward, till the last flame fall and die
And all the world
by night's broad hand lie blest.
Haply, meseems, as from that edge of
death,
Whereon the day lies dark, a brightening breath
Blows more
of benediction than the morn,
So from the graves whereon grief
gazing saith
That half our heart of life there lies forlorn
May light
or breath at least of hope be born.
II
The wind was soft before the sunset fled:
Now, while the
cloud-enshrouded corpse of day
Is lowered along a red funereal way

Down to the dark that knows not white from red,
A clear sheer
breeze against the night makes head,
Serene, but sure of life as ere a
ray
Springs, or the dusk of dawn knows red from grey,
Being as a
soul that knows not quick from dead.
From far beyond the sunset, far
above,
Full toward the starry soundless east it blows
Bright as a
child's breath breathing on a rose,
Smooth to the sense as plume of
any dove;
Till more and more as darkness grows and glows
Silence
and night seem likest life and love.

III
If light of life outlive the set of sun
That men call death and end of all
things, then
How should not that which life held best for men
And
proved most precious, though it seem undone
By force of death and
woful victory won,
Be first and surest of revival, when
Death shall
bow down to life arisen again?
So shall the soul seen be the self-same
one
That looked and spake with even such lips and eyes
As love
shall doubt not then to recognise,
And all bright thoughts and smiles
of all time past
Revive, transfigured, but in spirit and sense
None
other than we knew, for evidence
That love's last mortal word was
not his last.
A STUDY FROM MEMORY
If that be yet a living soul which here
Seemed brighter for the growth
of numbered springs
And clothed by Time and Pain with goodlier
things
Each year it saw fulfilled a fresh fleet year,
Death can have
changed not aught that made it dear;
Half humorous goodness,
grave-eyed mirth on wings
Bright-balanced, blither-voiced than
quiring strings;
Most radiant patience, crowned with conquering
cheer;
A spirit inviolable that smiled and sang
By might of nature
and heroic need
More sweet and strong than loftiest dream or deed;

A song that shone, a light whence music rang
High as the sunniest
heights of kindliest thought;
All these must be, or all she was be
nought.
TO DR. JOHN BROWN
Beyond the north wind lay the land of old
Where men dwelt blithe
and blameless, clothed and fed
With joy's bright raiment and with
love's sweet bread,
The whitest flock of earth's maternal fold.
None
there might wear about his brows enrolled
A light of lovelier fame
than rings your head,
Whose lovesome love of children and the dead


All men give thanks for: I far off behold
A dear dead hand that
links us, and a light
The blithest and benignest of the night,
The
night of death's sweet sleep, wherein may be
A star to show your
spirit in present sight
Some happier island in the Elysian sea
Where
Rab may lick the hand of Marjorie.
March 1882.
TO WILLIAM BELL SCOTT
The larks are loud above our leagues of whin
Now the sun's perfume
fills their glorious gold
With odour like the colour: all the wold
Is
only light and song and wind wherein
These twain are blent in one
with shining din.
And now your gift, a giver's kingly-souled,
Dear
old fast friend whose honours grow not old,
Bids memory's note as
loud and sweet begin.
Though all but we from life be now gone forth

Of that bright household in our joyous north
Where I, scarce clear
of boyhood just at end,
First met your hand; yet under life's clear
dome,
Now seventy strenuous years have crowned my friend,

Shines no less bright his full-sheaved harvest-home.
April 20, 1882.
A DEATH ON EASTER DAY
The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise,
Rise and make revel, as of
old men said,
Like dancing hearts of lovers newly wed:
A light
more bright than ever bathed the skies
Departs for all time out of all
men's eyes.
The crowns that girt last night a living head
Shine only
now, though deathless, on the dead:
Art that mocks death, and Song
that never dies.
Albeit the bright sweet mothlike wings be furled,

Hope sees, past all division and defection,
And higher than swims the
mist of human breath,
The soul most radiant once in all the world

Requickened to regenerate resurrection
Out of the likeness of the
shadow of death.

April 1882.
ON THE DEATHS OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND GEORGE
ELIOT
Two souls diverse out of our human sight
Pass, followed one with
love and each with wonder:
The stormy sophist with his mouth of
thunder,
Clothed with loud words and mantled in the might
Of
darkness and magnificence of night;
And one whose eye could smite
the night in sunder,
Searching if light or no light were thereunder,

And found in love of loving-kindness light.
Duty divine and Thought
with eyes of fire
Still following Righteousness with deep desire

Shone sole and stern before her and above,
Sure