Page:Fourteen sonnets and poems.djvu/61

 A Tribute

T is with deep reverence and scruples, holding in mind the many-sided delicacy of a nature to be respected, that I comply with the request to speak a word of my master and teacher, which word, for reverence and humility, was never spoken in his hearing.

With many another, who through the half-formed thoughts of youth sat to ask alms at the Gate Beautiful, was it given me to receive, through the power of his word, that quickened consciousness of life and art which set us young "walking and leaping and praising."

He was never the pedagogue, rather the embassador of some high message which he rejoiced to deliver; that it fell upon dulled ears, or ears still birth-muffled in unheeding youth, was no stop to him. He had the look of one who dwelt in the upper air of hopes and loves that breathed free of the personal, his very presence rebuke to selfish ends, petty standards, and the compromise of a time-serving day. A strenuous radical, bound by no creed of church or party, he was a two-edged sword for what would exalt itself above the