Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/183

STODDARD'S LAST POEM separate its three natural strophes or divisions, feeling that his instinct was true in making it a continuous strain.

Of all poets of his time, Stoddard had most dwelt upon death,—striking its whole gamut, and not confining his song to the one topic which Poe declared to be above all "the most poetical in the world." Within the year his gifted and only surviving son had died in the hour of best achievement; his life-long companion, the one woman he had loved, was hastening to the grave; he confronted desolation, which could find "surcease" only through his own impending journey to "the hollow vale." The opening quatrain of the requiem is the sole verse which I recall that declares, with the compressed force of sternly simple diction, that at every age—even in extreme old age—"Death always comes too soon." The four lines are strong enough to carry the whole poem, and the eleven which follow do not lessen their effect. In the second division, commencing with "Now there is not an hour to spare," there is a poignant and momentary loss of hold; the poet's ear and fancy are lured by his own melody; his grief is lulled by vague yet exquisite wanderings of song. Then, recovering as if from a trance, he is brought back to his desolation, to acceptance of the irreparable and to a sense of his own approaching end. He strikes the key of hopeless resignation, and from the line "When dear words have all been said" to the close maintains it, albeit with an old man's mingling echoes of the measures which most affected him in youth. In fine, the [169]