Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/757

1858.]

This was the prison which his soul looked through,
 * Tender, and brave, and true.


 * His voice no more is heard;

And his dead name—that dear familiar word—
 * Lies on our lips unstirred.


 * He spake with poet's tongue;

Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung:
 * He shall not die unsung!


 * Grief tried his love, and pain;

And the long bondage of his martyr-chain
 * Vexed his sweet soul,—in vain!


 * It felt life's surges break,

As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake,
 * Smiling while tempests wake.


 * How can we sorrow more?

Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before
 * To that untrodden shore!


 * Lo, through its leafy screen,

A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green,
 * Untrodden, half unseen!


 * Here let his body rest,

Where the calm shadows that his soul loved best
 * May slide above his breast.


 * Smooth his uncurtained bed;

And if some natural tears are softly shed,
 * It is not for the dead.


 * Fold the green turf aright

For the long hours before the morning's light,
 * And say the last Good Night!


 * And plant a clear white stone

Close by those mounds which hold his loved, his own,—
 * Lonely, but not alone.


 * Here let him sleeping lie,

Till Heaven's bright watchers slumber in the sky,
 * And Death himself shall die!