Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/466

VARIOUS POEMS Again I see the patient brow

That palm erewhile was wont to press;

And now 't is furrowed deep, and now

Made smooth with hope and tenderness.

For something of a formless grace

This moulded outline plays about;

A pitying flame, beyond our trace,

Breathes like a spirit, in and out,—

The love that cast an aureole

Round one who, longer to endure,

Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole,

Yet kept his nobler purpose sure.

Lo, as I gaze, the statured man,

Built up from yon large hand, appears:

A type that Nature wills to plan

But once in all a people's years.

What better than this voiceless cast

To tell of such a one as he,

Since through its living semblance passed

The thought that bade a race be free!

"YE TOMBE OF YE POET CHAUCER"

and monks of Westminster

Here placed his tomb, in all men's view.

"A mass for him, and burial due!"

This very aisle his footsteps knew;

Here Gower's benediction fell,—

Brother thou were and minstral trewe,

Now slepe thou wel.

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