Page:The poems of Robert W. Sterling, 1916.djvu/32

The Burial of Sophocles And then that darkly-riding company!—

What rapid, iron question stabb'd the air?

Rude force in-bursting on our reverie

With insolence of arms and doubting stare!

But when the whisper flew that this was he,

Poet of all the nations, rare bequest

Of Hellas to the treasuries of Time,—

Forgot was enmity,

And, sons of Hellas all, we onward press'd

Hot with one fervour and one care sublime.

And last, the tomb.—One struck the dead man's lyre

By Death long silenc'd, and our hearkening ears

Were open'd for one moment of desire

To the pure, perfect music of the spheres;

As if his Spirit had vouchsafed to us

A fragment of eternal harmony

From its new dwelling-place. The player ceas'd;

All dumb and tremulous

We smooth'd the coffin, cas'd in greenery

And with our own shorn tresses over-fleec'd.

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