Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/446

408 Breathings of song, with a pen

Tottering, a death-stricken hand.

Hope at that meeting smiled fair.

Years in number, it seemed,

Lay before both, and a fame

Heightened, and multiplied power.—

Behold! The elder, to-day,

Lies expecting from death,

In mortal weakness, a last

Summons! the younger is dead!

First to the living we pay

Mournful homage: the Muse

Gains not an earth-deafened ear.

Hail to the steadfast soul,

Which, unflinching and keen,

Wrought to erase from its depth

Mist and illusion and fear!

Hail to the spirit which dared

Trust its own thoughts, before yet

Echoed her back by the crowd!

Hail to the courage which gave

Voice to its creed, ere the creed

Won consecration from time!

Turn we next to the dead.—

How shall we honor the young.

The ardent, the gifted? how mourn?

Console we cannot, her ear

Is deaf. Far northward from here,

In a churchyard high 'mid the moors

Of Yorkshire, a little earth

Stops it forever to praise.