Live long, ere from thy topmost head
The thick-set hazel dies;

Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread

The corners of thine eyes:

Live long, nor feel in head or chest

Our changeful equinoxes,

Till mellow Death, like some late guest,
Shall call thee from the boxes.

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease
To pace the gritted floor,

And, laying down an unctuous lease
Of life, shalt earn no more;

No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,
Shall show thee past to Heaven :
But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,
A pint-pot, neatly graven.

ΤΟ

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS.

"Cursed be he that moves my bones."

Shakespeare's Epitaph.

You might have won the Poet's name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gain'd a laurel for your brow
Of sounder leaf than I can claim ;

But

you

have made the wiser choice, A life that moves to gracious ends Thro' troops of unrecording friends, A deedful life, a silent voice:

And

you have miss'd the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.

For now the Poet cannot die

Nor leave his music as of old,

But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry:

"Proclaim the faults he would not show :
Break lock and seal betray the trust:
Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just
The many-headed beast should know."

Ah shameless! for he did but sing

A song that pleased us from its worth;
No public life was his on earth,

No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.

He

gave the people of his best :

His worst he kept, his best he gave.

My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave

Who will not let his ashes rest!

Who make it seem more sweet to be

The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tree,

Than he that warbles long and loud
And drops at Glory's temple-gates,
For whom the carrion vulture waits
To tear his heart before the crowd!

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE.

ILLYRIAN Woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,
With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there :

And trust me while I turn'd the page,
And track'd you still on classic ground,
I grew in gladness till I found

My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour'd

And glisten'd-here and there alone
The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown

By fountain-urns ;-and Naiads oar'd

A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell ;
And many a slope was rich in bloom

From him that on the mountain lea
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,
To him who sat upon the rocks,

And fluted to the morning sea.

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