Part 39 (1/2)

In the soft yellow evening-ends, The wind of the water is faint By the home of the last of my friends-- The shrine of the father and saint.

The tenderness touching--the grace Of Ridley no more is for me; And flowers have hidden the face Of the brother who sleeps by the sea.

The vehement voice of the South Is loud where the journalist lies; But calm hath encompa.s.sed his mouth, And sweet is the peace in his eyes.

Called hence by the Power who knows When the work of a hero is done, He turned at the message, and rose With the harness of diligence on.

In the midst of magnificent toil, He bowed at the holy decree; And green is the gra.s.s on the soil Of the grave by the cliffs of the sea.

I knew him, indeed; and I knew, Having suffered so much in his day, What a beautiful nature and true In Bennett was hidden away.

In the folds of a shame without end, When the lips of the scorner were curled, I found in this brother a friend-- The last that was left in the world.

Ah! under the surface austere Compa.s.sion was native to thee; I send from my solitude here This rose for the grave by the sea.

To the high, the heroic intent Of a life that was never at rest, He held, with a courage unspent, Through the worst of his days and the best.

Far back in the years that are dead He knew of the bitterness cold That saddens with silver the head And makes a man suddenly old.

The dignity gracing his grief Was ever a lesson to me; He lies under blossom and leaf In a grave by the cliffs of the sea.

Above him the wandering face Of the moon is a loveliness now, And anthems encompa.s.s the place From lutes of the luminous bough.

The forelands are fiery with foam Where often and often he roved; He sleeps in the sight of the home That he built by the waters he loved.

The wave is his fellow at night, And the sun, s.h.i.+ning over the lea, Sheds out an unspeakable light On this grave by the cliffs of the sea.

Galatea

A silver slope, a fall of firs, a league of gleaming gra.s.ses, And fiery cones, and sultry spurs, and swarthy pits and pa.s.ses!

The long-haired Cyclops bated breath, and bit his lip and hearkened, And dug and dragged the stone of death, by ways that dipped and darkened.

Across a tract of furnaced flints there came a wind of water, From yellow banks with tender hints of Tethys' white-armed daughter.

She sat amongst wild singing weeds, by beds of myrrh and moly; And Acis made a flute of reeds, and drew its accents slowly;

And taught its spirit subtle sounds that leapt beyond suppression, And paused and panted on the bounds of fierce and fitful pa.s.sion.

Then he who shaped the cunning tune, by keen desire made bolder, Fell fainting, like a fervent noon, upon the sea-nymph's shoulder.

Sicilian suns had laid a dower of light and life about her: Her beauty was a gracious flower--the heart fell dead without her.

”Ah, Galate,” said Polypheme, ”I would that I could find thee Some finest tone of hill or stream, wherewith to lull and bind thee!

”What lyre is left of marvellous range, whose subtle strings, containing Some note supreme, might catch and change, or set thy pa.s.sion waning?--

”Thy pa.s.sion for the fair-haired youth whose fleet, light feet perplex me By ledges rude, on paths uncouth, and broken ways that vex me?

”Ah, turn to me! else violent sleep shall track the cunning lover; And thou wilt wait and thou wilt weep when I his haunts discover.”

But golden Galatea laughed, and Thosa's son, like thunder, Broke through a rifty runnel shaft, and dashed its rocks asunder,