And after she was dead, and he had paid The singers and the sexton and the rest, He packed a lot of things that she had made Most mournfully away in an old chest Of hers, and put some chopped-up cedar boughs In with them, and tore down the slaughter-house. The Altar Alone, remote, nor witting where I went, I found an altar builded in a dream -- A fiery place, whereof there was a gleam So swift, so searching, and so eloquent Of upward promise, that love's murmur, blent With sorrow's warning, gave but a supreme Unending impulse to that human stream Whose flood was all for the flame's fury bent. Alas! I said, -- the world is in the wrong. But the same quenchless fever of unrest That thrilled the foremost of that martyred throng Thrilled me, and I awoke . . . and was the same Bewildered insect plunging for the flame That burns, and must burn somehow for the best. The Tavern Whenever I go by there nowadays And look at the rank weeds and the strange grass, The torn blue curtains and the broken glass, I seem to be afraid of the old place; And something stiffens up and down my face, For all the world as if I saw the ghost Of old Ham Amory, the murdered host, With his dead eyes turned on me all aglaze. The Tavern has a story, but no man Can tell us what it is. We only know That once long after midnight, years ago, A stranger galloped up from Tilbury Town, Who brushed, and scared, and all but overran That skirt-crazed reprobate, John Evereldown. Sonnet Oh for a poet -- for a beacon bright To rift this changeless glimmer of dead gray; To spirit back the Muses, long astray, And flush Parnassus with a newer light; To put these little sonnet-men to flight Who fashion, in a shrewd, mechanic way, Songs without souls, that flicker for a day, To vanish in irrevocable night. What does it mean, this barren age of ours? Here are the men, the women, and the flowers, The seasons, and the sunset, as before. What does it mean? Shall not one bard arise To wrench one banner from the western skies, And mark it with his name forevermore? George Crabbe Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows, Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will, -- But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still With the sure strength that fearless truth endows. In spite of all fine science disavows, Of his plain excellence and stubborn skill There yet remains what fashion cannot kill, Though years have thinned the laurel from his brows.