“WE live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breadths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial; We should count time by heart-throbs; he most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best”— The Poet, dreaming in divinest mood, Scanning the future with a Prophet’s eyes, Beheld the outlines of the Perfect Man Take shape before the vision of his soul; And though the beauteous phantom could not stay, He caught its grace and glory in the song Wherein he praises the Ideal Man Of whom he dreamed, and whom the world should know, When in the teeming womb of Time the years Had ripened him, mature in every part. While yet the world, expectant of this man, Watched, mutely wondering when and whence would come This radiant one, this full-bloom, fairest flower Of manhood’s excellence, which Heaven itself Were fain to keep, to crown the angels with— God granting unto Earth but one or two Within the cycle of a century— Lo! suddenly, from out the realm of Dreams, The splendid Vision of the musing bard, His perfect and ideal Man, came forth, And walked within the common light of day, A living, breathing Presence—Henry Grady! Did not this marvelously gifted man, Who trod with us the old, familiar paths, And glorified them daily with strange light, As if a god were dwelling in our midst, Measure, full-length, the stature of the man The Poet quarried from the mines of Thought? What though his years were brief, did he not fill Their precious brevity with glorious deeds, Till he outlived the utmost lives of men Of lesser mold, of feebler fibred souls? Garnering betwixt his cradle and his grave The ripened harvests of a century! Did he not live in thoughts as flowers live In sunshine, filling the whole world with light, And the celestial fragrance of his soul! Did he not live in feelings so refined, That every heart-string into music woke, Though touched more lightly than a mother’s mouth Would touch the sleep-sealed eyelids of her babe! Ah, were the throbs of his great, loving heart, Meet as a measure for _his_ span of life? Would not such measure circle all the world, And find no end, save in infinity? If he lives most—(and who shall dare deny A truth which is as true as God is true?) If he doth live the most who thinks the most, Who feels the noblest, and who acts the best, Thou, O my friend! didst to the utmost mete Of transitory mortal life live out Thine earthly span, though to our eyes thy life Seems like the flashing of a falling star, Which for a moment fills the heavens with light,