Our business with unslackening stride, Traverse in troops, with care-filled breast, The soft Mediterranean side, The Nile, the East,-- And see all sights from pole to pole, And glance, and nod, and bustle by; And never once possess our soul Before we die. Not by those hoary Indian hills, Not by this gracious Midland sea Whose floor to-night sweet moonshine fills, Should our graves be. Some sage, to whom the world was dead, And men were specks, and life a play; Who made the roots of trees his bed, And once a day With staff and gourd his way did bend To villages and homes of man, For food to keep him till he end His mortal span,-- And the pure goal of being reach; Gray-headed, wrinkled, clad in white; Without companion, without speech, By day and night Pondering God’s mysteries untold, And tranquil as the glacier-snows,-- He by those Indian mountains old Might well repose. Some gray crusading knight austere, Who bore Saint Louis company, And came home hurt to death, and here Landed to die; Some youthful troubadour, whose tongue Filled Europe once with his love-pain, Who here outworn had sunk, and sung His dying strain; Some girl, who here from castle-bower, With furtive step and cheek of flame, ’Twixt myrtle-hedges all in flower By moonlight came To meet her pirate-lover’s ship, And from the wave-kissed marble stair Beckoned him on with quivering lip And floating hair, And lived some moons in happy trance, Then learnt his death, and pined away,-- Such by these waters of romance ’Twas meet to lay. But you--a grave for knight or sage, Romantic, solitary, still, O spent ones of a work-day age! Befits you ill. So sang I; but the midnight breeze, Down to the brimmed, moon-charmèd main, Comes softly through the olive-trees, And checks my strain. I think of her whose gentle tongue All plaint in her own cause controlled; Of thee I think, my brother! young In heart, high-souled; That comely face, that clustered brow, That cordial hand, that bearing free,-- I see them still, I see them now, Shall always see! And what but gentleness untired, And what but noble feeling warm, Wherever shown, howe’er inspired, Is grace, is charm? What else is all these waters are, What else is steeped in lucid sheen, What else is bright, what else is fair, What else serene? Mild o’er her grave, ye mountains, shine! Gently by his, ye waters, glide! To that in you which is divine They were allied. _HAWORTH CHURCHYARD._ APRIL, 1855.