Of one, too, I have heard, A brother--sleeps he here? Of all that gifted race Not the least gifted; young, Unhappy, eloquent--the child Of many hopes, of many tears. O boy, if here thou sleep'st, sleep well! On thee too did the Muse Bright in thy cradle smile; But some dark shadow came (I know not what) and interposed. Sleep, O cluster of friends, Sleep!--or only when May, Brought by the west-wind, returns Back to your native heaths, And the plover is heard on the moors, Yearly awake to behold The opening summer, the sky, The shining moorland--to hear The drowsy bee, as of old, Hum o'er the thyme, the grouse Call from the heather in bloom! Sleep, or only for this Break your united repose! EPILOGUE So I sang; but the Muse, Shaking her head, took the harp-- Stern interrupted my strain, Angrily smote on the chords. April showers Rush o'er the Yorkshire moors. Stormy, through driving mist, Loom the blurr'd hills; the rain Lashes the newly-made grave. Unquiet souls! --In the dark fermentation of earth, In the never idle workshop of nature, In the eternal movement, Ye shall find yourselves again! RUGBY CHAPEL NOVEMBER 1857 Coldly, sadly descends The autumn-evening. The field Strewn with its dank yellow drifts Of wither'd leaves, and the elms, Fade into dimness apace, Silent;--hardly a shout From a few boys late at their play! The lights come out in the street, In the school-room windows;--but cold, Solemn, unlighted, austere, Through the gathering darkness, arise The chapel-walls, in whose bound Thou, my father! art laid. There thou dost lie, in the gloom Of the autumn evening. But ah! That word, _gloom_, to my mind Brings thee back, in the light Of thy radiant vigour, again; In the gloom of November we pass'd Days not dark at thy side; Seasons impair'd not the ray Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear. Such thou wast! and I stand In the autumn evening, and think Of bygone autumns with thee. Fifteen years have gone round Since thou arosest to tread, In the summer-morning, the road Of death, at a call unforeseen, Sudden. For fifteen years, We who till then in thy shade Rested as under the boughs Of a mighty oak, have endured Sunshine and rain as we might, Bare, unshaded, alone, Lacking the shelter of thee. O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain! Somewhere, surely, afar, In the sounding labour-house vast Of being, is practised that strength, Zealous, beneficent, firm!