From off the starry mountain-peak of song, Thy spirit shows me, in the coming time, An earth unwithered by the foot of wrong, A race revering its own soul sublime. What wars, what martyrdoms, what crimes, may come, Thou knowest not, nor I; but God will lead The prodigal soul from want and sorrow home, And Eden ope her gates to Adam's seed. 60 Farewell! good man, good angel now! this hand Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning too; Soon shall this soul, like thine, bewildered stand, Then leap to thread the free, unfathomed blue: When that day comes, oh, may this hand grow cold, Busy, like thine, for Freedom and the Right; Oh, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold To face dark Slavery's encroaching blight! This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier; Let worthier hands than these thy wreath intwine; 70 Upon thy hearse I shed no useless tear,-- For us weep rather thou in calm divine! TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD Another star 'neath Time's horizon dropped, To gleam o'er unknown lands and seas; Another heart that beat for freedom stopped,-- What mournful words are these! O Love Divine, that claspest our tired earth, And lullest it upon thy heart, Thou knowest how much a gentle soul is worth To teach men what thou art! His was a spirit that to all thy poor Was kind as slumber after pain: Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door And call him home again? Freedom needs all her poets: it is they Who give her aspirations wings, And to the wiser law of music sway Her wild imaginings. Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind, O Love Divine, for 'tis thy will That gracious natures leave their love behind To work for Mercy still. Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs, Let anthems peal for other dead, Rustling the bannered depth of minster-glooms With their exulting spread. His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone, No lichen shall its lines efface, He needs these few and simple lines alone To mark his resting-place: 'Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to thee His claim to memory be obscure, If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he, Go, ask it of the poor.' THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems.