“Men’s work we have,” quoth one, “but we want them— Them, palpable to touch and clear to view.” Is it so nothing, then, to have the gem But we must weep to have the setting too? Body is a chest wherein the tools abide With which the craftsman works as best he can And, as the chest the tools within doth hide, So doth the body crib and hide the man. Nay, though great Shakespeare stood in flesh before us, Should heaven on importunity release him, Is it so certain that he might not bore us, So sure but we ourselves might fail to please him? Who prays to have the moon full soon would pray, Once it were his, to have it taken away. xiv—The Life After Death (A) Μελλοντα ταυτα Not on sad Stygian shore, nor in clear sheen Of far Elysian plain, shall we meet those Among the dead whose pupils we have been, Nor those great shades whom we have held as foes; No meadow of asphodel our feet shall tread, Nor shall we look each other in the face To love or hate each other being dead, Hoping some praise, or fearing some disgrace. We shall not argue saying “’Twas thus” or “Thus,” Our argument’s whole drift we shall forget; Who’s right, who’s wrong, ’twill be all one to us; We shall not even know that we have met. Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again, Where dead men meet, on lips of living men. (B) HANDEL There doth great Handel live, imperious still, Invisible and impalpable as air, But forcing flesh and blood to work his will Effectually as though his flesh were there; He who gave eyes to ears and showed in sound All thoughts and things in earth or heaven above. From fire and hailstones running along the ground To Galatea grieving for her love; He who could show to all unseeing eyes Glad shepherds watching o’er their flocks by night, Or Iphis angel-wafted to the skies, Or Jordan standing as an heap upright— He’ll meet both Jones and me and clap or hiss us Vicariously for having writ _Narcissus_. (C) HANDEL Father of my poor music—if such small Offspring as mine, so born out of due time, So scorn’d, can be called fatherful at all, Or dare to thy high sonship’s rank to climb— Best lov’d of all the dead whom I love best, Though I love many another dearly too, You in my heart take rank above the rest; King of those kings that most control me, you, You were about my path, about my bed In boyhood always and, where’er I be, Whate’er I think or do, you, in my head, Ground-bass to all my thoughts, are still with me; Methinks the very worms will find some strain Of yours still lingering in my wasted brain. Footnotes