AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS
You might have won the Poet’s name,
But you have made the wiser choice,
And you have miss’d the irreverent doom
For now the Poet cannot die,
‘Proclaim the faults he would not show;
Ah, shameless! for he did but sing
He gave the people of his best;
Who make it seem more sweet to be
Than he that warbles long and loud
If such be worth the winning now,
And gain’d a laurel for your brow
Of sounder leaf than I can claim;
A life that moves to gracious ends
Thro’ troops of unrecording friends,
A deedful life, a silent voice.
Of those that wear the Poet’s crown;
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown
Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry:
Break lock and seal, betray the trust;
Keep nothing sacred, ’tis but just
The many-headed beast should know.’
A song that pleased us from its worth;
No public life was his on earth,
No blazon’d statesman he, nor king.
His worst he kept, his best he gave.
My Shakespeare’s curse on clown and knave
Who will not let his ashes rest!
The little life of bank and brier,
The bird that pipes his lone desire
And dies unheard within his tree,
And drops at Glory’s temple-gates,
For whom the carrion vulture waits
To tear his heart before the crowd!