TAKE the harp,but very softly for our brother touch the strings:
Wind and wood shall help to wail him,waves and mournful mountain-springs.
Take the harp,but very softly,for the friend who grew so old Through the hours we would not hear of -nights we would not fain behold!
Other voices,sweeter voices,shall lament him year by year,Though the morning finds us lonely,though we sit and marvel here:
Marvel much while Summer cometh,trammelled with November wheat,Gold about her forehead gleaming,green and gold about her feet;Yea,and while the land is dark with plover,gull,and gloomy glede,Where the cold,swift songs of Winter fill the interlucent reed.
Yet,my harp,and O,my fathers,never look for Sorrow's lay,Making life a mighty darkness in the patient noon of day;Since he resteth whom we loved so,out beyond these fleeting seas,Blowing clouds,and restless regions paved with old perplexities,In a land where thunder breaks not,in a place unknown of snow,Where the rain is mute for ever,where the wild winds never go:
Home of far-forgotten phantoms -genii of our peaceful prime,Shining by perpetual waters past the ways of Change and Time:
Haven of the harried spirit,where it folds its wearied wings,Turns its face and sleeps a sleep with deep forgetfulness of things.
His should be a grave by mountains,in a cool and thick-mossed lea,With the lone creek falling past it -falling ever to the sea.
His should be a grave by waters,by a bright and broad lagoon,Making steadfast splendours hallowed of the quiet-shining moon.
There the elves of many forests -wandering winds and flying lights -Born of green,of happy mornings,dear to yellow summer nights,Full of dole for him that loved them,then might halt,and then might go,Finding fathers of the people to their children speaking low -Speaking low of one who,failing,suffered all the poet's pain,Dying with the dead leaves round him -hopes which never grow again.
