Classic Poem

They have not laid thee, Singer, in a tomb
In Abbey walls,
But where thou liest is there deeper gloom
When night-time falls

Than shadows o'er the graves of those who sleep
Together there,—
Above whose names have nations paused to weep,
And to despair?

And yet for thee who loved the sea and land,
And heaven above,
They make thy grave where thine own music planned,
Singer of love.

Where Death hath taken thee, no man may know,
But if thou art
Where any arrow from a careless bow
May pierce thine heart,

Dost now a nation's blind ingratitude
To her great dead,
Make wistful, childish-wise, thy quiet mood,
And bend thine head?

Not all of England's armies, nor her ships,
Could leave, as thou,
Her language on a million singing lips,
Alien till now;

And that the land that bore thee leaves unsaid
Praise for thy name,
And does not lay the laurel o'er thee, dead,
Is thy land's shame.

But, Singer, of thy brothers whom she gave
Her honours, all
Would leave their tombs to share thy grass-grown grave,
An thou didst call.

All poets love thee, and all lovers too,
And all youth-time;
So, where thou sleepest 'neath the stars and dew,
I leave my rhyme,—

And say thee thanks for music that hath taken
My soul o'ersea,
To Lesbos, and the Holy Lands forsaken
By all save thee.