We flung the close-kept casement wide;
The myriad atom-play
Streamed, with the mid-day's glancing tide,
Across him as he lay;
Only the unused summer gust
Moved the thin hair of Dryasdust.

The notes he writ were barely dry;
The entering breeze's breath
Fluttered the fruitless casuistry,
Checked at the leaf where Death —
The final commentator — thrust
His cold " Here endeth Dryasdust. "

O fool and blind! The leaf that grew,
The opening bud, the trees,
The face of men, he nowise knew,
Or careless turned from these
To delve, in folios' rust and must,
The tomb he lived in, dry as dust.

He left, for mute Salmasius,
The lore a child may teach, —
For saws of dead Libanius,
The sound of uttered speech;
No voice had pierced the sheep-skin crust
That bound the heart of Dryasdust.

And so, with none to close his eyes,
And none to mourn him dead,
He in his dumb book-Babel lies
With grey dust garmented.
Let be: pass on. It is but just —
These were thy gods, O Dryasdust!

Dig we his grave where no birds greet, —
He loved no song of birds;
Lay we his bones where no men meet, —
He loved no spoken words;
He let his human-nature rust —
Write his Hic Jacet in the Dust.