Long he slumbers: will he waken, greeting, as he used to do,
With his kindly, playful smile, his old companions, me and you?

Long he slumbers, — though the wind of morning sweetly blows to sea,
Though his barque has weighed her anchor, and the tide is flowing free.

Long he slumbers: why, so helpless, doth he falter on the shore?
Wherefore stays he in the silence, he that never stayed before?

" Do not wake me!" Oh, the pity! How shall we, poor toilers, strive,
If his strong and steadfast spirit keep not our frail hope alive?

All his days were given to action, all his powers of mind and will:
Now the restless heart is silent, and the busy brain is still.

Gone the fine ideal fancies, glorious, like the summer dawn!
Ev'ry passionate throb of purpose, ev'ry dream of grandeur gone!

Courage, patience, deep devotion, long endurance, manly trust,
Zeal for truth, and love for beauty, — gone, and buried in the dust!

Ah, what pictures rise in mem'ry, and what strains of music flow,
When we think of all the magic times and scenes of Long Ago!

When once more we hear, in Arden, rustling trees and rippling streams;
When on fair Olivia's palace faint and pale the moonlight beams;

When the storm-clouds break and scatter, and o'er beach, and crag, and wave
Angels float, and heavenly voices haunt the gloom of Prosp'ro's cave!

Well he wrought — and we remember! Faded rainbow! Fallen leaf!
All fair things are but as shadows, and all glory ends in grief.

Worn and weary with the struggle, broken with the weight of care,
Low he lies, and all his pageants vanish in the empty air.

Nevermore can such things lure us, nevermore be quite the same:
Other hands may grasp the laurel, other brows be twined with fame.

Far, and less'ning in the distance, dies the music of the Past;
In our ears a note discordant vibrates like an angry blast;
On our eyes the Future rushes, blatant, acrid, fraught with strife,
Arrogant with tinsell'd youth, and rank with flux of sensual life.

Naught avails to stem the tumult, — vulgar aims and commonplace,
Greed, and vice, and dross, and folly, frenzied in the frantic race.

Naught avails, and we that linger, sick at heart and old and grim,
Can but pray to leave this rabble, loving Art and following him.

Very lonely seems the pathway; long we journey'd side by side;
Much with kindred hope were solac'd, much with kindred anguish tried;

Had our transient jars and murmurs, had our purpose to be blest,
In our brotherhood of travel, in our dreams of age and rest, —

Yonder, where the tinted hawthorns scarlet poppy fields enfold,
And the prodigal laburnum blooms in clust'ring globes of gold.

Ended all! — and all is shadow, where but late a glory shone,
And the wanderer, gray and fragile, walks the vacant scene, alone.

Only now the phantom faces that in waking dreams appear!
Only now the aerial voices that the heart alone can hear!

Round and red the sun is sinking, lurid in his misty light
Faintly sighs the wind of evening, coldly falls the brooding night.

Fare thee well, — forever parted, speeding onward in the day
Where, through God's supernal mercy, human frailties drop away!

Fare thee well; while o'er thy ashes softly tolls the funeral knell, —
Peace, and love, and tender memory! So, forever, fare thee well!