Other Poems (1871-82). Adam Lindsay Gordon
At rest! Hard by the margin of that sea Whose sounds are mingled with his noble verse Now lies the shell that never more will house The fine strong spirit of my gifted friend. Yea, he who flashed upon us suddenly, A shining soul with syllables of fire, Who sang the first great songs these lands can claim To be their own; the one who did not seem To know what royal place awaited him Within the Temple of the Beautiful, Has passed away; and we who knew him sit Aghast in darkness, dumb with that great grief Whose stature yet we cannot comprehend; While over yonder churchyard, hearsed with pines, The night wind sings its immemorial hymn, And sobs above a newly-covered grave. The bard, the scholar, and the man who lived That frank, that open-hearted life which keeps The splendid fire of English chivalry From dying out; the one who never wronged A fellow man; the faithful friend who judged The many, anxious to be loved of him By what he saw, and not by what he heard, As lesser spirits do; the brave, great soul That never told a lie, or turned aside To fly from danger—he, as I say, was one Of that bright company this sin-stained world Can ill afford to lose. They did not know, The hundreds who had read his sturdy verse And revelled over ringing major notes, The mournful meaning of the undersong Which runs through all he wrote, and often takes The deep autumnal, half-prophetic tone Of forest winds in March; nor did they think That on that healthy-hearted man there lay The wild specific curse which seems to cling Forever to the Poet's twofold life! To Adam Lindsay Gordon, I who laid Two years ago on Lionel Michael's grave A tender leaf of my regard; yea, I Who culled a garland from the flowers of song To place where Harpur sleeps; I, left alone, The sad disciple of a shining band Now gone—to Adam Lindsay Gordon's name I dedicate these lines; and if 'tis true That, past the darkness of the grave, the soul Becomes omniscient, then the bard may stoop From his high seat to take the offering, And read it with a sigh for human friends, In human bonds, and grey with human griefs. And having wove and proffered this poor wreath, I stand to-day as lone as he who saw At nightfall, through the glimmering moony mist, The last of Arthur on the wailing mere, And strained in vain to hear the going voice.
Henry Kendall’s other poems:
