Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN ELEGY So thoU aft dead, in the wide chase of life Smitten before thy time ! Men hear the news, And feel a vacant sympathy, and breathe Thy name a moment; then the rushing wind Of undelaying purposes and aims, Blown upwards partly from dark under-worlds Of carnal prompting, part blown from above, Whirls them away, and I am left alone, Repeating this one phrase, So Thou art dead ' To me, my friend, how different the words ! I hear them tolling like a solemn knell Thrilled through the mist, when late on autumn eves The leaves drop like extinguished spots of fire In the wide smoke which drifts along the hills, Above the ruin of a summer world. The light burns dim, the mouse runs in the floor, The silence seems to vibrate on the ear, And a great dread falls on me, while I sit Close to thy shrouded feet, and think of thee, Of what thou wert and what thou art become. How strange that one brief instant changes all For thee, for me ! For thee the arrow sped Beyond all search, for me the murmuring string Vibrating hollowly to empty air ! All changed as tho' a world were lost, and loosed The golden girdle binding firmaments Within the starry limits of God's law. To-morrow will come sometime : morrows grow Like flowers ever out of night's deep void, They bloom and fade, and know not what I know, That earth is altered, and a power has passed Out of our vision to some final bourne, Out of our love to realms love cannot scale. Yet in this room, close to thy shrouded feet, Thy soul elate meets mine, and I perceive That thou wert greater than all things thou didst; All things thou didst being but bright sparks struck out From an interior fount of heavenly fire, The spiritual self, the very self I loved ! ...