Poetry

AT LORD BYRON'S TOMB.

Joaquin Miller


  • O Master, here I bow before a shrine;
  • Before the lordliest dust that ever yet
  • Moved animate in human form divine.
  • Lo! dust indeed to dust. The mold is set
  • Above thee and the ancient walls are wet,
  • And drip all day in dank and silent gloom,
  • As if the cold gray stones could not forget
  • Thy great estate shrunk to this somber room,
  • But lean to weep perpetual tears above thy tomb.

  • Before me lie the oak-crown'd Annesley hills,
  • Before me lifts the ancient Annesley Hall
  • Above the mossy oaks. . . .A picture fills
  • With forms of other days. A maiden tall
  • And fair; a fiery restless boy, with all
  • The force of man! a steed that frets without;
  • A long thin sword that rusts upon the wall....
  • The generations pass.... Behold! about
  • The ivied hall the fair-hair'd children sport and shout.

  • A bay wreath, wound by Ina of the West,
  • Hangs damp and stain'd upon the dark gray wall,
  • Above thy time soil'd tomb and tatter'd crest;
  • A bay wreath gather'd by the seas that call
  • To orient Cathay, that break and fall
  • On shell-lined shores before Tahiti's breeze.
  • A slab, a crest, a wreath, and these are all
  • Neglected, tatter'd, torn; yet only these
  • The world bestows for song that rivall'd singing seas.

  • A bay-wreath wound by one more truly brave
  • Than Shastan; fair as thy eternal fame,
  • She sat and wove above the sunset wave
  • And wound and sang thy measures and thy name.
  • Twas wound by one, yet sent with one acclaim
  • By many, fair and warm as flowing wine,
  • And purely true, and tall as growing flame,
  • That list and lean in moonlight's mellow shine
  • To tropic tales of love in other tongues than thine.

  • I bring this idle reflex of thy task,
  • And my few loves, to thy forgotten tomb;
  • I leave them here; and here all pardon ask
  • Of thee, and patience ask of singers whom
  • Thy majesty hath silenced. I resume
  • My staff, and now my face is to the West;
  • My feet are worn; the sun is gone, a gloom
  • Has mantled Hucknall, and the minstrel's zest
  • For fame is broken here, and here he pleads for rest.