THE PASSING OF TENNYSON.
Joaquin Miller
- My kingly kinsmen, kings of thought,
- I hear your gathered symphonies,
- Such nights as when the world is not,
- And great stars chorus through my trees.
e knew it, as God's prophets knew; - We knew it, as mute red men know,
- When Mars leapt searching heaven through
- With flaming torch, that he must go.
- Then Browning, he who knew the stars,
- Stood forth and faced insatiate Mars.
- Then up from Cambridge rose and turned
- Sweet Lowell from his Druid trees—
- Turned where the great star blazed and burned,
- As if his own soul might appease.
- Yet on and on through all the stars
- Still searched and searched insatiate Mars.
- Then stanch Walt Whitman saw and knew;
- Forgetful of his "Leaves of Grass,"
- He heard his "Drum Taps," and God drew
- His great soul through the shining pass,
- Made light, made bright by burnished stars;
- Made scintillant from flaming Mars.
- Then soft-voiced Whittier was heard
- To cease; was heard to sing no more.
- As you have heard some sweetest bird
- The more because its song is o'er.
- Yet brighter up the street of stars
- Still blazed and burned and beckoned Mars:
- * * * * * *
- And then the king came; king of thought,
- King David with his harp and crown ....
- How wisely well the gods had wrought
- That these had gone and sat them down
- To wait and welcome mid the stars
- All silent in the light of Mars.
- All silent. . . .So, he lies in state
- Our redwoods drip and drip with rain ....
- Against our rock-locked Golden Gate
- We hear the great, sad, sobbing main.
- But silent all . . . .He passed the stars
- That year the whole world turned to Mars.