You
might have won the Poet’s name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gain’d a laurel for your brow
Of
sounder leaf than I can claim;
But
you have made the wiser choice,
A life that moves to gracious ends
Thro’ troops of unrecording friends,
A
deedful life, a silent voice.
And
you have miss’d the irreverent doom
Of those that wear the Poet’s crown;
Hereafter, neither knave nor clown
Shall
hold their orgies at your tomb.
For
now the Poet cannot die,
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins
the scandal and the cry:
‘Proclaim
the faults he would not show;
Break lock and seal, betray the trust;
Keep nothing sacred, ’tis but just
The
many-headed beast should know.’
Ah,
shameless! for he did but sing
A song that pleased us from its worth;
No public life was his on earth,
No
blazon’d statesman he, nor king.
He
gave the people of his best;
His worst he kept, his best he gave.
My Shakespeare’s curse on clown and knave
Who
will not let his ashes rest!
Who
make it seem more sweet to be
The little life of bank and brier,
The bird that pipes his lone desire
And
dies unheard within his tree,
Than
he that warbles long and loud
And drops at Glory’s temple-gates,
For whom the carrion vulture waits
To
tear his heart before the crowd!
