Poet, thou hast adventured in the roar Of mighty seas with one that never failed To make the havens of the further shore. Beyond that vaster Ocean thou hast sailed What old immortal world of beauty lies! What land where light for matter has prevailed! What strange Atlantid dream of Paradise!
Down what dim bank of violets did he come, The mild historian of the Sudbury Inn, Welcoming thee to that long-wished-for home? What talk of comrades old didst thou begin? What dear inquiry lingered on his tongue Of the Sicilian, ere he led thee in To the eternal company of Song?
There thy co-laborers and high compeers Hailed thee as courtly hosts some noble guest-- Poe, disengloomed with the celestial years, Calm Bryant, Emerson of the antique zest And modern vision, Lowell all a-bloom At last, unwintered of his mind's unrest, And Walt, old Walt, with the old superb aplomb.
Not far from these Lanier, deplored so oft From Georgian live-oaks to Acadian firs, Walks with his friend as once at Cedarcroft. And many more I see of speech diverse; From whom a band aloof and separate, Landor and Meleager in converse, And lonely Collins, for thy greeting wait.
But who is this that from the mightier shades Emerges, seeing whose sacred laureate hair Thou startest forward trembling through the glades, Advancing upturned palms of filial prayer? Long hast thou served him; now, of lineament Not stern but strenuous still, thy pious care He comes to guerdon. Art thou not content?
Forbear, O Muse, to sing his deeper bliss, What tenderer meetings, what more secret joys! Lift not the veil of heavenly privacies! Suffice it that nought unfulfilled alloys The pure gold of the rapture of his rest, Save that some linger where the jarring noise Of earth afflicts, whom living he caressed.
His feet are in thy courts, O Lord; his ways Are in the City of the Living God. Beside the eternal sources of the days He dwells, his thoughts with timeless lightnings shod; His hours are exaltations and desires, The soul itself its only period, And life unmeasured save as it aspires.
Time, like a wind, blows through the lyric leaves Above his head, and from the shaken boughs Æonian music falls; but he receives Its endless changes in alert repose, Nor drifts unconscious as a dead leaf blown On with the wind and senseless that it blows, But hears the chords like armies marching on.