In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead. "Thou, paid by the World, - what dost thou owe Me?" God might have questioned: but now instead 'T is God shall requite! I am safer so. A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. 81 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. [Time. Shortly after the revival of learning in Europe.] ET us begin, and carry up this corpse, L Singing together. Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes, Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, Look out if yonder 's not the day again That's the appropriate country, - there, man's thought, Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer! Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop : On a tall mountain, citied to the top, Crowded with culture! All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's Circling its summit! Thither our path lies, wind we up the heights, — Our low life was the level's and the night's; Step to a tune, square chests, erect the head, This is our master, famous, calm, and dead, Sleep, crop and herd! Sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, Safe from the weather! He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, He was a man born with thy face and throat, Lyric Apollo ! Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! No, that's the world's way! (keep the mountain-side, He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Left play for work, and grappled with the world Bent on escaping: "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? Show me their shaping, Theirs, who most studied man, the bard and sage, Give!". So he gowned him, Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Yea, but we found him bald, too, Accents uncertain: eyes like lead, "Time to taste life," another would have said, Up with the curtain!" This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still, there's the comment. Let me know all. Prate not of most or least, Painful or easy: Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, O, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give ; Sooner, he spurned it! Image the whole, then execute the parts, Fancy the fabric Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, Ere mortar dab brick! 83 A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL. (Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place Gaping before us.) Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace (Hearten our chorus) Still before living he'd learn how to live, — No end to learning. Earn the means first, - God surely will contrive Others mistrust and say,· Live now or never!" He said, "What's Time? leave Now for dogs and apes! Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head; Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead; Tussis attacked him, "Now, Master, take a little rest!" (Caution redoubled! Step two a-breast, the way winds narrowly.) Back to his studies, fresher than at first, He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) O, if we draw a circle premature, Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure, Was it not great? did he not throw on God, God's task to make the heavenly period Did not he magnify the mind, show clear He would not discount life, as fools do here, Paid by instalment! He ventured neck or nothing,-heaven's success Found, or earth's failure: "Wilt thou trust death or not?" he answered, "Yes. Hence with life's pale lure!" That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue, That low man goes on adding one to one, This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. That, has the world here, — should he need the next, This, throws himself on God, and unperplext So, with the throttling hands of Death at strife, Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife. He settled Hoti's business, let it be! — Properly based Oun, — Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place. All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Here's the top-peak! the multitude below This man decided not to Live but Know,- Here, — here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send! Lofty designs must close in like effects: Loftily lying, Leave him, still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying. |