Matchless bard of all the ages — Lyric sounder of the lyre — Wake among your golden echoes — Rise amid your latent fire —
Tell us, Master of the Muses — Sweetest singer ever sung — By what law of Earth or Heaven Ye were called away so young?
By what law of God or Mammon — By what creed of land or sea — Was a weary World forsaken Of the mind that harbored thee?
Ere that wondrous mind's fruition Scarce had grown to the tree. If the half-fledged sapling gave us Melodies past human praise —
If such virgin buddings crowded Those few sad and glorious days; If such flowers, barely opened, Swept us in a wild amaze —
What, Oh Lord and Prince of Poesy, Would your soul have given to men — What the marvelous meed and measure Of your pulsing, choral pen —
Had your numbered days been lengthened To a three score years and ten? As through mystic lands ye led us O'er the paths your feet had gone:
Pipes of Pan — and fain we followed — Glad and willing slave and pawn, Till we reached the fields Elysian — Till we faced the gorgeous dawn:
Till the lanes seemed filled with roses — Roses lipped with opal dew: Till the vales seemed filled with incense — Incense slowly drifting through:
Till the seas seemed filled with grottoes — Grottoes amber, gold and blue: Till the songs of birds rang clearer And the sunshine shone more rare,
And the moon above the meadows Gathered love, and left it there; And the swaying stars rose whiter — And the World was very fair:
As your thoughts’ eternal fountains, Shot with iridescent gleams, Floating down through glades enchanted, On the breast of faery streams,
To a pearl-strewn bay of beryl — Reached the haven of our dreams.
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