TWO DAYS
(_February_ 15--_September_ 28, 1894)
_To_ V. G.
That day we brought our Beautiful One to lie
In the green peace within your gates, he came
To give us greeting, boyish and kind and shy,
And, stricken as we were, we blessed his name:
Yet, like the Creature of Light that had been ours,
Soon of the sweet Earth disinherited,
He too must join, even with the Year's old flowers,
The unanswering generations of the Dead.
So stand we friends for you, who stood our friend
Through him that day; for now through him you know
That though where love was, love is till the end,
Love, turned of death to longing, like a foe,
Strikes: when the ruined heart goes forth to crave
Mercy of the high, austere, unpitying Grave.
IN MEMORIAM
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN
(_Ob. October_ 30, 1897)
He looked half-parson and half-skipper: a quaint,
Beautiful blend, with blue eyes good to see,
And old-world whiskers. You found him cynic, saint,
Salt, humourist, Christian, poet; with a free,
Far-glancing, luminous utterance; and a heart
Large as _ST. FRANCIS'S_: withal a brain
Stored with experience, letters, fancy, art,
And scored with runes of human joy and pain.
Till six-and-sixty years he used his gift,
His gift unparalleled, of laughter and tears,
And left the world a high-piled, golden drift
Of verse: to grow more golden with the years,
Till the Great Silence fallen upon his ways
Break into song, and he that had Love have Praise.
IN MEMORIAM
GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS
_London_, _December_ 10, 1869.
_Ladysmith_, _January_ 15, 1900.
We cheered you forth--brilliant and kind and brave.
Under your country's triumphing flag you fell.
It floats, true Heart, over no dearer grave--
Brave and brilliant and kind, hail and farewell!