Classic Poem

Beside the Rideau, 'neath its elms,
Still stands the home he loved so well;
But silence eternal overwhelms
The kindly master 'neath its spell.

Beneath its rooftree hushed he lies
In death's cold truce of mortal pain,
While outside under August skies
His loved flowers glisten in the rain,

Unconscious in their lack of grief
Of those who come or those who go,
Innocent in their beauty brief,
Of human heart-break, human woe.

A man he was of simple moods,
Of strong keen action, kindly thought,
A friend of life's beatitudes,
Beneath the rough mail grimly wrought.

Time's busy battlers of the street,
In strife for earth's material things,
Know not the souls they daily meet,
Disguised in trade's grim armored rings.

'Tis not the outward presence, bland,
Whose honied accents plaudits win,
The favored idol of a land,
That holds the noblest heart within.

'Twas not the high or lowly birth,
The worldly culture, made this man,—
But somewhat in him, more than earth,
That blessed him ere his life began.

Some kind, intuitive knowledge sent,
Some wisdom of the heart and brain;
Some essence in his nature blent,
As throughout heaven dissolves the rain;

That 'mid the grime of worldly strife,
Of toil's rude struggle, hard and grim,
Still near to nature all his life
There walked the unsullied heart of him.

A spirit joying in tender moods
Of bud and blossom, sun and rain;
Who read the wisdom of wide woods,
A poet with all the poet's pain.

The bough into the blast is bent,
The shaft from out the bow is sped;
The fire that flamed the wick is spent,
The wind that whirled the dust is dead.

Fair Stanley Avenue, once so full
Of life's achievement, power and will!
Now only silence beautiful!
The very vagrant hours are still.