Classic Poem

BORN IN DUBLIN, IRELAND, MARCH 1, 1848 — DIED IN CORNISH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AUGUST 3, 1907

U PLANDS of Cornish! Ye, that yesterday
Were only beauteous, now are consecrate.
Exalted are your humble slopes, to mate
Proud Settignano and Fiesole,
For here new-born is Italy's new birth of Art.
In your beloved precincts of repose
Now is the laurel lovelier than the rose.
Henceforth there shall be seen
An unaccustomed glory in the sheen
Of yonder lingering river, overleant with green,
Whose fountains hither happily shall start,
Like eager Umbrian rills, that kiss and part,
For that their course will run
One to the Tiber, to the Arno one.
O hills of Cornish! chalice of our spilled wine,
Ye shall become a shrine,
For now our Donatello is no more!
He who could pour
His spirit into clay, has lost the clay he wore,
And Death, again, at last,
Has robbed the Future to enrich the Past.
He, who so often stood
At joyous worship in your Sacred Wood,
He shall be missed
As autumn meadows miss the lark,
Where Summer and Song were wont to keep melodious tryst.
His fellows of the triple guild shall hark
For his least whisper in the starry dark.
Here, in his memory, Youth shall dedicate
Laborious years to that unfolding which is Fate.
By Beauty's faintest gleams
She shall be followed over glades and streams.
And all that is shall be forgot
For what is not;
And every common path shall lead to dreams.