Stanzas Addressed to Miss Landon

Suggested by Miss Landon's 'Stanzas on the Death of Mrs Hemans'

Thou bay-crowned living one, who o'er
The bay-crowned dead art bowing,
And o'er the shadeless, moveless brow
Thy human shadow throwing;
And o'er the sighless, songless lips
The wail and music wedding,
Dropping o'er the tranquil eyes
Tears not of their shedding -

Go take thy music from the dead,
Whose silentness is sweeter;
Reserve thy tears for living brows,
For whom such tears are meeter;
And leave the violets in the grass
To brighten where thou treadest -
No flowers for her - oh, bring no flowers,
Albeit 'Bring flowers', thou saidest.

But bring not near her solemn corse
A type of human seeming;
Lay only dust's stern verity
Upon her dust undreaming.
And while the calm perpetual stars
Shall look upon it solely,
Her sphered soul shall look on them
With eyes more bright and holy.

Nor mourn, oh living one, because
Her part in life was mourning:
Would she have lost the poet's flame
For anguish of the burning?
The minstrel harp, for the strained string?
The tripod, for th' afflated
Woe? Or the vision, for those tears
Through which it shone dilated?

Perhaps she shuddered while the world's
Cold hand her brow was wreathing,
But wronged she ne'er that mystic breath
Which breathed in all her breathing;
Which drew from rocky earth and man
Abstractions high and moving -
Beauty, if not the beautiful,
And love, if not the loving.

Such visionings have paled in sight
The Saviour she descrieth,
And little recks who wreathed the brow
That on His bosom lieth.
The whiteness of His innocence
O'er all her garments flowing -
There learneth she that sweet 'new song'
She will not mourn in knowing.

Be blessed, crowned and living one,
And when thy dust decayeth,
May thine own England say for thee
What now for her it sayeth -
'Albeit softly in our ears
Her silver song was ringing,
The footsteps of her parting soul
Were softer than her singing.'

Text source: Wu CD