Page:The college beautiful, and other poems.djvu/28

And who abides to sing away our pain,
As these our bards we carry to their rest ?
We need thy comfort for the tears that rain,
O poet, on thy breast.

It is our earth, where prophet steps grow few,
For which we weep, and not, O harper gray,
For thee, who caroled from the morning dew
To noontide of the day,
Nor left thy task when twilight down the wall
Stole silently in shadowy flakes and bars,
And whose clear tones, while night enfolded all,
Sang on beneath the stars.

The knights and dames had bent their heads to list,
The serving-maids were hearkening from the stair,
And little childish faces, mother-kissed,
Had flocked about thy chair,

When ceased thy fingers in the strings to weave,
O'er thine anointed sight the eyelids fell ;
And thou wert sleeping, who from dawn to eve
Hadst wrought so wondrous well.

O gentle minstrel, may thy rest be deep
And tranquil, as thy working-tide was long,