Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/167

" I am more fit for death than the world deems,"
So spake he as life s light was growing dim,
And turned to sleep as unto soothing dreams.
What terrors could its darkness hold for him,
Familiar with all anguish, but with fear
Still unacquainted ? On his martial bier
They laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown
Meed of the warrior, but not these among
His voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrung
Shall wait how long ? for touches like his own.

An alien country mourned him as her son,
And hailed him hero: his sole, fitting tomb
Were Theseus temple or the Parthenon,
Fondly she deemed. His brethren bare him home,
Their exiled glory, past the guarded gate
Where England s Abbey shelters England’s great.
Afar he rests whose very name hath shed
New lustre on her with the song he sings.
So Shakespeare rests who scorned to lie with kings,
Sleeping at peace midst the unhonored dead.

And fifty years suffice to overgrow
With gentle memories the foul weeds of hate
That shamed his grave. The world begins to know