How such a loss to all confusion brings!
How such a parting we must ever rue!
The world is weeping--shall not we weep, too?

He was our own! How social, yet how great
Seemed in the light of day his noble mind!
How was his nature, pleasing yet sedate,
Now for glad converse joyously inclined,
Then swiftly changing, spirit-fraught elate,
Life's plan with deep-felt meaning it designed,
Fruitful alike in counsel and in deed!
This have we proved, this tested, in our need.

He was our own! O may that thought so blest
O'ercome the voice of wailing and of woe!
He might have sought the Lasting, safe at rest
In harbor, when the tempest ceased to blow.
Meanwhile his mighty spirit onward pressed
Where goodness, beauty, truth, forever grow;
And in his rear, in shadowy outline, lay
The vulgar, which we all, alas, obey!

Now doth he deck the garden-turret fair
Where the stars' language first illumed his soul,
As secretly yet clearly through the air
On the eterne, the living sense it stole;
And to his own, and our great profit, there
Exchangeth to the seasons as they roll;
Thus nobly doth he vanquish, with renown,
The twilight and the night that weigh us down.