No more purple-purling vintage.

No more usherings out of Hall
By obsequious attendant;
No more part, however small,
In the Pageant's pomp resplendent!

Just a perch of churchyard clay
All the soil he now possesses;
Heavily its burthen grey
On his pulseless bosom presses.





THE BARD'S DEATH-BED CONFESSION

(After Huw Morus, 1622-1709, a Welsh Cavalier poet)


Lord, hear my confession of life-long transgression!
Weak-willed and too filled with Earth's follies am I
To reach by the strait way of faith to Heaven's gateway,
If Thou light not thither my late way.

From Duty's hard high road by Beauty's soft by-road
To Satan's, not Thy road, I wandered away.
Thou hast seen, Father tender, Thou seest what a slender
Return for Thy Talents I render.