The Death of Bryant

How was it then with Nature when the soulOf her own poet heard a voice which cameFrom out the void, "Thou art no longer lentTo Earth!" when that incarnate spirit, blentWith the abiding force of waves that roll,Wind-cradled vapors, circling stars that flame,She did recall? How wentHis antique shade, beaconed upon its wayThrough the still aisles of night to universal day?

Her voice it was, her sovereign voice, which badeThe Earth resolve his elemental mould;And once more came her summons: "Long, too long,Thou lingerest, and charmest with thy song!Return! return!" Thus Nature spoke, and madeHer sign; and forthwith on the minstrel oldAn arrow, bright and strong,Fell from the bent bow of the answering Sun,Who cried, "The song is closed, the invocation done!"

But not as for those youths dead ere their prime,New-entered on their music's high domain,Then snatched away, did all things sorrow own:No utterance now like that sad sweetest toneWhen Bion died, and the Sicilian rhymeBewailed; no sobbing of the reeds that plainRehearsing some last moanOf Lycidas; no strains which skyward swellFor Adonais still, and still for Asphodel!

The Muses wept not for him as for thoseOf whom each vanished like a beauteous starQuenched ere the shining midwatch of the night;The greenwood Nymphs mourned not his lost delight;Nor Echo, hidden in the tangled close,Grieved that she could not mimic him afar.He ceased not from our sightLike him who, in the first glad flight of spring,Fell as an eagle pierced with shafts from his own wing.

This was not Thyrsis! no, the minstrel loneAnd reverend, the woodland singer hoar,Who was dear Nature's nursling, and the priestWhom most she loved; nor had his office ceasedBut for her mandate: "Seek again thine own;The walks of men shall draw thy steps no more!"Softly, as from a feastThe guest departs that hears a low recall,He went, and left behind his harp and coronal.

"Return!" she cried, "unto thine own return!Too long the pilgrimage; too long the dreamIn which, lest thou shouldst be companionless,Unto the oracles thou hadst access,—The sacred groves that with my presence yearn."The voice was heard by mountain, dell, and stream,Meadow and wilderness—All fair things vestured by the changing year,Which now awoke in joy to welcome one most dear.

"He comes!" declared the unseen ones that hauntThe dark recesses, the infinitudeOf whispering old oaks and soughing pines."He comes!" the warders of the forest shrinesSang joyously. "His spirit ministrantHenceforth with us shall walk the underwood,Till mortal ear divinesIts music added to our choral hymn,Rising and falling far through archways deep and dim!"

The orchard fields, the hillside pastures green,Put gladness on; the rippling harvest-waveRan like a smile, as if a moment thereHis shadow poised in the midsummer airAbove; the cataract took a pearly sheenEven as it leapt; the winding river gaveA sound of welcome whereHe came, and trembled, far as to the seaIt moves from rock-ribbed heights where its dark fountains be.

His presence brooded on the rolling plain,And on the lake there fell a sudden calm,—His own tranquillity; the mountain bowedIts head, and felt the coolness of a cloud,And murmured, "He is passing!" and againThrough all its firs the wind swept like a psalm;Its eagles, thunder-browed,In that mist-moulded shape their kinsman knew,And circled high, and in his mantle soared from view.

So drew he to the living veil, which hungOf old above the deep's unimaged face,And sought his own. Henceforward he is freeOf vassalage to that mortalityWhich men have given a sepulchre amongThe pathways of their kind,—a resting-placeWhere, bending one great knee,Knelt the proud mother of a mighty landIn tenderness, and came anon a plumèd band.

Came one by one the seasons meetly drest,To sentinel the relics of their seer.First Spring—upon whose head a wreath was setOf wind-flowers and the yellow violet—Advanced. Then Summer led his loveliestOf months, one ever to the minstrel dear(Her sweet eyes dewy wet),June, and her sisters, whose brown hands entwineThe brier-rose and the bee-haunted columbine.

Next, Autumn, like a monarch sad of heart,Came, tended by his melancholy days.Purple he wore, and bore a golden rod,His sceptre; and let fall upon the sodA lone fringed-gentian ere he would depart.Scarce had his train gone darkling down the waysWhen Winter thither trod,—Winter, with beard and raiment blown before,That was so seeming like our poet old and hoar.

What forms are these amid the pageant fair,Harping with hands that falter? What sad throng?They wait in vain, a mournful brotherhood,And listen where their laurelled elder stoodFor some last music fallen through the air."What cold, thin atmosphere now hears thy song?"They ask, and long have wooedThe woods and waves that knew him, but can learnNaught save the hollow, haunting cry, "Return! return!"

1878