TENNYSON. I am Merlin And I am dying, I am Merlin who followed the gleam; Tennyson's Merlin and gleam.

O TENNYSON! Of poets loved the best;
Greatest in Queen Victoria's happy reign;
Now thou hast passed thy “bourne of ne and

Place"
And smiling sees thy “Pilot face to face”
With head uncovered and on bended Knee

A rosebud, tear-stained, bring I for thy breast

(The full-moon, sailing slowly tow'rds the West This Autumn morn-after the wind and rain)

Or rugged verse, in all its poverty

Feebly to tell how dear thy poetry
To me since ever boyhood's dreamy time:
Master of Song! thy fame in every clime

Shall live—for Prophets' voice and vision thine “Thro' all the ages” till suns no more shall shine.

JOHN FULLERTON. -For The Magazine of Poetry.

Merlin has gone, has gone; and through the land,

The melancholy message wings its way

To careless-ordered garden by the bay
Back o'er the narrow strait to island stand
Where Camelot looks down on wild Broceliand.

Merlin has gone; Merlin the wizard, who found

In the past's glimmering tide and hailed him king

Arthur, great Uther's son, and so did sing The mystic glories of the Table Round That ever its name will live so long as song shall

sound.

TENNYSON.

The brightest star in Britain's sky of fame

Has passed beyond the range of mortal sight; But on the hearts of men a deathless name

Is graved in characters of golden light.

Merlin has gone; Merlin who followed the gleam

And made us follow it, the flying tale

Of the last tournament, the Holy Grail, And Arthur's passing till the enchantress dream Dwells with us still awake, no visionary theme.

To-day is dole in Astolat, and dole

In Celidon; the forest dole and tears

In joyous garb blackhooded lean the spears, The nuns of Almesbury sound a mournful toll, And Guinevere kneeling weeps and prays for Mer

lin's soul.
A wailing cometh from the shores that veil

Avilions island valley; on the mere
Looms through the mist and wet winds weeping

blear A dusky barge, which without oar or sail Fades to the far-off fields where falls nor snow nor

hail.

Warbling as if awake, but what will bring
His sweet note back? He mute, it scarcely will be

spring.
The season's sorrow for him and the hours

Droop like to bees belated in the rain.

The unmoving shadow of a pensive pain Lies on the lawn and lingers on the flowers. And sweet and sad seem one, in woodbine woven

bowers. In English gardens fringed with English foam

Or girt with English woods he loved to dwell,

Singing of English lives in thorp or dell, Orchard or croft, so that when now we roam Through them and find him not, it scarcely feels

like home.

Of all his wounds he will be healed now;

Wounds of harsh time and vulnerable life,

Fatigue of rest and weariness of strife, Doubt and the long deep questionings that plough The forehead of age but bring no harvest to the

brow.

And there he will be comforted; but we

Must watch like Percival the dwindling light

That slowly shrouds him darkling from our sight. From that great deep to the great deep hath he

passed, And if now he knows, is mute eternally. From Somersby's ivied tower there sinks and swells

A low slow peal that mournfully is rolled

Over the long gray fields and glimmering world, To where 'twixt sandy tracts and moorland fills Remembers Locksley Hall his musical farewells.

And England's glories stirred him, as the swell

Of bluff winds blowing from Atlantic brine

Stirs mightier music in the murmuring pine. Then sweet notes waxed too strong within his shell And bristling rose the lines, and billowy rose and

fell. So England mourns for Merlin, though its tears

Flow not from bitter source that wells in vain,

But kindred rather to the rippling rain That brings the daffodil sheaths and jonquil spears When winter weeps away, and April reappears. For hath England lacked a voice to sing

Her fairness and her fame, nor will she now.

Silence awhile may brood upon the bough, But shortly once again the isle will ring With wakening winds of March and rhapsodies of

spring. From Arthur unto Alfred, Alfred crowned Monarch and minstrel both, to Edward's day;

From Edward's to Elizabeth's the lay Of valor and love hath never ceased to sound; But song and sword are twin, indissolubly bound.

And many a sinewy youth on Cam to-day,

Suspends the dripping oar and lets his boat

Like dreaming water-lily drift and float; While murmuring to himself the undying lay, That haunts the babbling Wye and Severn's dirgeful

bay. The bole of the broad oak whose knotted knees,

Lie hidden in the fern of Cumnor Chase,

Feels stirred afresh as when Olivia's face Lay warm against its rind, though now it seesNot love, but death approach, and shivers in the

breeze.

Nor shall in Britain taliessin tire

Transmitting through his stock the sacred strain,

When fresh renown prolongs Victoria's reign, Some patriot hand will sweep the living lyre And prove with native notes that Merlin was his sire.

ALFRED AUSTIN.

TENNYSON.

In many a vicarage garden dense with age,

The haunt of pairing throstles; many a grange

Moted against the assault and siege of chance, Fair eyes consult anew the cherished sage, And now and then a tear falls, blistering the page.

April will blossom again. Again will ring

With cuckoo's call and yaffel's flying scream And in veiled sleep the nightingale will dream,

No moaning on the bar; sail forth strong ship,
Into that gloam which has God's face for a far light.
Not a dirge, but a proud farewell from each fond

lip, And praise, abounding praise, and fame's faint

starlight,

Into the silence of the silent night
He passed, whom all men honor; and the sun
Arose to shine upon a world undone,
And barren lives bereft of life's delight.
The morning air was chill with sudden blight,
And cruel Winter's triumph had begun.
But He to some far Summer shore had won,
Whose splendor hides him from our dazzled sight.

Not England's pride alone, the Lord of Song!
We-heirs to Shakespeare's and to Milton's speech-
Claim heritage from Tennyson's proud years;
To us his spacious, splendid lines belong-
We, too, repeat his praises, each to each,
We share his glory, and we share your tears.

LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. -London Illustrated News.

Perchance it were relief
To hearts else comfortless in grief

To speak our loved one's praise,

His gentle ways,
As well as proud defiance of the wrong;
For, by his gift of song,

This poet was a lover of the peace

And sweet tranquility of Nature,
And no creature
Longed oftener to find his soul's release

From toil and trial amid clover blooms,

Loved more the forest glooms,
The thrush's morning hymn within the pines,
The red horizon lines

That are the silent heralding of night,

Or the still flight
Of day upon the mountains:-
All were fountains

From which his soul drew ever sweet delight.

THE LAUREATE DEAD.

OCTOBER 6, 1892.

The laurels fall from off as high a brow

As since our Shakespeare wore the poet-bays,

Who breathed Sicilian music through his lays And felt great Homer's resonant ebb and flow; Who knew all art of word that man may know

And led us on by love's undying ways,

Who gave us back the old Arthurian days— The last of laureates, Tennyson, lies low.

And he loved, too, man's life upon the farms, Its kindly innocence from rude alarms,

Its simple maidens leading

Their rustic dance,
Or the glad chance
That brought him to the reaping;

His heart was ever keeping

Its merry rhythmic time
Unto the jocund chime
Of swinging scythes or girlish feet;

He loved to watch the beat

Of autumn flails upon the wheat
Fresh garnered; and to his heart 'twas sweet
To view, at set of sun, those pasture lands

With silent cattle feeding.
He grasped the rugged hands

Our golden age is shorter, and the spheres

That sooner wane may swiftlier wax to prime;
But when shall sing another as he sung

Who wrought with Saxon purity of tongue
The one great epic of two hundred years,
The one memorial utterance for all time?

H. D. RAWNSLEY. -The Academy.

'Tis true, not all the favored sons of Fame

Can hope to wear her guerdon through the years;

But thy beloved name is writ with tears Through all our nation's life, through doubt,

through blame; Through hope, despair; through blood of sacrifice,

Deep-graven where no sands from any shore,

Nor frosts of time, can touch, forevermoreBeloved bard, upon our heart it lies!

JEANIE OLIVER SMITH.

"Of farmers as his brothers'; The toiling, patient mothers,

That lived for their dear boys,

Had saintly grace for him.
Time could not dim
The light of happy days and homely joys;

And so he sang his heart,

And people loved the singer,
The sweet bringer
Of joys that ne'er grow old and ne'er depart.
These were his recreations,
These were the inspirations

He drew from field and farm;

But at the quick alarm, "The cry of hearts a-bleeding, He left his cattle feeding,

His uplands and the stillness of the morn,

And with a heart new born
As to redress man's wrong,
He forged his song anew,

Making it firm and true, "To shield the weak and helpless from the strong.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

BORN DECEMBER, 1807. DIED 7TH SEPTEMBER,

1892. FRIEND, thou and I had known each other long Thro' letters, legendary verse and song; And now to-day above thy tear-stained bier I mourn as for a father loved and dear. “The Eternal Gate" is passed, a Freeman thou The fadeless green leaf round thy sunlit brow.

Among the Hills" or on “The Beach” with thee At Nature's shrine I still will bow the knee.

“Voices of Freedom” these the nation's heart Stirred to its depths, as for the poor slave sold And scourged, and when but few would take his

part, Thou, his true friend, right fearlessly and bold Didst plead, till galled with chains no more he lay But walked with head erect and face as day.

John FULLERTON. ---For The Magazine of Poetry.

O, knightly hand,
That dared to grasp the dark, soiled hand

Which others spurned!

O, tender heart, That ever longed to bear the sufferers' part, Ye now are, mid the sufferer's sorrow, laid at rest.

Defender of the oppressed!

Stout hater of the wrong!
White soul, that burned
With all a poet's fire

To raise the Nation higher

Into God's purer light, On wings of lofty flight, Which oft have borne thee through the realm of

song,
Thou now has sought thy rest upon Death's

holier height,
From which descending to a sunny land,
Thou yet shall greet the children on the strand
Of a bright golden sea,

Bringing a crown for thee,
Great, simple singer of the People's heart!

ALLEN EASTMAN CROSS.
-New England Magazine, November, 1892.

TO J. G. WHITTIER ON HIS EIGHTIETH

BIRTHDAY. FRIEND, whom thy fourscore winters leave more

dear Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek Burned in, the flush of manhood's manliest year;

Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak Thy feet have reached, and mine have climbed so

near! Close on thy footsteps mid the landscape drear I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek, Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can

speak! Look backwards! from thy lofty height survey

Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won, Of dreams made real, largest hopes outrun!

Look forward! brighter than earth's morning ray Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun, The all unclouded dawn of life's Immortal Day!

Oliver WENDELL HOLMES.

TO WHITTIER.

ON READING “AN AUTOGRAPH." IF thou, O friend, canst say thy name is traced

On sands by waves o’errun, or frosted pane,

Then why should any seek far heights to gain? What human name but must be swift effaced ?