Yet they to whom thy virtues made thee dear 

 Shall find thee through all changes of the year : 

 This oak points out thy grave ; the silent tree 

 Will gladly stand a monument of thee. 



I grieved for thee, and wished thy end were past ; 



And willingly have laid thee here at last : 



For thou hadst lived, till everything that cheers 



In thee had yielded to the weight of years ; 



Extreme old age had wasted thee away ; 



And left thee but a glimmering of the day ; 



Thy ears were deaf, and feeble were thy knees, 



I saw thee stagger in the summer breeze, 



Too weak to stand against its sportive breath, 



And ready for the gentlest stroke of death. 



It came, and we were glad ; yet tears were shed ; 



Both man and woman wept when thou wert dead ; 



Not only for a thousand thoughts that were, 



Old household thoughts, in which thou hadst thy 



share ; 

 But for some precious boons vouchsafed to thee, 

 Found scarcely anywhere in like degree ! 

 For love, that comes to all — the holy sense, 

 Best gift of God — in thee was most intense ; 

 A chain of heart, a feeling of the mind, 

 A tender sympathy, which did thee bind 

 Not only to us men, but to thy kind : 

 Yea, for thy fellow-brutes in thee we saw 

 The soul of love, love's intellectual law : 



121 



