The Collected Poems of William Watson Author:William Watson General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1899 Original Publisher: John Lane Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can selec... more »t from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: LACHRYM. E MUSARUM (6xH October 1892) T OW, like another's, lies the laurelled head: The life that seemed a perfect song is o'er : Carry the last great bard to his last bed. Land that he loved, thy noblest voice is mute. Land that he loved, that loved him ! nevermore Meadow of thine, smooth lawn or wild sea-shore, Gardens of odorous bloom and tremulous fruit, Or woodlands old, like Druid couches spread, The master's feet shall tread. Death's little rift hath rent the faultless lute : The singer of undying songs is dead. Lo, in this season pensive-hued and grave, While fades and falls the doomed, reluctant leaf From withered Earth's fantastic coronal, With wandering sighs of forest and of wave Mingles the murmur of a people's grief For him whose leaf shall fade not, neither fall. He hath fared forth, beyond these suns and showers. For us, the autumn glow, the autumn flame, And soon the winter silence shall be ours : Him the eternal spring of fadeless fame Crowns with no mortal flowers. What needs his laurel our ephemeral tears, To save from visitation of decay ? Not in this temporal light alone, that bay Blooms, nor to perishable mundane ears Sings he with lips of transitory clay. Rapt though he be from us, Virgil salutes him, and Theocritus ; Catullus, mightiest-brained Lucretius, each Greets him, their brother, on the Stygian beach; Proudly a gaunt right hand doth Dante reach ; Milton and Wordsworth bid him welcome home ; Keats, on his lips the eternal rose of youth, Doth in the name of Beauty that is Truth A ...« less