THREE FRIENDS OF MINE

I

When I remember them, those friends of mine,
  Who are no longer here, the noble three,
  Who half my life were more than friends to me,
  And whose discourse was like a generous wine,
I most of all remember the divine
  Something, that shone in them, and made us see
  The archetypal man, and what might be
  The amplitude of Nature's first design.
In vain I stretch my hands to clasp their hands;
  I cannot find them.  Nothing now is left
  But a majestic memory.  They meanwhile
Wander together in Elysian lands,
  Perchance remembering me, who am bereft
  Of their dear presence, and, remembering, smile.

II

In Attica thy birthplace should have been,
  Or the Ionian Isles, or where the seas
  Encircle in their arms the Cyclades,
  So wholly Greek wast thou in thy serene
And childlike joy of life, O Philhellene!
  Around thee would have swarmed the Attic bees;
  Homer had been thy friend, or Socrates,
  And Plato welcomed thee to his demesne.
For thee old legends breathed historic breath;
  Thou sawest Poseidon in the purple sea,
  And in the sunset Jason's fleece of gold!
O, what hadst thou to do with cruel Death,
  Who wast so full of life, or Death with thee,
  That thou shouldst die before thou hadst grown old!

III

I stand again on the familiar shore,
  And hear the waves of the distracted sea
  Piteously calling and lamenting thee,
  And waiting restless at thy cottage door.
The rocks, the sea-weed on the ocean floor,
  The willows in the meadow, and the free
  Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome me;
  Then why shouldst thou be dead, and come no more?
Ah, why shouldst thou be dead, when common men
  Are busy with their trivial affairs,
  Having and holding?  Why, when thou hadst read
Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then
  Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears,
  Why art thou silent!  Why shouldst thou be dead?

IV

River, that stealest with such silent pace
  Around the City of the Dead, where lies
  A friend who bore thy name, and whom these eyes
  Shall see no more in his accustomed place,
Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace
  And say good night, for now the western skies
  Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise
  Like damps that gather on a dead man's face.
Good night! good night! as we so oft have said
  Beneath this roof at midnight in the days
  That are no more, and shall no more return.
Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to bed;
  I stay a little longer, as one stays
  To cover up the embers that still burn.

V

The doors are all wide open; at the gate
  The blossomed lilacs counterfeit a blaze,
  And seem to warm the air; a dreamy haze
  Hangs o'er the Brighton meadows like a fate,
And on their margin, with sea-tides elate,
  The flooded Charles, as in the happier days,
  Writes the last letter of his name, and stays
  His restless steps, as if compelled to wait.
I also wait; but they will come no more,
  Those friends of mine, whose presence satisfied
  The thirst and hunger of my heart.  Ah me!
They have forgotten the pathway to my door!
  Something is gone from nature since they died,
  And summer is not summer, nor can be.

CHAUCER

An old man in a lodge within a park;
  The chamber walls depicted all around
  With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound.
  And the hurt deer.  He listeneth to the lark,
Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark
  Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound;
  He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound,
  Then writeth in a book like any clerk.
He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote
  The Canterbury Tales, and his old age
  Made beautiful with song; and as I read
I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note
  Of lark and linnet, and from every page
  Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead.

SHAKESPEARE

A vision as of crowded city streets,
  With human life in endless overflow;
  Thunder of thoroughfares; trumpets that blow
  To battle; clamor, in obscure retreats,
Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets;
  Tolling of bells in turrets, and below
  Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw
  O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets!
This vision comes to me when I unfold
  The volume of the Poet paramount,
  Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone;--
Into his hands they put the lyre of gold,
  And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount,
  Placed him as Musagetes on their throne.

MILTON

I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold
  How the voluminous billows roll and run,
  Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun
  Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold
  All its loose-flowing garments into one,
  Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun
  Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.
So in majestic cadence rise and fall
  The mighty undulations of thy song,
  O sightless bard, England's Maeonides!
And ever and anon, high over all
  Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong,
  Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.

KEATS