The Burial of Sophocles
Her wondrous soul, her wondrous, grieving soul
Captur'd and fill'd us.—Oh, how fevrous then
(When we had forfeited the passing toll
Of tears, that Love itself exacts from men
On such an errand) did we take the road,
And by Cephisus' 'sleepless fountains' bore
On the dead singer of Colonus fair,
Yon kindly last abode
Of the royal Theban martyr, who of yore
Curs'd a false son and dying triumph'd there.
Ah! Fancy loves to weave at such an hour
A faery web of false resemblances.—
And who hath strength to curb her perilous power
Of blind divining? Many phantasies
Made riot in our thought and seem'd to bring
The living children of his poesy
Winging from out the night to claim a part
In all our sorrowing:
While the lorn gale out of the Northern sky
Sped its far, sullen mutterings to our heart.
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