The Burial of Sophocles
And then that darkly-riding company!—
What rapid, iron question stabb'd the air?
Rude force in-bursting on our reverie
With insolence of arms and doubting stare!
But when the whisper flew that this was he,
Poet of all the nations, rare bequest
Of Hellas to the treasuries of Time,—
Forgot was enmity,
And, sons of Hellas all, we onward press'd
Hot with one fervour and one care sublime.
And last, the tomb.—One struck the dead man's lyre
By Death long silenc'd, and our hearkening ears
Were open'd for one moment of desire
To the pure, perfect music of the spheres;
As if his Spirit had vouchsafed to us
A fragment of eternal harmony
From its new dwelling-place. The player ceas'd;
All dumb and tremulous
We smooth'd the coffin, cas'd in greenery
And with our own shorn tresses over-fleec'd.
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