Poems (Blagden)/Charles dickens

by Isa Blagden

"CHARLES DICKENS IS DEAD."

JUNE 9TH.

I.

A day in June! With sunshine sweet
 Our English air was filled that day;
Around, the yet green unripe wheat
 In plenteous vernal furrows lay.

II.

The apples hung upon the boughs—
 Its sheath no filbert yet had burst;
Unmown the lawns, but in the house
 Our noblest fruit was plucked the first.

III.

Our crowning sheaf, so full, so fair,
 Which, slowly mellowing, stately stood,
Cut down and bound, lay garnered there,
 A priceless harvest claimed by God.

IV.

O mystery of futile breath!
 A sob, a gasp, a hurried sigh;
O mystery of sudden death!
 How dare we live? how dare we die?

V.

Grey Abbey, 'neath thy storied spires
 This consecrated dust enshrine;
Peal out the welcome of thy choirs,
 Open for him thy gates divine.

VI.

Something of sweetness, pathos, mirth,
 With him from all our lives is gone;
A light has faded from each hearth;
 Our household words have lost a tone.

VII.

Amongst us men he stood a man
 Of quicker pulses, larger brains;
But well he knew the red blood ran
 Alike in all our hearts and veins.

VIII.

And 'tis for this the nations weep
 The genius which both worlds had spanned;
Star follows star, deep calls to deep—
 Thou second Shakespeare of our land!

IX.

Thou art immortal in that tongue,
 The speech of north and east and west,
Where spoken word and written song
 Our race's Saxon rule attest.

X.

Grey Abbey! open wide thy gate;
 One treasure more we bring to thee,
In trust, supreme, inviolate,
 Our love his immortality.