Poems (Botta)/On the Death of a Friend
For works with similar titles, see On the Death of a Friend.
ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.
There was no bell to peal thy funeral dirge, No nodding plumes to wave above thy bier, No shroud to wrap thee but the foaming surge, No kindly voices thy dark way to cheer, No eye to give the tribute of a tear. Alone, “unknell’d, uncoffin’d,” thou hast died, Without one gentle mourner lingering near; Down the deep waters thou unseen didst glide,With Ocean’s countless dead to slumber side by side.
Thou sleep’st not with thy fathers. O’er thy bed, The flowers that deck their tombs may never wave; To plead remembrance for thee, o’er thy head No sculptur’d marble shall arise. Thy grave Is the dark boundless deep, whose waters lave The shores of empires. When thou sought’st thy rest Within their silent depths, they only gave A circling ripple, then with foaming crestThe booming waves roll’d o’er their unconscious guest.
’Tis said that far beneath the wild waves rushing, Where sea-flowers bloom and fabled Peris dwell, That there the restless waters cease their gushing, And leave their dead within some sparkling cell, Where gems are gleaming, and the lone sea shell Is breathing its sweet music. And ’tis said That Time, who weaveth over Earth a spell Of blight and ruin, o’er the Ocean’s deadHe passeth lightly on, with trackless, silent tread.
Then, though no marble e’er shall rise for thee, No monument to mark thy last long home, Thine ocean grave unhonored shall not be,— The coral insect there shall rear a tomb That age shall ne’er destroy; and there shall bloom The fadeless ocean flowers. And though the glare Of the bright sunbeams ne’er shall light its gloom, Yet glancing eyes and forms unearthly fairShall throng around thy couch, and hymn a requiem there.
Now fare thee well! I will not weep that thou Didst pass so soon away; for though thou wert Still in thy boyhood’s prime, and thy fair brow Undimmed by age; yet sad was thy young heart, For thou hadst seen the light of life depart, And Love had thrown his wild and burning spell Around thee, and with deep, insidious art Had maddened thee. Then sounded loud the knellOf all thy bright young dreams. My earliest friend, farewell!