Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/A Dead Man's Friends
A DEAD MAN'S FRIENDS.[IN A HOUSE AT WASHINGTON.]
Gathered from many lands,A company still and strange,In the shadow of velvet and oak—Not one to another spoke;With faces that did not change,Weird with the night and dim,They were looking their last on him.
If ever men were wise,If ever women were fair,If ever glory was dustIn a world of moth and rust,Why, this and these were there;—Guests of the great, ah, me,How cold is your courtesy!
Does the loveliest lady of allDrop Titian's light from her hair,Down into his darkened eyes,—His, who in his coffin lies? Does that crouching Venus careThat he must forget the charmOf her broken beautiful arm?
Yet these were the dead man's friends,—Wooed in his passionate youth,And won when his head was grey;Look at them close, I pray.Ah, these he has loved, in sooth,Yet among them all, I fear,Is nothing so sweet as—a tear!