Sidney Lanier
Dear brother, thou who grandly didst aspire
To Holy Beauty, yet didst meek obey
The voice from heaven that called thee, “Come up higher”;
Thou who our listening hearts didst greatly away
With magic of thy flute-toned artful lay
When, like thy Master, thou wast “clean fore-spent,”
Laid'st calmly down thy clear-voiced instrument.
How grandly now thy spirit, with no clod
Of frail and feeble flesh to hold her back,
Will follow through eternity thy God
In His vast, glorious and harmonious track!
|