Ballade of Dead Poets
Theocritus, who bore
The lyre where sleek herds graze
On the Sicilian shore,
(There yet the shepherd strays)—
And Horace, crowned with bays,
Who dwelt by Tiber’s flow,
Sleep through the silent days—
For God will have it so!
The bard, whose requiem o’er
And o’er the sad sea plays,
Who sang of classic lore,
Of Mab, the queen of fays—
And Keats, fair Adonais,
The child of song and woe,
No longer thread life’s maze—
For God will have it so!
Your voices, sweet of yore,
With honied word and phrase,
Are heard by men no more,
They list to other lays—
New poets now have praise,
But all in turn must go
To follow in your ways—
For God will have it so!
Envoy.
Poets, the thrones ye raise
Are not a “fleeting show;”
Fame lives, though dust decays—
For God will have it so!
Clinton Scollard.