ne, in sweet still lives,
And die by all men misinterpreted.

Within a churchyard rise two honored urns
O'er graves not far removed. The one records
The 'genius of a Poet,' whose fitter fame
Lies in the volumes which his facile pen
Filled with the measure of redundant verse:
Before this urn the oft frequented sod
Is flattened with the tread of pensive feet.
The other simply bears the name and age
Of one who was 'a Merchant,' and bequeathed
A fair estate with numerous charities:
Before this urn the grass grows rank and green.

I knew them both in life, and thus to me
They measured in their lives their effigies:
He who the pen did wield with facile power,
Created what he wrote, and to the ear
With tact, not inspiration, wrought the sounds
To careful cadence; but the heart was cold
As the chill marble where the sculptor traced
Curious conceits of fancy. Let him pass,
His name not undervalued, for his fame
Shall in maturer ages lie as still
As doth his neighbor's now.

Turn we to him.
He was a man to whom the general eye
Bent with the confidence of daily trust
In things of daily use: a man 'of means,
--Sagacious, honest, plodding, punctual,--
Revolving in the rank of those whose shields
Bear bags of argent on a field of gold,
His life, to most men, was what most men's are,--
Unceasing calculation and keen thrift;
Unvarying as the ever-plying loom,
Which, moving in same limits day by day,
Weaves mesh on mesh, in tireless gain of goods.
But I, that knew him better than the herd,
Yet saw him less, knew that in him which lives
Still gracious and still plentiful to me
Now he hath passed away from me and them.
This man, whose talk on busy marts to men
Teemed with the current coin of thrifty trade,
--Exchanges, credits, money rates, and all,--
Hath stood with me upon a silent hill,
When the last flush of the dissolving day
Fainted before the moonlight, and, as 'twere
Unconscious of my listening, uttered there
The comprehensions of a soul true poised
With elemental beauty, giving tongue
Unto the dumbness of the blissful air.
So have I seen him, too, within his home,
When, newspaper on knee, his earnest gaze
Seemed scanning issues from the money list;
But comments came not, till my curious eye
Led out his meditation into words,