To R. B. [Robert Bartlett.]

BELOVED friend! they say that thou art dead,
Nor shall our asking eyes behold thee more,
Save in the company of the fair and dread,
Along that radiant and immortal shore,
Whither thy face was turned for evermore.
Thou wert a pilgrim toward the True and Real,
Never forgetful of that infinite goal;
Salient, electrical thy weariless soul,
To every faintest vision always leal,
Even ‘mid these phantoms made its world ideal.
And so thou hast a most perennial fame,
Though from the earth thy name should perish quite;
When the dear sun sinks golden whence he came,
The gloom, else cheerless, hath not lost his light;
So in our lives impulses born of thine,
Like fireside stars across the night shall shine.