In some the genius is a thing apart,
A pillared hermit of the brain,
Hoarding with incommunicable art

Its intellectual gain;

Man's web of circumstance and fate They from their perch of self observe,

Indifferent as the figures on a slate

Are to the planet's sun-swung curve
Whose bright returns they calculate;
Their nice adjustment, part to part,

root

Within the ears of men;

Ye chiefly, virile both to think and feel, Deep-chested Chapman and firm-footed Ben,

For he was masculine from head to heel.
Nay, let himself stand undiminished by
With those clear parts of him that will
not die.

Himself from out the recent dark I claim
To hear, and, if I flatter him, to blame;
To show himself, as still I seem to see,
A mortal, built upon the antique plan,
Brimful of lusty blood as ever ran,
And taking life as simply as a tree!
To claim my foiled good-bye let him ap.

nery,

Companionship, and open windowed glee:

And seems to learn where he alone could teach.

Ample and ruddy, the board's end he fills As he our fireside were, our light and heat,

Centre where minds diverse and various skills

Find their warm nook and stretch uphampered feet;

I see the firm benignity of face, Wide-smiling champaign, without tameness sweet,

The mass Teutonic toned to Gallic grace, The eyes whose sunshine runs before the lips

While Holmes's rockets curve their long ellipse,

In

And burst in seeds of fire that burst again

To drop in scintillating rain.

4.

There too the face half-rustic, halfdivine,

Self-poised, sagacious, freaked with humor fine,

Of him who taught us not to mow and mope

About our fancied selves, but seek our scope

Nature's world and Man's, nor fade to hollow trope,

Content with our New World and timely bold

To challenge the o'ermastery of the Old;

Listening with eyes averse I see him sit

Pricked with the cider of the Judge's wit (Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and fresh again),

While the wise nose's firm-built aquiline

Curves sharper to restrain The merriment whose most unruly moods

Pass not the dumb laugh learned in listening woods

Of silence-shedding pine: Hard by is he whose art's consoling spell

Hath given both worlds a whiff of asphodel,

His look still vernal 'mid the wintry ring