xiv—The Life After Death

(A)

Not on sad Stygian shore, nor in clear sheen

Of far Elysian plain, shall we meet those

Among the dead whose pupils we have been,

Nor those great shades whom we have held as foes;

No meadow of asphodel our feet shall tread,

Nor shall we look each other in the face

To love or hate each other being dead,

Hoping some praise, or fearing some disgrace.

We shall not argue saying “’Twas thus” or “Thus,”

Our argument’s whole drift we shall forget;

Who’s right, who’s wrong, ’twill be all one to us;

We shall not even know that we have met.

Yet meet we shall, and part, and meet again,

Where dead men meet, on lips of living men.

(B)

HANDEL

There doth great Handel live, imperious still,

Invisible and impalpable as air,

But forcing flesh and blood to work his will

Effectually as though his flesh were there;

He who gave eyes to ears and showed in sound

All thoughts and things in earth or heaven above.

From fire and hailstones running along the ground

To Galatea grieving for her love;

He who could show to all unseeing eyes

Glad shepherds watching o’er their flocks by night,

Or Iphis angel-wafted to the skies,

Or Jordan standing as an heap upright—

He’ll meet both Jones and me and clap or hiss us

Vicariously for having writ Narcissus.

(C)

HANDEL

Father of my poor music—if such small

Offspring as mine, so born out of due time,

So scorn’d, can be called fatherful at all,

Or dare to thy high sonship’s rank to climb—

Best lov’d of all the dead whom I love best,

Though I love many another dearly too,

You in my heart take rank above the rest;

King of those kings that most control me, you,

You were about my path, about my bed

In boyhood always and, where’er I be,

Whate’er I think or do, you, in my head,

Ground-bass to all my thoughts, are still with me;

Methinks the very worms will find some strain

Of yours still lingering in my wasted brain.