Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Felicia Hemans to L. E. L. lyrics

Thou bay-crowned living One that o'er
The bay-crowned Dead art bowing
And o'er the shadeless moveless brow
The vital shadow throwing
And o'er the sighless songless lips
The wail and music wedding
And dropping o'er the tranquil eyes the
Tears not of their shedding!

Take music from the silent Dead
Whose meaning is completer
Reserve thy tears for living brows where
All such tears are meeter
And leave the violets in the grass
To brighten where thou treadest
No flowers for her! no need of flowers
Albeit "bring flowers!" thou saidest

Yes, flowers, to crown the "cup and lute
" since both may come to breaking
Or flowers, to greet the "bride" the heart's
Own beating works it's aching
Or flowers, to soothe the "captive's" sight
From earth's free bosom gathered
Reminding of his earthly hope
Then withering as it withered:

But bring not near the solemn corse
A type of human seeming
Lay only dust's stern verity
Upon the dust undreaming:
And while the calm perpetual stars
Shall look upon it solely
Her spherèd soul shall look on them
With eyes more bright and holy

Nor mourn, O living One
Because her part in life was mourning:
Would she have lost the poet's fire
For anguish of the burning?
The minstrel harp, for the
Strained string? the tripod
For the afflated woe? or the vision
For those tears in which it shone dilated?

Perhaps she shuddered while the world's cold
Hand her brow was wreathing
But never wronged that mystic breath which
Breathed in all her breathing
Which drew, from rocky earth and
Man, abstractions high and moving
Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love
If not the loving

Such visionings have paled in sight
The Saviour she descrieth
And little recks who wreathed the brow
Which on His bosom lieth:
The whiteness of His innocence o'er
All her garments, flowing
There learneth she the sweet "new song"
She will not mourn in knowing

Be happy, crowned and living One! and
As thy dust decayeth
May thine own England say for thee
What now for Her it sayeth
"Albeit softly in our ears her
Silver song was ringing
The foot-fall of her parting soul
Is softer than her singing"