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Alfred Austin - George Eliot
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Dead! Is she dead?
And all that light extinguished!

Mend your words,
 Those gropings of the blind along plain paths
 Where all the Heavens are shining! Know you not,
 Though the Eternal Luminary dips
 Below our cramped horizon, leaving here
 Only a train of glory, he but goes
 To dawn on other and neglected worlds,
 Benighted of his presence! So with her,
 Whose round imagination, like the sun,
 Drew the sad mists of the low—lying earth
 Up to her own great altitude, and there
 Made them in smiling tears evaporate.
 Announce the sun`s self dead, and o`er him roll
 An epitaph of darkness;—then aver
She too has set for ever.

Think it thus,
 If for sweet comfort`s sake. What we call death
 Is but another sentinel despatched
  To relieve life, weary of being on guard,
 Whose active service is not ended here,
 But after intermission is renewed
 In other fields of duty. This to her
 Was an uncertain promise, since it seems,
 Unto the eye of seriousness, unreal,
 That, like a child, death should but play with life,
 Blowing it out, to blow it in again.
 This contradiction over, now she stands
 Certain of all uncertainty, and dwells
 Where death the sophist puzzles life no more,
 But with disdainful silence or clear proof
Confuted is for ever.  Yet our loss
 By others` gain is mended not, and we
 Sit in the darkness that her light hath left.
 Comfort our grief with symbols as we will,
 Her empty throne stares stony in our face,
 And with a dumb relentlessness proclaims
 That she has gone for ever, for ever gone,
 Returning not. . . . How plain I see her now,
 The twilight tresses, deepening into night,
 The brow a benediction, and the eyes
 Seat where compassion never set, and like
 That firm, fixed star, which altereth not its place
 While all the planets round it sink and swim,
 Shone with a steady guidance. O, and a voice
 Matched with whose modulations softest notes
 Of dulcimer by daintiest fingers stroked,
 Or zephyrs wafted over summer seas,
  On summer shores subsiding, sounded harsh.
 Listening whereto, steeled obduracy felt
 The need to kneel, necessity to weep,
 And craving to be comforted; a shrine
 Of music and of incense and of flowers,
 Where hearts, at length self—challenged, were content
 Still to be sad and sinful, so they might
 Feel that exonerating pity steal
In subtle absolution on their guilt.

Dead? Never dead!
 That this, man`s insignificant domain,
 Which is not boundary of space, should be
 The boundary of life, revolts the mind,
 Even when bounded. Into soaring space
 Soar, spacious spirit! unembarrassed now
 By earthly boundaries, and circle up
 Into the Heaven of Heavens, and take thy place
 Where the Eternal Morning broadens out
 To recognise thy coming. Realm on Realm
 Of changeless revolution round thee roll,
 Thou moving with them, and among the stars
 Shine thou a star long looked for; or, unbuoyed,
 Beyond the constellations of our ken,
 Traverse the infinite azure with thy heart,
 And with love`s light elucidate the Spheres;
 While we, below, this meek libation pour,
 Mingled of honey and hyssop, on thy grave!
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