CHARLES HEAVYSEGE.
A man of worth, a man of mind,
Has bade farewell to human kind.
No pomp, no sound of muffled drum,
No multitudes’ uncertain hum
Has stirred the air; but stifled sighs,
And gleaming tears and shaded eyes
Are tokens of a reverence felt
For one who to the Muses knelt,
In fealty with noblest vow,
And rose with garland on his brow.
So child-like, modest, reticent,
With head in meditation bent,
He walked our streets!—and no one knew
That something of celestial hue
Had passed along; a toil-worn man
Was seen, no more; the fire that ran
Electric through his veins and wrought
Sublimity of soul and thought,
And kindled into song, no eye
Beheld until a foreign sky[10]
Reflected back the wondrous light,
And heralded the poet’s might.
Though doomed to less of sun than shade,
No weak complaint he ever made;
But bravely lived, content to let
The great world roar, and fume, and fret.
In visions of the days of eld
He revelled, and in joy beheld
The glory of the Hebrew sages,
Whose utterance has toned the ages.
The sacred mount, the cave, the stream
Where holy seers were wont to dream,
He knew and loved, and summoned thence
The agents of Omnipotence;
Fantastic sprites, and buried men
To fight gray battles o’er again.
Behold dread Samuel’s shade appear!
Behold Goliath’s mighty spear!
And lithe-limbed David’s sling and stone,
And Saul’s fierce madness; one by one
They rise before us, march, or stand,
Obedient to the Poet’s wand.
Dear friend, adieu! if Malzah-like
An adverse Fate ordained to strike,
Beset thee on life’s weary way,
And followed close from day to day,
He failed to conquer, failed to wrest
One murmur from thy manly breast.
Companion of my happiest hours,
Would that my words were fadeless flowers!
That I might lay them on thy tomb
To mitigate its lasting gloom,
And evermore above thee bloom.
[10] The lofty genius of this author attracted no attention in Canada till noticed by the North British Review in an article on his “Saul,” which appeared in the August number of 1858.