XI.

Now pillowed near loved Hylas’ lowly bed, Beneath our aged oaks and sighing pines, Pale Ion rests awhile his laureled head; (How sweet his slumber as he there reclines!) Why weep for Ion here? He is not dead, Nought of him Personal that mound confines; The hues ethereal of the morning red This clod embraces never, nor enshrines. Away the mourning multitude hath sped, And round us closes fast the gathering night, As from the drowsy dell the sun declines, Ion hath vanished from our clouded sight,— But on the morrow, with the budding May, A field goes Ion, at first flush of day, Across the pastures on his dewy way.

[Illustration: MR. ALCOTT’S STUDY.]

THE POET’S COUNTERSIGN.

AN ODE READ BY F. B. SANBORN, AT THE OPENING OF THE CONCORD SCHOOL, JULY 17, 1882.

“I grant, sweet soul, thy lovely argument Deserves the travail of a worthier pen; Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent, He robs thee of, and pays it thee again; He lends thee virtue,—and he stole that word From thy behavior; beauty doth he give, And found it on thy cheek; he can afford No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.”