Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837–1909

On the Deaths of Thomas Carlyle and George Eliot

Swinburn

TWO souls diverse out of our human sight

Pass, follow’d one with love and each with wonder:

The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder,

Cloth’d with loud words and mantled in the might

Of darkness and magnificence of night;

And one whose eye could smite the night in sunder,

Searching if light or no light were thereunder,

And found in love of loving-kindness light.

Duty divine and Thought with eyes of fire

Still following Righteousness with deep desire

Shone sole and stern before her and above,

Sure stars and sole to steer by; but more sweet

Shone lower the loveliest lamp for earthly feet,

The light of little children, and their love.