James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
February 28Anne Clough
By Edmund Gosse (18491928)
E
Alas! what need hadst thou of peace?
Our bitterest winter tolls the knell,
And tolls, and tolls, and will not cease.
For empty lives and hearts unblessed,
And tolls for thee, whose heart was young,
Whose life was stored with hope and rest.
Cast out like arrows on the air,
The humor in thy dark blue eyes,
The wisdom in thy silver hair,—
As those who loved thee droop and pass,
Thy being was not wholly made
To shrink like breath upon a glass.
The old, outworn scholastic seat,
Throned, simply, with an ardent train
Of studious beauty round thy feet.
Their sons to praise thy sacred name,
Thy hand that taught their hands to reach
The broader thought, the brighter flame.
That gathers round our reedy shore,
Shalt with diffused light illume
A thousand hearths unlit before.