In Memory of Barry Cornwall

By Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

Bryan Waller Procter, an English poet, whose pseudonym was Barry Cornwall, died October 4, 1874.

IN the garden of death, where the singers whose names are deathless

One with another make music unheard of men,

Where the dead sweet roses fade not of lips long breathless,

And the fair eyes shine that shall weep not or change again.

Who comes now crowned with the blossom of snow-white years?

What music is this that the world of the dead men hears?

Beloved of men, whose words on our lips were honey,

Whose name in our ears and our fathers’ ears was sweet,

Like summer gone forth of the land his songs made sunny,

To the beautiful veiled bright world where the glad ghosts meet,

Child, father, bridegroom and bride, and anguish and rest,

No soul shall pass of a singer than this more blest.

Blest for the years’ sweet sake that were filled and brightened,

As a forest with birds, with the fruit and the flower of his song;

For the souls’ sake blest that heard, and their cares were lightened,

For the hearts’ sake blest that have fostered his name so long;

By the living and dead lips blest that have loved his name,

And clothed with their praise and crowned with their love for fame.

Ah, fair and fragrant his fame as flowers that close not,

That shrink not by day for heat or for cold by night,

As a thought in the heart shall increase when the heart’s self knows not,

Shall endure in our ears as a sound, in our eyes as a light;

Shall wax with the years that wane and the seasons’ chime,

As a white rose thornless that grows in the garden of time.

The same year calls, and one goes hence with another,

And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet songs’ sake;

The same year beckons, and elder with younger brother

Takes mutely the cup from his hand that we all shall take.

They pass ere the leaves be past or the snows be come;

And the birds are loud, but the lips that outsang them dumb.

Time takes them home that we loved, fair names and famous,

To the soft long sleep, to the broad sweet bosom of death;

But the flower of their souls he shall not take away to shame us,

Nor the lips lack song for ever that now lack breath.

For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell,

Though the dead to our dead bid welcome, and we farewell.