Monody

To have known him, to have loved him 
   After loneness long; 
And then to be estranged in life, 
   And neither in the wrong; 
And now for death to set his seal— 
   Ease me, a little ease, my song! 

By wintry hills his hermit-mound 
   The sheeted snow-drifts drape, 
And houseless there the snow-bird flits 
   Beneath the fir-trees’ crape: 
Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine 
   That hid the shyest grape.