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.