To Giseke, on His Departure from College

Go! I stifle my grief — Adieu to thee, friend! Though tears

May without shame be shed by the manliest natures, yet go I

"Were I to weep for thee now, alas! to my latest years
My tears as a d rainless fountain for ever and ever should flow!
For so All shall sever from All in this hollow Valley of Mourning,

One away after another, departing and never returning.
/So doth imperial Death the bride and her bridegroom sunder.

Groaningly sinks the man into the tempested wave,
While snows are drearily drifting above the woman, who, under
Carcases, wrecks, and sands, found on the beach her grave f
So sleep the ashes of Homer far, far from where Milton's bones
Lie whitening day after day in the stillness of sweltering noon:

Never, oh! never shall mingle the icidely -divided tones
Of the dirgewinds over their graves, where cypress-leaves are strewn.

So wrote the Eternal I AM the doom of each and of all
On walls of marble and brass, and hung the curtaining pall

Of fathomless mystery, and inviolate silence before it —
Blest be the will of the Highest! Low in the dust I adore it.
Go, my beloved companion! The friends thou wilt leave so lonely

Tearlessly, even as I, perchance may behold thee go —
Unless they silently weep the tears of the sick soul only,

Tears that strangers to friendship and generous thought cannot know.

Tarry not longer, my friend! but hasten from hence to renew
Thy friendship with IlA.aEDOEX; and when thou enjoyest the bliss
Of meeting that excellent man — O! wilt thou assure him of this —

That, warm as thy love for him is, mine own is as warm for him too!