Christopher Pearse Cranch

Sonnet 39. Bayard Taylor

CAN one so strong in hope, so rich in bloom
That promised fruit of nobler worth than all
He yet had given, drop thus with sudden fall?
The busy brain no more its work resume?
Can death for life so versatile find room?
Still must we fancy thou canst hear our call
Across the sea — with no dividing wall
More dense than space to interpose its doom.
Ah then — farewell, young-hearted genial friend!
Farewell, true poet, who didst grow and build
From thought to thought still upward and still new.
Farewell, unsullied toiler in a guild
Where some defile their hands, and where so few
With aims as pure strive faithful to the end.