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Title: In Memoriam
Author: Charles Stuart Calverley [
More Titles by Calverley]
The time admits not flowers or leaves
To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies
The blast of North and East, and ice
Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves,
And bristles all the brakes and thorns
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs
Above the wood which grides and clangs
Its leafless ribs and iron horns
Together, in the drifts that pass,
To darken on the rolling brine
That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine,
Arrange the board and brim the glass;
Bring in great logs and let them lie,
To make a solid core of heat;
Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat
Of all things ev'n as he were by:
We keep the day with festal cheer,
With books and music. Surely we
Will drink to him whate'er he be,
And sing the songs he loved to hear.
IN MEMORIAM
Non hora myrto, non violis sinit
Nitere mensas. Trux Aquilo foras
Bacchatur, ac passim pruina
Tigna sagittifera coruscant;
Horretque saltus spinifer, algidae
Sub falce lunae, dum nemori imminet,
Quod stridet illiditque costis
Cornua, jam vacuis honorum,
Ferrata; nimbis praetereuntibus,
Ut incubent tandem implacido sali
Qui curvat oras. Tu Falernum
Prome, dapes strue, dic coronent
Crateras: ignis cor solidum, graves
Repone truncos. Jamque doloribus
Loquare securus fugatis
Quae socio loquereris illo;
Hunc dedicamus laetitiae diem
Lyraeque musisque. Illius, illius
Da, quicquid audit: nec silebunt
Qui numeri placuere vivo.
[The end]
Charles Stuart Calverley's poem: In Memoriam
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