Robert Parkes
—* Son of Sir Henry Parkes.—
High travelling winds by royal hillTheir awful anthem sing,And songs exalted flow and fillThe caverns of the spring.
To-night across a wild wet plainA shadow sobs and strays;The trees are whispering in the rainOf long departed days.
I cannot say what forest saith—Its words are strange to me:I only know that in its breathAre tones that used to be.
Yea, in these deep dim solitudesI hear a sound I know—The voice that lived in Penrith woodsTwelve weary years ago.
And while the hymn of other yearsIs on a listening land,The Angel of the Past appearsAnd leads me by the hand;
And takes me over moaning wave,And tracts of sleepless change,To set me by a lonely graveWithin a lonely range.
The halo of the beautifulIs round the quiet spot;The grass is deep and green and cool,Where sound of life is not.
Here in this lovely lap of bloom,The grace of glen and glade,That tender days and nights illume,My gentle friend was laid.
I do not mark the shell that liesBeneath the touching flowers;I only see the radiant eyesOf other scenes and hours.
I only turn, by grief inspired,Like some forsaken thing,To look upon a life retiredAs hushed Bethesda’s spring.
The glory of unblemished daysIs on the silent mound—The light of years, too pure for praise;I kneel on holy ground!
Here is the clay of one whose mindWas fairer than the dew,The sweetest nature of his kindI haply ever knew.
This Christian, walking on the whiteClear paths apart from strife,Kept far from all the heat and lightThat fills his father’s life.
The clamour and exceeding flameWere never in his days:A higher object was his aimThan thrones of shine and praise.
Ah! like an English April psalm,That floats by sea and strand,He passed away into the calmOf the Eternal Land.
The chair he filled is set asideUpon his father’s floor;In morning hours, at eventide,His step is heard no more.
No more his face the forest knows;His voice is of the past;But from his life of beauty flowsA radiance that will last.
Yea, from the hours that heard his speechHigh shining mem’ries giveThat fine example which will teachOur children how to live.
Here, kneeling in the body, farFrom grave of flower and dew,My friend beyond the path of star,I say these words to you.
Though you were as a fleeting flameAcross my road austere,The memory of your face becameA thing for ever dear.
I never have forgotten yetThe Christian’s gentle touch;And, since the time when last we met,You know I’ve suffered much.
I feel that I have given painBy certain words and deeds,But stricken here with Sorrow’s rain,My contrite spirit bleeds.
For your sole sake I rue the blow,But this assurance send:I smote, in noon, the public foe,But not the private friend.
I know that once I wronged your sire,But since that awful dayMy soul has passed through blood and fire,My head is very grey.
Here let me pause! From years like yoursThere ever flows and thrivesThe splendid blessing which enduresBeyond our little lives.
From lonely lands across the waveIs sent to-night by meThis rose of reverence for the graveBeside the mountain lea.