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As by this suff’ring highpriest of the Muse.

O, all ye learned critics of his art,

Who analyze by a mechanic rule,

Ye fail to see the grandeur of his soul,

That soared above the petty and the small,

Indifferent to the existing school,

Preferring Pegasus to any cart.

With the sublime he ever was in tune,

’Mid Alpen heights, or on “the boundless deep,”

Or ’mid the storm and deaf’ning thunders crash,

In darkest night, lit by the lightning’s flash,

Or on the plains where vanished empires sleep,

Time’s desolation ’neath a waning moon.

His harp did catch the minor music’s flow

From nature’s heart and human tragedy,

And when he laughed it was the cynic’s smile,

Though he at heart was tender as a child,

But death to him had sweeter harmony,

Than life’s brief dream with its relentless woe.

Likewise Sordino, after years of thinking,

Found in the dirge the acme of his search,

The home-call to a truer life’s beginning,

When man shall cease from sorrow and from sinning,

The great, the final welcome of the church,