ARTEMUS WARD.
I.
Is he gone to a land of no laughter, This man that made mirth for us all ? Proves death but a silence hereafter From the sounds that delight or appal ? Once closed, have the lips no more duty, No more pleasure the exquisite ears ; Has the heart done o'erflowing with beauty, As the eyes have with tears?
IL Nay, if aught be sure, what can be surer Than that Earth's good decays not with Earth ?
And of all the heart's springs none are purer
Than the springs of the fountains-of Mirth.
He that sounds theas has pierced the heart's hollows, The places where tears are and sleep ; For the foam-flakes that dance in life's shallows Are wrung from life's deep.
m.
He came with a heart full of gladness
From the glad-hearted world of the West,—
Won our laughter, but not with mere madness, Spake and joked with us, not in mere jest; For the Man in our heart lingered after, When the merriment died from our ears, And those that were loudest in laughter Are silent in tears.
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