A Song of the Sea Author:Eric Mackay Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SHELLEY'S MONUMENT AT VIA REGGIO The sea that claimed our Shelley holds him And Via Reggio pleads for him in vain; The barque that foundered on a foreign ... more » Is curst of all good men, and nigh forgot. But he who sailed therein has made his lot The Muse's glory, and his country's gain. We cannot spare our poet for the south, Or for the sea that slew him long ago ; His youth was reared in England, as we know, And Freedom sated all his singing-drouth, And called him hers, and kissed him on the mouth, And made him wise with all the winds that blow. If Time require a monument for thee, We'll have a nobler one than alien hands Can build thee, Shelley! on Italian sands; And if thy face must front a foaming sea, We have our share of ocean that is free, And here we'll shrine thee as thy fame demands. Not Rome thy resting-place from year to year, Not that Italia where thy days were spent, To our remorse, and thine own detriment. Thou hast thy home with us in England here, And not out there, where Fortune was austere, And burnt the form that malice never bent. Twas Byron wept for thee, when from the Trelawny tore the heart that beat in tune With all the hearts of men in mystic rune. For hellish flames could not consume the That throbbed with joy for every soul's desire, And filled the earth with songs from June to June. Yes, Byron wept; and we,—unfit to weep Unless for mere self-pity,—lo ! we turn With lips apart, and eyes that sea-ward yearn, To greet yon Tuscans while their tryste they With our dead singer, wakened out of sleep To teach the creeds the world is slow to learn. VII God's truth! Is't well ? Whose words were those he flung From his proud lips, accordant with the roll Of star with star, and soul with human...« less