To R.W.E.

As when a father dies, his children draw

About the empty hearth, their loss to cheat

With uttered praise & love, & oft repeat

His all-familiar words with whispered awe.

The honored habit of his daily law,

Not for his sake, but theirs whose feeble feet

Need still that guiding lamp, whose faith, less sweet,

Misses that tempered patience without flaw,

So do we gather round thy vacant chair,

In thine own elm-roofed, amber-rivered town,

Master & Father! For the love we bear,

Not for thy fame's sake, do we weave this crown,

And feel thy presence in the sacred air,

Forbidding us to weep that thou art gone.