Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Robert BurnsWilson

1048 The Dead Player

SURE and exact,—the master’s quiet touch,

Thus perfect, was his art;

Ambitious, generous, sad, and loving much,

Was his pain-haunted heart.

To him, the blissful burthen of her love

Did stern-browed Fortune give;

In hell, in heaven, beneath life and above,

Such souls as his must live.

Who wears Fame’s Tyrian garb, as well must wear

The heavy robe of Grief;

Who bears aloft the palm, must also bear

Hid woundings past belief.

Both he did wear and bear, as well as most

Of Earth’s soon-counted few

That stand distinguished from the unknown host

By having work to do.

Souls seek their doom. A costly-freighted bark

That sails a perilous sea,

Rounds every bar, and goes down, in the dark

At port,—e’en such was he.

A classic shade,—he walks the unknown lands

Death-silent and death-dim;

But, like a noble Phidian marble, stands

The memory of him.