The Burial of Robert Browning

        UPON St. Michael’s Isle         They laid him for awhile That he might feel the Ocean’s full embrace,             And wedded be             To that wide sea—   The subject and the passion of his race.     As Thetis, from some lovely underground       Springing, she girds him round         With lapping sound         And silent space:   Then, on more honor bent,   She sues the firmament, And bids the hovering, western clouds combine To spread their sabled amber on her lustrous brine.         It might not be         He should lie free   Forever in the soft light of the sea;   For lo! one came,   Of step more slow than fame,   Stooped over him—we heard her breathe his name—       And as the light drew back,       Bore him across the track   Of the subservient waves that dare not foil       That veiled, maternal figure of its spoil.       Ah! where will she put by       Her journeying majesty?   She hath left the lands of the air and sun;   She will take no rest till her course be run.       Follow her far, follow her fast,         Until at last,       Within a narrow transept led,   Lo! she unwraps her face to pall her dead.       ’T is England who has travelled far,       England who brings       Fresh splendor to her galaxy of Kings.       We kiss her feet, her hands,       Where eloquent she stands;       Nor dare to lend   A wailful choir about the poet dumb   Who is become Part of the glory that her sons would bleed       To save from scar;       Yea, hers in very deed         As Runnymede,           Or Trafalgar.