in his own right<\/a>, was on a missionary trip in New Zealand when the poem was first published in 1842.\u00a0\u00a0He was suffering from an illness and died in 1843, when he was only 28 years old.<\/p>\nThis short, personal, poem to a dying friend, as scholar Kristie Blair writes, \u201crepeats the scenario\u2026in which Faber represents himself as passionate, insecure, and troubled before a friend\u2019s poise and stability. But here it is Whytehead\u2019s geographical distance, and the real possibility that he would not live to read Faber\u2019s words, which permit Faber to be more open.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can say that again. In the following verses, Faber is joyful upon hearing news of his friend, saddened by the news of his illness, and finally envisions his friend moving on to the Land of the Living and joining the saints in heaven.\u00a0 It appears to me that Faber could give Virgil a run for his money.<\/p>\n
Dedication<\/span><\/b><\/p>\nDear Brother! while the murmurs of my song<\/i>
In refluent waves were dying on my ear,<\/i>
The spoken music blending with the thrills<\/i>
Of that unuttered sweetness, which remains<\/i>
A cherished refuse in the poet\u2019s soul,<\/i>
Still to distinguish him from all the hearts<\/i>
To which, by love constrained, he hath resigned<\/i>
So much of his interior self,\u2014and while<\/i>
I listened, like a practiced mountaineer,<\/i>
To my own voice rebounding from the heights<\/i>
Of song, redoubled and prolonged returns<\/i>
Of pleasant echoes,\u2014from the far-off South<\/i>
Came welcome news of thee, my dearest Friend!<\/i><\/p>\n
Thou spakest in thine own most beautiful way, <\/i>
And in the sunny visionary style<\/i>
Of thy strange solemn language, of the lights<\/i>
In those new skies, the Cross with starry arms,<\/i>
Palpably bending at the dead of night,<\/i>
The star-built Altar, Noe\u2019s sheeny Dove<\/i>
Still winging her incessant flight on high,<\/i>
The definite Triangle, and other such,<\/i>
Girt with huge spaces of unstarry blue,<\/i>
As sacred precincts round about them spread,<\/i>
Through which the eye, from all obstruction clear, <\/i>
Travels the heavens at midnight, and salutes<\/i>
Those orbed constellations hung thereon<\/i>
Like festal lamps on some cathedral wall;\u2014<\/i>
Emblems of Christian things, not pagan names<\/i>
That nightly desecrate our northern skies.<\/i>
Thus with thy spirit softly overshadowed<\/i>
By the most brilliant umbrage of those stars,<\/i>
Thou spakest of the snowy albatross,<\/i>
Sailing in circuits round thy lonely-bark,<\/i>
Fondling its foamy prow as if it deemed,<\/i>
And not unjustly, its companionship<\/i>
A solace to thee on the desert waves;<\/i>
And underneath the great Australian trees<\/i>
A light was in strange creatures\u2019 wondering eyes,\u2014<\/i>
How solemnly interpreted by thee!<\/i>
0 it was all so beautiful, so strange, <\/i>
And with its current intercepted oft<\/i>
With place for some endearment of old love,<\/i>
I thought in thy wild strain how passing sweet<\/i>
The poetry of those far southern seas!<\/i><\/p>\n
Few days elapsed: there came another strain,<\/i>
Fresh poetry from those far southern seas!<\/i>
It sang of sickness and the fear of death,<\/i>
Of suffering gently borne for love of Christ,<\/i>
Who calls us to His service as He wills,<\/i>
Not as we choose; and, mingling with the strain,<\/i>
Broke forth thy simple and courageous words<\/i>
And peaceful trust, as happy and as bold<\/i>
As a child\u2019s prayer. And wilt thou think it wrong,<\/i>
That, when I prayed and wept and deeply mourned,<\/i>
There was a pleasure in my mourning, such<\/i>
As I have never felt in love before?<\/i>
For who that doth remember thee, how pale!<\/i>
How gentle! but would smile for very faith,<\/i>
As Abraham smiled, at thine heroic words,<\/i>
Which mate thine outward aspect so unfitly?<\/i>
Ah! that was poetry tenfold more sweet<\/i>
Than when thou sangst of stars, and ocean birds,<\/i>
And wandering creatures underneath the trees!<\/i><\/p>\n
O more than Brother! my impetuous heart,<\/i>
Nurtured too much on volatile impulses,<\/i>
In loving thee hath learned still more to love,<\/i>
And study with a covetous design,<\/i>
The science of thy quiet nature, calm,<\/i>
Profoundly calm amid all cares and doubts,<\/i>
As though thy faculties had never had,<\/i>
Or left and lost in thy baptismal font,<\/i>
All power of self-disturbance, so serene<\/i>
The unsuspicious greatness of thy virtue,<\/i>
Thy simple-tongued humility, and love<\/i>
Too self-forgetting to have much of fear!<\/i>
Like one who sits upon a windy steep,<\/i>
And looks into a placid lake below<\/i>
Bright in the breezeless vale, so have I gazed,<\/i>
With long affection fathomed to its depths,<\/i>
Into the inspired tranquillity of heart<\/i>
On thy scarce ruffled innocence bestowed.<\/i>
Dear Friend! I speak bold words of praise, and <\/i>
tears<\/i>
Warrant my boldness, for I know full well<\/i>
Thine eye will never see what would have pained<\/i>
Thy lowliness: that supernatural calm<\/i>
Of thy pure nature will be deeper still,<\/i>
Unutterably deepened, ere my words,<\/i>
Not written as to one alive, shall reach<\/i>
The island of thy gradual martyrdom.<\/i>
0 no! thou wilt be once more at my side,<\/i>
A help to my weak purposes, an arm<\/i>
Invisible, in intercession strong,<\/i>
No part of this half dead, half dying world,<\/i>
But to the region of the living gone<\/i>
To pray for us, and to be reached by prayer.<\/i>
When these poor lines have travelled to that shore,<\/i>
Distance and exile will have fallen from thee,<\/i>
Sun-withered wreaths, before the eye of death;<\/i>
Thou wilt be in my neighborhood again,<\/i>
Again come home unto my soul\u2019s embrace,<\/i>
No more the frail and wasting Missionary,<\/i>
But the high Mate of Angels and of Saints!<\/i><\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/div>\n