Back to the flower-town, side by side,
 The bright months bring,
 New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,
 Freedom and spring.
 The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,
 Filled full of sun;
 All things come back to her, being free;
 All things but one.
 In many a tender wheaten plot
 Flowers that were dead
 Live, and old suns revive; but not
 That holier head.

 By this white wandering waste of sea,
 Far north, I hear
 One face shall never turn to me
 As once this year:

 Shall never smile and turn and rest
 On mine as there,
 Nor one most sacred hand be prest
 Upon my hair.

 I came as one whose thoughts half linger,
 Half run before;
 The youngest to the oldest singer
 That England bore.

 I found him whom I shall not find
 Till all grief end,
 In holiest age our mightiest mind,
 Father and friend.

 But thou, if anything endure,
 If hope there be,
 O spirit that man's life left pure,
 Man's death set free,

 Not with disdain of days that were
 Look earthward now;
 Let dreams revive the reverend hair,
 The imperial brow;

 Come back in sleep, for in the life
 Where thou art not
 We find none like thee. Time and strife
 And the world's lot

 Move thee no more; but love at least
 And reverent heart
 May move thee, royal and released,
 Soul, as thou art.

 And thou, his Florence, to thy trust
 Receive and keep,
 Keep safe his dedicated dust,
 His sacred sleep.

 So shall thy lovers, come from far,
 Mix with thy name
 As morning-star with evening-star
 His faultless fame.