Here you will find the Poem For Charles Dickens of poet Mary Hannay Foott
Above our dear Romancer's dust Grief takes the place of praise, Because of sudden cypress thrust Amid the old-earned bays. Ah! when shall such another friend By England's fireside sit, To tell her of her faults, yet blend Sage words with kindly wit? He brings no pageants of the past To wile our hearts away; But wins our love for those who cast Their lot with ours to-day. He gives us laughter glad and long; He gives us tears as pure; He shames us with the published wrong We meted to the poor. Through webs and dust and weather-stains, His sunlike genius paints, On life's transfigured chancel-panes, The angels and the saints. He bade us to a lordly feast, And gave us of his best; And vanished, while the mirth increased, To be Another's guest. For Death had summoned him, in haste, Where hands of the Divine Pour out, for him who toiled to taste, The Paradisal wine. Well, God be thanked, we did not wait His greatness to discern By funeral lights, in that Too-Late When ashes fill the urn.
