Lord Tennyson - T. Ramakrishna

A poet of my native land has said -
The life the good and virtuous lead on earth
Is like the black-eyed maiden of the East,
Who paints the lids to look more bright and fair.
The eyes may smart and water, but withal
She loves to please them that behold her face.
E'en so, my Master, thine own life has been.
Thy songs have pleased the world, thy thoughts divine
Have purified, likewise ennobled man.
And what are they, those songs and thoughts divine,
But sad experience of thy life, dipt deep
In thine own tears, and traced on nature's page?
To please and teach the world for two dear ones
You mourned - a friend in youth, a son in age
'Tis said the life that gives one moment's joy
To one lone mortal is not lived in vain;
But lives like thine God grants as shining lights
That we in darkness Him aright may see.
Nay more, such lives the more by ills beset
Do shine the more and better teach His ways.
Alas! thou'rt gone that wert so kind to one
Obscure - a stranger in a distant land.
Accept from him this wreath uncouth of words
Which do but half express the grief he feels.

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T. Ramakrishna (Thottakadu Ramakrisha Pillai) (1854 - ??) India
Source: Tales of Ind and other Poems, T. Ramakrishna, T.F. Unwin, 1896 (Project Gutenburg)