Part 53 (1/2)

Said the Dream to me, heavily moaning, ”Her voice in your slumber is ringing; And where is the end--the atoning?

Can you look at the red of the roses; Are you friend of the fields and the flowers?

Can you bear the faint day as it closes And dies into twilighted hours?

Do you love the low notes of the ballad She sang in her darling old fas.h.i.+on?”

And I whispered, ”O Dream, I am pallid And perished because of my pa.s.sion.”

But the Wraith withered out, and the rifted Gray hills gleaming over the granges, Stood robed with moon-rainbows that s.h.i.+fted And s.h.i.+mmered resplendent with changes!

While, for the dim ocean ledges, The storm and the surges were blended, Sheer down the bluff sides of the ridges Spent winds and the waters descended.

The forests, the crags, and the forelands, Grew sweet with the stars after raining; But out in the north-lying moorlands, I heard the lone plover complaining.

From these to Kiama, half-hidden In a yellow sea-mist on the slopings Of hills, by the torrents be-ridden, I turned with my aches and my hopings, Saying _this_--”There are those that are taken By Fate to wear Love as a raiment Whose texture is trouble with breaking Of youth and no hope of repayment.”

Pa.s.sing Away

The spirit of beautiful faces, The light on the forehead of Love, And the spell of past visited places, And the songs and the sweetness thereof; These, touched by a hand that is h.o.a.ry; These, vext with a tune of decay, Are spoiled of their glow and their glory; And the burden is, ”Pa.s.sing away!

Pa.s.sing away!”

Old years and their changes come trooping At nightfall to you and to me, When Autumn sits faded and drooping By the sorrowful waves of the sea.

Faint phantoms that float in the gloaming, Return with the whispers that say, ”The end which is quiet is coming; Ye are weary, and pa.s.sing away!

Pa.s.sing away!”

It is hard to awake and discover The swiftness that waits upon Time; But youth and its beauty are over, And Love has a sigh in its rhyme.

The Life that looks back and remembers, Is troubled and tired and gray, And sick of the sullen Decembers, Whose burden is, ”Pa.s.sing away!

Pa.s.sing away!”

We have wandered and wandered together, And our joys have been many and deep; But seasons of alien weather Have ended in longings for sleep.

Pale purpose and peris.h.i.+ng pa.s.sion, With never a farewell to say, Die down into sobs of suppression; The burden is, ”Pa.s.sing away!

Pa.s.sing away!”

We loved the soft tangle of tresses, The lips that were fain and afraid.

And the silence of far wildernesses, With their dower of splendour and shade!

For faces of sweetness we waited, And days of delight and delay, Ere Time and its voices were mated To a voice that sighs, ”Pa.s.sing away!

Pa.s.sing away!”

O years interwoven with stories Of strong aspirations and high, How fleet and how false were the glories That lived in your limited sky!

Here, sitting by ruinous altars Of Promise, what word shall we say To the speech that the rainy wind falters, Whose burden is, ”Pa.s.sing away!

Pa.s.sing away!”

James Lionel Michael

Be his rest the rest he sought: Calm and deep.