Part 9 (2/2)
Lo! this new Self now wanders round my field, With plaints for every flower, and for each tree A moan, the sighing wind's auxiliary: And o'er sweet waters of my life, that yield Unto his lips no draught but tears unseal'd, Even in my place he weeps. Even I, not he.
NEWBORN DEATH
I
To-day Death seems to me an infant child Which her worn mother Life upon my knee Has set to grow my friend and play with me; If haply so my heart might be beguil'd To find no terrors in a face so mild,-- If haply so my weary heart might be Unto the newborn milky eyes of thee, O Death, before resentment reconcil'd.
How long, O Death? And shall thy feet depart Still a young child's with mine, or wilt thou stand Fullgrown the helpful daughter of my heart, What time with thee indeed I reach the strand Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art, And drink it in the hollow of thy hand?
II
And thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss, With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast, I wandered till the haunts of men were pa.s.s'd, And in fair places found all bowers amiss Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss, While to the winds all thought of Death we cast: Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at last No smile to greet me and no babe but this?
Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hair Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath; And Art, whose eyes were worlds by G.o.d found fair; These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breath With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there: And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death?
THE ONE HOPE
When all desire at last and all regret Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain, What shall a.s.suage the unforgotten pain And teach the unforgetful to forget?
Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet,-- Or may the soul at once in a green plain Stoop through the spray of some sweet life-fountain And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet?
Ah! when the wan soul in that golden air Between the scriptured petals softly blown Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown, Ah! let none other written spell soe'er But only the one Hope's one name be there,-- Not less nor more, but even that word alone.
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