You are no more, but sunken in a sea
Sheer into dream, ten thousand leagues, you fell ;
And now you lie green-golden, while a bell
Swings with the tide, my heart : and all is well
Till I look down, and wavering, the spell —
Your loveliness — returns. There in the sea,
Where you lie amber-pale and coral-cool,
You are most loved, most lost, most beautiful.
You went away in summertime
When leaves and flowers were young,
And birds still lingered in the fields
With many songs unsung.
I'm glad it was in summertime
When skies were clear and blue,
I could not say good-bye to you
And bear the winter too.
She paved the way with perfume sweet
Of flowers that moved like winds alight,
And never weary grew my feet
Wandering through the spring's delight.
She dropped her sweet fife to her lips
And lured me with her melodies,
To where the great big wandering ships
Put out into the peaceful seas.
But when the year grew chill and brown,
And all the wings of Summer flown,
Within the tumult of a town
She left me to grow old alone.
Still are the meadowlands, and still
Ripens the upland corn,
And over the brown gradual hill
The moon has dipped a horn.
The voices of the dear unknown
With silent hearts now call,
My rose of youth is overblown
And trembles to the fall.
My song forsakes me like the birds
That leave the rain and grey,
I hear the music of the words
My lute can never say.
When Love and Beauty wander away,
And there's no more hearts to be sought and won,
When the old earth limps thro' the dreary day,
And the work of the Seasons cry undone:
Ah! what shall we do for a song to sing,
Who have known Beauty, and Love, and Spring?
When Love and Beauty wander away,
And a pale fear lies on the cheeks of youth,
When there's no more goal to strive for and pray,
And we live at the end of the world's untruth:
Ah! what shall we do for a heart to prove,
Who have known Beauty, and Spring, and Love?
I saw you and I named a flower
That lights with blue a woodland space,
I named a bird of the red hour
And a hidden fairy place.
And then I saw you not, and knew
Dead leaves were whirling down the mist,
And something lost was crying through
An evening of amethyst.
Where sinks deep my love, dead love,
That so warmly glowed awhile?
Where the passion of my dreams
And the kiss of afterwhile?
In the City of Delight,
In the palace built of air,
In the smile of dying Day
And the vision of Despair.
Not where Morning shakes the dew
From the sunshine of her locks ;
Not where Evening breathes her flame
And the moon so gently rocks ;
But where gleams the firefly's wing
In the swamp of dead desire ;
And a fairy shrinks amazed
At the passing of the fire.
As we the withered ferns
By the roadway lying,
Time, the jester, spurns
All our prayers and prying --
All our tears and sighing,
Sorrow, change, and woe --
All our where-and-whying
For friends that come and go.
Life awakes and burns,
Age and death defying,
Till at last it learns
All but Love is dying;
Love's the trade we're plying,
God has willed it so;
Shrouds are what we're buying
For friends that come and go.
We were all boys, and three of us were friends;
And we were more than friends, it seemed to me: --
Yes, we were more than brothers then, we three. . . .
Brothers? . . . But we were boys, and there it ends.
There are many countries that I have not seen,
And many kinds of men I have not met,
But all the gracious towns where I have been
Haunt in my brain and whisper there and set
Strange echoes going with their lovely names,
Birdlip and Paris, Fontainebleau and Wells,
Places that live in me like happy dreams
And sound in the present day like distant bells.
Here I am set and there's no end, no end ;
Too soon the vision closes, too long remains,
Like the last long talk one had with a lost friend,
Whose memory lingers on, when friendship wanes.
Better to stay at home ! The towns one sees
Trammel the day with stupid memories.
There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringas
Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;
Still will the tamaracks be raining
After the rain has ceased, and still
Will there be robins in the stubble,
Brown sheep upon the warm green hill.
Spring will not ail nor autumn falter;
Nothing will know that you are gone,
Saving alone some sullen plough-land
None but yourself sets foot upon;
Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed
Nothing will know that you are dead,--
These, and perhaps a useless wagon
Standing beside some tumbled shed.
Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this:
How in the years to come unscrupulous Time,
More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss,
And make you old, and leave me in my prime?
How you and I, who scale together yet
A little while the sweet, immortal height
No pilgrim may remember or forget,
As sure as the world turns, some granite night
Shall lie awake and know the gracious flame
Gone out forever on the mutual stone;
And call to mind that on the day you came
I was a child, and you a hero grown?--
And the night pass, and the strange morning break
Upon our anguish for each other's sake!