THE LAYING OF GHOSTS

Oh! weary ghosts, be still!

Sad spectres of long dead delights,

Wan spirits of the days and nights

Wherein of joy we drank our fill,

Lie deep beneath the sod of years.

To-day, to-day is mine!

Ye shall not blight its fragrant flowers,

Nor mar the passing of its hours,

That love has rendered all divine,

By woeful sighs and falling tears.

This is the sphere of life,

Wherein the long forgotten dead

Unwelcome should forbear to tread,

Within my veins hot blood runs rife,

But ye are colder than the grave!

What would ye have of me?

What price that penance did not pay,

What sacrifice of human clay?

Must my delight again set free

Be tethered to a witless slave?

While still upon this earth

Ye lived, and 'neath the joyous sun

Were warm and fair to look upon,

I blest the hour that gave ye birth,

And all my life laid at your feet.

The homage of my youth

I daily offered at your shrine,

Nor counted dear those gifts of mine

Which sapped the very strength of truth,

And left her poor and incomplete.

Nor did condemn the lust,

The soul destroying tyranny,

With which ye wrought my misery,

For in my heart was endless trust,

My spirit, dauntless, knew no fear.

Ye cry that ye were slain

Alas! it was not I who slew,

For all my hopes were buried too

Within that hour of death and pain,

And there remained not e'en a tear.

Nay, it was fate whose hand

Upraised to strike the awful blow

Decreed that ye must die, and go

Lamented to that shadow land

Of lost illusions perished soon!

Wherein the once-time-young

Thro' countless ages seek, nor find,

Their vanished youth; with wandering mind

They sing the songs that once they sung,

But never may complete the tune.

Hence—hence! it is not yet

The hour wherein I too must pass,

The sand runs still within the glass,

And I would live and fain forget

Those bygone things that once ye were.

My lips have touched the rose,

And in its perfumed breast the dew

Has quenched my thirst; and lo! anew

The petals of my heart unclose,

My pulses throb, my senses stir.

Ye shall not steal this day,

For love has risen to my aid,

See, I am brave and undismayed!

Hence—hence! all things must pass away,

Back to your graves, obscure and deep!

I read aloud love's prayer,

Lift not again your haunting eyes

T'wards my new-found Paradise,

Lie still beside my lost despair,

And I command you—Sleep, Sleep, Sleep!