Where hast thou been this year, beloved?
What hast thou seen?
What visions fair, what glorious life,
Where thou hast been?
The veil! the veil! so thin, so strong!
'Twixt us and thee;
The mystic veil! when shall it fall,
That we may see?
Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone,
But present still,
And waiting for the coming hour
Of God's sweet will.
Lord of the living and the dead,
Our Saviour dear!
We lay in silence at thy feet
This sad, sad year!
BELOW
Loudly sweep the winds of autumn
O'er that lone, belovèd grave,
Where we laid those sunny ringlets,
When those blue eyes set like stars,
Leaving us to outer darkness.
O the longing and the aching!
O the sere deserted grave!
Let the grass turn brown upon thee,
Brown and withered like our dreams!
Let the wind moan through the pine-trees
With a dreary, dirge-like whistle,
Sweep the dead leaves on its bosom,—
Moaning, sobbing through the branches,
Where the summer laughed so gayly.
He is gone, our boy of summer,—
Gone the light of his blue eyes,
Gone the tender heart and manly,
Gone the dreams and the aspirings,—
Nothing but the mound remaineth,
And the aching in our bosoms,
Ever aching, ever throbbing:
Who shall bring it unto rest?