There is no morrow to this final dream
That paints the past so wonderfully fair;
No rising sun shall desecrate that gleam
Of fragile colour hanging on the air.
Enshrined in sunset are all things that seem
Happy and beautiful; and Thou art there.
VIII
Across the evening calm I faintly hear
The melody you loved; a violin
Sings through the listening air, far-off and thin,
The infinite music of our happy year.
The soul's dim gates are broken to let in
That gush of memories, and you are near,
Poised on the shadowy threshold whence appear
The prospects of the dreams we strove to win.
Rise wistfully, and fall away, and pass,
Frail music of impossible delight,
Steal into silence over the dark grass,
Dreams of the inner caverns of the night.
Strange that in those few hesitating bars
Are life and death, the orbits of the stars.
IX
Calmer than mirrored waters after rain,
Calmer than all the swaying tides of sleep,
Profounder than the stony eyes that keep
Afternoon vigil on the ruined plain;
So drift they by, the cloudy forms that creep
In stealthy whiteness through the windless grain;
The twilight ebbs, and washed in the long rain,
I am their shepherd, pasturing my sheep.
They can not change; they can but wander here;
That is their destiny and also mine;
The fuel that I was, the flames they were,
Are vanished down the lost horizon line.
Likewise the stars have died; the silence hears
Only the footfall of the pastured years.
X
I stood like some worn image carved of stone
Amid the thoughtful sands of eventide;
When rolling back the grey, there opened wide
The unsuspected gates of the Unknown.
Long hours I stood, amazed and deified,
Beside that singing shore; that shining zone,
Myself like God, triumphantly alone,
"And is this then the shore of death?" I cried.
A wind blew down from the tremendous sky,
Fraught with a whisper fainter than a breath,
Fanning my spirit with exalted wonder;
But the great doors swung to with rumbling thunder;
One more the winged faith had passed me by,
Like unto melody, like unto death.