Then the songman answered, "O my master,
Love they know, but none may learn it there;
Only souls that reach that land together
Keep their troth and find the twilight fair.
"Thou art still a king, and at thy passing
By thy latest word must all abide:
If thou willest, here am I, thy songman;
If thou lovest, here is she, thy bride."
{112}
Hushed and dreamy lay the House of Dying,
Dreamily the sunlight upward failed,
Dreamily the chief on eyes that loved him
Looked with eyes the coming twilight veiled.
Then he cried, "My songman, I am passing;
Let her live, her life is but begun;
All the days and nights of Sráhmandázi
Are not worth an hour of yonder sun."
Yet, when there within the House of Dying
The last silence held the sunset air,
Not alone he came to Sráhmandázi,
Not alone she found the twilight fair:
While the songman, far beneath the forest
Sang of Srahmandazi all night through,
"Lovely be thy name, O Land of shadows,
Land of meeting, Land of all the true!"
{113}
Outward Bound
Dear Earth, near Earth, the clay that made us men,
The land we sowed,
The hearth that glowed—
O Mother, must we bid farewell to thee?
Fast dawns the last dawn, and what shall comfort then
The lonely hearts that roam the outer sea?