We are forgetting all the ancient lore
Of time-dimmed battles, with their unnamed dead;
All, all have vanished,—we will nevermore
In dreams unfurl their banners stained with red;
A tidal-wave has drifted them away
Into the limbo of Life's yesterday.
We are forgetting all the mighty men,—
The knights in clanking armor of the past;
We care not that by forest and by fen,
Their fighting done, they soundly slept at last;
They all belong to grief so far away;
The long and bitter tears of yesterday.
We are forgetting all the hours of peace,
The sweet sun-sprinkled hours of gold on green,—
The careless hours we thought could never cease,—
The merriest hours the world has ever seen.
They are so very, very far away,—
Those white untroubled hours of yesterday.
For Death goes to and fro upon the earth;—
It follows in the wake of marching men;
And we who knew the olden peace and mirth,
Will never, never know the same again.
The scented wind across the boughs of May,
Brings but the memory of some yesterday.
SHIPS
The great grey ships! We saw them in our dreaming,
The strong grey ships—the ships of our desire,
Watched by the stars, and by the dawn's white gleaming,
And followed by the winds that never tire.
O, but we trusted them through days of weeping,
Blessed them each one, and bid each one depart
With all the brave we gave into its keeping,
The priceless, garnered treasure of the heart!
Long, long they haunted us when gales were blowing,—
Dim wraiths of ships, like shadows in the rain;—
Little we slept on winter nights of snowing,
Thinking of those who might not sail again.
Yet—dear grey ships—the spirits of the fearless,
Lost many a day beneath the deepest blue,—
The souls of mighty sailors, bright and tearless,
Arose from out the sea to sail with you.