Time like a falling dew,
Life like the scene of a dream
Laid between slumber and slumber,
Only did seem....
O Alexander, then,
In all us mortals too,
Wax thou not bold—too bold
On the wave dark-blue!
Come the calm, infinite night,
Who then will hear
Aught save the singing
Of the sea-maids clear?
FOR ALL THE GRIEF
For the thing unsaid that heart asked of me
Be a dark, cool water calling—calling
To the footsore, benighted, solitary,
When the shadows are falling.
O, be beauty for all my blindness,
A moon in the air where the weary wend,
And dews burdened with loving-kindness
In the dark of the end.
FAREWELL
Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller’s Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.