LOVE OUTLOVED

Love cometh and love goeth,

And he is wise who knoweth

Whither and whence love flies:

But wise and yet more wise

Are they that heed not whence he flies or whither

Who hither speeds to-day, to-morrow thither;

Like to the wind that as it listeth blows,

And man doth hear the sound thereof, but knows

Nor whence it comes nor whither yet it goes.

O sweet my sometime loved and worshipt one

A day thou gavest me

That rose full-orbed in starlike happiness

And lit our heaven that other stars had none:—

Sole as that westering sphere companionless

When twilight is begun

And the dead sun transfigureth the sea:

A day so bright

Methought the very shadow, from its light

Thrown, were enough to bless

( Albeit with but a shadow's benison )

The unborn days its dark posterity.

Methought our love, though dead, should be

Fair as in life, by memory

Embalmed, a rose with bloom for aye unblown.

But lo the forest is with faded leaves

And our two hearts with faded loves bestrown,

And in mine ear the weak wind grieves

And uttereth moan:

“Shed leaves and fallen, fallen loves and shed,

And those are dead and these are more than dead;

And those have known

The springtime, these the lovetime, overthrown,

With all fair times and pleasureful that be.”

And shall not we, O Time, and shall not we

Thy strong self see

Brought low and vanquishèd,

And made to bow the knee

And bow the head

To one that is when thou and thine are fled,

The silent-eyed austere Eternity?

Behold a new song still the lark doth sing

Each morning when he riseth from the grass,

And no man sigheth for the song that was,

The melody that yestermorn did bring.

The rose dies and the lily, and no man mourns

That nevermore the selfsame flower returns:

For well we know a thousand flowers will spring,

A thousand birds make music on the wing.

Ay me! fair things and sweet are birds and flowers,

The scent of lily and rose in gardens still,

The babble of beakèd mouths that speak no ill:

And love is sweeter yet than flower or bird,

Or any odor smelled or ditty heard —

Love is another and a sweeter thing.

But when the music ceaseth in Love's bowers,

Who listeneth well shall hear the silence stirred

With aftermoan of many a fretful string:

For when Love harpeth to the hollow hours,

His gladdest notes make saddest echoing.