SONG OF MAELDUIN

There are veils that lift, there are bars that fall,

There are lights that beckon and winds that call —

Goodbye!

There are hurrying feet, and we dare not wait;

For the hour is on us, the hour of Fate,

The circling hour of the flaming Gate —

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

Fair, fair they shine through the burning zone,

Those rainbow gleams of a world unknown —

Goodbye!

And oh, to follow, to seek, to dare,

When step by step in the evening air

Floats down to meet us the cloudy stair —

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

The cloudy stair of the Brig o’ Dread

Is the dizzy path that our feet must tread —

Goodbye!

O all ye children of Nights and Days

That gather and wonder and stand at gaze,

And wheeling stars in your lonely ways —

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!

The music calls and the Gates unclose,

Onward and upward the wild way goes —

Goodbye!

We die in the bliss of a great new birth.

O fading phantoms of pain and mirth,

O fading loves of the old green Earth,

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!