SORROW OF DEPARTURE. For D.

HE sat among the shadows lost,

And heard the careless voice speak on

Of life when he was gone from home,

Of days that he had made his own,

Familiar schemes that he had known,

And dates that he had cherished most

As star-points in the year to come,

And he was suddenly alone,

Thinking ( not bitterly,

But with a grave regret ) that he

Was in that room a ghost.

He sat among the shades apart,

The careless voice he scarcely heard.

In that arrested hour there stirred

Shy birds of beauty in his heart.

The clouds of March he would not see

Across the sky race royally,

Nor yet the drift of daffodil

He planted with so glad a hand,

Nor yet the loveliness he planned

For summer’ s sequence to fulfil,

Nor trace upon the hill

The annual waking of the land,

Nor meditative stand

To watch the turning of the mill.

He would not pause above the Weald

With twilight falling dim,

And mark the chequer-board of field,

The water gleaming like a shield,

The oast-house in the elms concealed,

Nor see, from heaven’ s chalice-rim,

The vintaged sunset brim,

Nor yet the high, suspended star

Hanging eternally afar.

These things would be, but not for him.

At summer noon he would not lie

One with his cutter’ s rise and dip,

Free with the wind and sea and sky,

And watch the dappled waves go by,

The sea-gulls scream and slip;

White sails, white birds, white clouds, white foam,

White cliffs that curled the love of home

Around him like a whip....

He would not see that summer noon

Fade into dusk from light,

While he on shifting waters bright

Sailed idly on, beneath the moon

Climbing the dome of night.

This was his dream of happy things

That he had loved through many springs,

And never more might know.

But man must pass the shrouded gate

Companioned by his secret fate,

And he must lonely go,

And none can help or understand,

For other men may touch his hand,

But none the soul below.