THE DYING POET

Swing in thy splendour, O silent sun,

Drawing my heart with thee over the west!

Done is its day as thy day is done,

Fallen its quest!

Swoon into purple and rose, then die:

Tho’ to arise again out of the dawn:

Die as I praise thee, ere thro’ the Dark Lie

Of death I am drawn!

Sunk? art thou sunken? how great was life!

I like a child could cry for it again —

Cry for its beauty, pang, fleeting and strife,

Its women, its men!

Aye, not a meadow my step has trod,

Never a flower swung sweet to my face,

Never a heart that was touched of God,

But taught me its grace.

Off from my lids then a moment yet,

Fingering Death, for again I must see

Lifted by memory all that I met

Under Time's lee.

There!... I'm a child again — fair, so fair!

Under the eyes does a marvel not burn?

Speak they not vision — and frenzy to dare,

That still in me yearn?...

Youth! my wild youth!— O, blood of my heart,

Still you can answer with swirling the thought!

Still like the mountain-born rapid can dart,

Joyous, distraught!...

Love, and her face again! there by the wood!—

Come, thou invisible Dark with thy mask!

Shall I not learn if she lives? and could

I more of thee ask?...

Turn me away from the ashen west,

Where love's sad planet unveils to the dusk.

Something is stealing like light from my breast —

Soul from its husk...

Soft!... Where the dead feel the buried dead,

Where the high hermit-bell hourly tolls,

Bury me, near to the haunting tread

Of life that o'errolls.