V.

Once as the aureole

Day left the earth,

Faded, a twilight soul,

Memory, had birth:

Young were her sister souls, Sorrow and Mirth.

Dark mirrors are her eyes:

Wherein who gaze

See wan effulgencies

Flicker and blaze —

Lorn fleeting shadows of beautiful days.

Scan those deep mirrors well

After long years:

Lo! what aforetime fell

In rain of tears,

In radiant glamour-mist now reappears.

See old wild gladness

Tamed now and coy;

Grief that was madness

Turned into joy.

Fate cannot harry them now, nor annoy.

Down from yon throbbing blue,

Passionless, fair,

Still faces look on you,

Sunlit their hair,

With a slow smile at your pleasure and care.

Life and death murmurings

From their lips go

In vaster music-rings;

Outward they flow,

Tenderer, wilder, than songs that we know.