| |
| HOW often have I said, | |
| “We may not grieve for the immortal dead.” | |
| And now, poor blenchèd heart, | |
| Thy ruddy hues all tremulous depart. | |
| Why be with fate at strife | 5 |
| Because one passes on from death to life, | |
| Who may no more delay | |
| Rapt from our strange and pitiful dream away | |
| By one with ancient claim | |
| Who robes her with the spirit like a flame. | 10 |
| Not lost this high belief— | |
| Oh, passionate heart, what is thy cause for grief? | |
| Is this thy sorrow now, | |
| She in eternal beauty may not bow | |
| Thy troubles to efface | 15 |
| As in old time a head with gentle grace | |
| All tenderly laid by thine | |
| Taught thee the nearness of the love divine. | |
| Her joys no more for thee | |
| Than the impartial laughter of the sea, | 20 |
| Her beauty no more fair | |
| For thee alone, but starry, everywhere. | |
| Her pity dropped for you | |
| No more than heaven above with healing dew | |
| Favours one home of men— | 25 |
| Ah! grieve not; she becomes herself again, | |
| And passed beyond thy sight | |
| She roams along the thought-swept fields of light, | |
| Moving in dreams until | |
| She finds again the root of ancient will, | 30 |
| The old heroic love | |
| That emptied once the heavenly courts above. | |
| The angels heard from earth | |
| A mournful cry which shattered all their mirth, | |
| Raised by a senseless rout | 35 |
| Warring in chaos with discordant shout, | |
| And that the pain might cease | |
| They grew rebellious in the Master’s peace; | |
| And falling downward then | |
| The angelic lights were crucified in men; | 40 |
| Leaving so radiant spheres | |
| For earth’s dim twilight ever wet with tears | |
| That through those shadows dim | |
| Might breathe the lovely music brought from Him. | |
| And now my grief I see | 45 |
| Was but that ancient shadow part of me, | |
| Not yet attuned to good, | |
| Still blind and senseless in its warring mood, | |
| I turn from it and climb | |
| To the heroic spirit of the prime, | 50 |
| The light that well foreknew | |
| All the dark ways that it must journey through. | |
| Yet seeing still a gain, | |
| A distant glory o’er the hills of pain, | |
| Through all that chaos wild | 55 |
| A breath as gentle as a little child, | |
| Through earth transformed, divine, | |
| The Christ-soul of the universe to shine. | |
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