Songs light as these may sound, though deep and strong
The heart spake through them, scarce should hope to please
Ears tuned to strains of loftier thoughts than throng
   Songs light as these.

Yet grace may set their sometime doubt at ease,
Nor need their too rash reverence fear to wrong
The shrine it serves at and the hope it sees.

For childlike loves and laughters thence prolong
Notes that bid enter, fearless as the breeze,
Even to the shrine of holiest-hearted song,
   Songs light as these.

I.

Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us
As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by;
To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us
   Goodnight and goodbye.

A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh;
But were we not fools and blind, by day to devote us
As thralls to the darkness, unseen of the sundawn’s eye?

We have drunken of Lethe at length, we have eaten of lotus;
What hurts it us here that sorrows are born and die?
We have said to the dream that caressed and the dread that smote us
   Goodnight and goodbye.

Outside of the port ye are moored in, lying
Close from the wind and at ease from the tide,
What sounds come swelling, what notes fall dying
   Outside?

They will not cease, they will not abide:
Voices of presage in darkness crying
Pass and return and relapse aside.

Ye see not, but hear ye not wild wings flying
To the future that wakes from the past that died?
Is grief still sleeping, is joy not sighing
   Outside?

The wind’s way in the deep sky’s hollow
None may measure, as none can say
How the heart in her shows the swallow
   The wind’s way.

Hope nor fear can avail to stay
Waves that whiten on wrecks that wallow,
Times and seasons that wane and slay.

Life and love, till the strong night swallow
Thought and hope and the red last ray,
Swim the waters of years that follow
   The wind’s way.

Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing
Light and loud through sundawn and the dew’s bright trust,
How the time should come for hearts to sigh in saying
   ‘Had I wist’—

Surely not the roses, laughing as they kissed,
Not the lovelier laugh of seas in sunshine swaying,
Should have lured my soul to look thereon and list.

Now the wind is like a soul cast out and praying
Vainly, prayers that pierce not ears when hearts resist:
Now mine own soul sighs, adrift as wind and straying,
   ‘Had I wist.’

I.

Years upon years, as a course of clouds that thicken
Thronging the ways of the wind that shifts and veers,
Pass, and the flames of remembered fires requicken
   Years upon years.

Surely the thought in a man’s heart hopes or fears
Now that forgetfulness needs must here have stricken
Anguish, and sweetened the sealed-up springs of tears.

Ah, but the strength of regrets that strain and sicken,
Yearning for love that the veil of death endears,
Slackens not wing for the wings of years that quicken—
   Years upon years.

Years upon years, and the flame of love’s high altar
Trembles and sinks, and the sense of listening ears
Heeds not the sound that it heard of love’s blithe psalter
   Years upon years.

Only the sense of a heart that hearkens hears,
Louder than dreams that assail and doubts that palter,
Sorrow that slept and that wakes ere sundawn peers.

Wakes, that the heart may behold, and yet not falter,
Faces of children as stars unknown of, spheres
Seen but of love, that endures though all things alter,
   Years upon years.

Years upon years, as a watch by night that passes,
Pass, and the light of their eyes is fire that sears
Slowly the hopes of the fruit that life amasses
   Years upon years.

Pale as the glimmer of stars on moorland meres
Lighten the shadows reverberate from the glasses
Held in their hands as they pass among their peers.

Lights that are shadows, as ghosts on graveyard grasses,
Moving on paths that the moon of memory cheers,
Shew but as mists over cloudy mountain passes
   Years upon years.

I.

Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken
Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame
Ere the change of things and thoughts requicken,
   Time, thy name.

Girt about with shadow, blind and lame,
Ghosts of things that smite and thoughts that sicken
Hunt and hound thee down to death and shame.

Eyes of hours whose paces halt or quicken
Read in bloodred lines of loss and blame,
Writ where cloud and darkness round it thicken,
   Time, thy name.

Nay, but rest is born of me for healing,
—So might haply time, with voice represt,
Speak: is grief the last gift of my dealing?
   Nay, but rest.

All the world is wearied, east and west,
Tired with toil to watch the slow sun wheeling,
Twelve loud hours of life’s laborious quest.

Eyes forspent with vigil, faint and reeling,
Find at last my comfort, and are blest,
Not with rapturous light of life’s revealing—
   Nay, but rest.

I.

Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee:
Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built,
One shelter where our spirits fain would be,
   Death, if thou wilt?

No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt,
Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree,
Too mean for sceptre’s heft or swordblade’s hilt.

Some low sweet roof where love might live, set free
From change and fear and dreams of grief or guilt;
Canst thou not leave life even thus much to see,
   Death, if thou wilt?

Man, what art thou to speak and plead with me?
What knowest thou of my workings, where and how
What things I fashion?  Nay, behold and see,
   Man, what art thou?

Thy fruits of life, and blossoms of thy bough,
What are they but my seedlings?  Earth and sea
Bear nought but when I breathe on it must bow.

Bow thou too down before me: though thou be
Great, all the pride shall fade from off thy brow,
When Time and strong Oblivion ask of thee,
   Man, what art thou?

Death, if thou be or be not, as was said,
Immortal; if thou make us nought, or we
Survive: thy power is made but of our dread,
   Death, if thou be.

Thy might is made out of our fear of thee:
Who fears thee not, hath plucked from off thine head
The crown of cloud that darkens earth and sea.

Earth, sea, and sky, as rain or vapour shed,
Shall vanish; all the shows of them shall flee:
Then shall we know full surely, quick or dead,
   Death, if thou be.

Far beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises
Heaven, with worlds on worlds that lighten and respond:
Thought can see not thence the goal of hope’s surmises
   Far beyond.

Night and day have made an everlasting bond
Each with each to hide in yet more deep disguises
Truth, till souls of men that thirst for truth despond.

All that man in pride of spirit slights or prizes,
All the dreams that make him fearful, fain, or fond,
Fade at forethought’s touch of life’s unknown surprises
   Far beyond.

I.

Gone, O gentle heart and true,
   Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
   Gone?

   Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
   When we gazed thereon.

Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
   Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
   Gone?

Friend of many a season fled,
   What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
   ‘Friend’?

   Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
   Though the praise ascend?

Darkness hides no dearer head:
   Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
   Friend?

Dear in death, thou hast thy part
   Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
   Dear.

   Time and chance may sear
Hope with grief, and death may part
   Hand from hand’s clasp here:

Memory, blind with tears that start,
   Sees through every tear
All that made thee, as thou art,
   Dear.

True and tender, single-souled,
   What should memory do
Weeping o’er the trust we hold
   True?

   Known and loved of few,
But of these, though small their fold,
   Loved how well were you!

Change, that makes of new things old,
   Leaves one old thing new;
Love which promised truth, and told
   True.

Kind as heaven, while earth’s control
   Still had leave to bind
Thee, thy heart was toward man’s whole
   Kind.

   Thee no shadows blind
Now: the change of hours that roll
   Leaves thy sleep behind.

Love, that hears thy death-bell toll
   Yet, may call to mind
Scarce a soul as thy sweet soul
   Kind.

How should life, O friend, forget
   Death, whose guest art thou?
Faith responds to love’s regret,
   How?

   Still, for us that bow
Sorrowing, still, though life be set,
   Shines thy bright mild brow.

Yea, though death and thou be met,
   Love may find thee now
Still, albeit we know not yet
   How.

Past as music fades, that shone
   While its life might last;
As a song-bird’s shadow flown
   Past!

   Death’s reverberate blast
Now for music’s lord has blown
   Whom thy love held fast.

Dead thy king, and void his throne:
   Yet for grief at last
Love makes music of his own
   Past.

I.

Dead and gone, the days we had together,
Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone
Round them, flown as flies the blown foam’s feather,
   Dead and gone.

Where we went, we twain, in time foregone,
Forth by land and sea, and cared not whether,
If I go again, I go alone.

Bound am I with time as with a tether;
Thee perchance death leads enfranchised on,
Far from deathlike life and changeful weather,
   Dead and gone.

Above the sea and sea-washed town we dwelt,
We twain together, two brief summers, free
From heed of hours as light as clouds that melt
   Above the sea.

Free from all heed of aught at all were we,
Save chance of change that clouds or sunbeams dealt
And gleam of heaven to windward or to lee.

The Norman downs with bright grey waves for belt
Were more for us than inland ways might be;
A clearer sense of nearer heaven was felt
   Above the sea.

Cliffs and downs and headlands which the forward-hasting
Flight of dawn and eve empurples and embrowns,
Wings of wild sea-winds and stormy seasons wasting
   Cliffs and downs,

These, or ever man was, were: the same sky frowns,
Laughs, and lightens, as before his soul, forecasting
Times to be, conceived such hopes as time discrowns.

These we loved of old: but now for me the blasting
Breath of death makes dull the bright small seaward towns,
Clothes with human change these all but everlasting
   Cliffs and downs.

I.

Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon
Between two dates of death, while men were fain
Yet of the living light that all too soon
   Three months bade wane.

Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,
Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune
That death smote silent when he smote again.

First went my friend, in life’s mid light of noon,
Who loved the lord of music: then the strain
Whence earth was kindled like as heaven in June
   Three months bade wane.

A herald soul before its master’s flying
Touched by some few moons first the darkling goal
Where shades rose up to greet the shade, espying
   A herald soul;

Shades of dead lords of music, who control
Men living by the might of men undying,
With strength of strains that make delight of dole.

The deep dense dust on death’s dim threshold lying
Trembled with sense of kindling sound that stole
Through darkness, and the night gave ear, descrying
   A herald soul.

One went before, one after, but so fast
They seem gone hence together, from the shore
Whence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier passed
   One went before;

One whose whole heart of love, being set of yore
On that high joy which music lends us, cast
Light round him forth of music’s radiant store.

Then went, while earth on winter glared aghast,
The mortal god he worshipped, through the door
Wherethrough so late, his lover to the last,
   One went before.

A star had set an hour before the sun
Sank from the skies wherethrough his heart’s pulse yet
Thrills audibly: but few took heed, or none,
   A star had set.

All heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,
The deep dirge of the sunset: how should one
Soft star be missed in all the concourse met?

But, O sweet single heart whose work is done,
Whose songs are silent, how should I forget
That ere the sunset’s fiery goal was won
   A star had set?

I.

Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend
   Mourning on earth.

The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.

Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send
   Mourning on earth.

The world’s great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
   The world’s great heart—

The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart—

Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
   The world’s great heart.

From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,
The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light
   From the depths of the sea.

As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God’s message against him, and may not flee.

Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,
With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight
   From the depths of the sea.

I.
LOHENGRIN.

Love, out of the depth of things,
As a dewfall felt from above,
From the heaven whence only springs
   Love,

Love, heard from the heights thereof,
The clouds and the watersprings,
Draws close as the clouds remove.

And the soul in it speaks and sings,
A swan sweet-souled as a dove,
An echo that only rings
   Love.

Fate, out of the deep sea’s gloom,
When a man’s heart’s pride grows great,
And nought seems now to foredoom
   Fate,

Fate, laden with fears in wait,
Draws close through the clouds that loom,
Till the soul see, all too late,

More dark than a dead world’s tomb,
More high than the sheer dawn’s gate,
More deep than the wide sea’s womb,
   Fate.

Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root,
Finds reluctant voice in verse that yearns like soaring fire,
Takes exultant voice when music holds in high pursuit
   Deep desire.

Keen as burns the passion of the rose whose buds respire,
Strong as grows the yearning of the blossom toward the fruit,
Sounds the secret half unspoken ere the deep tones tire.

Slow subsides the rapture that possessed love’s flower-soft lute,
Slow the palpitation of the triumph of the lyre:
Still the soul feels burn, a flame unslaked though these be mute,
   Deep desire.

Soul within sense, immeasurable, obscure,
Insepulchred and deathless, through the dense
Deep elements may scarce be felt as pure
   Soul within sense.

From depth and height by measurers left immense,
Through sound and shape and colour, comes the unsure
Vague utterance, fitful with supreme suspense.

All that may pass, and all that must endure,
Song speaks not, painting shews not: more intense
And keen than these, art wakes with music’s lure
      Soul within sense.

But now life’s face beholden
   Seemed bright as heaven’s bare brow
With hope of gifts withholden
   But now.

   From time’s full-flowering bough
Each bud spake bloom to embolden
   Love’s heart, and seal his vow.

Joy’s eyes grew deep with olden
   Dreams, born he wist not how;
Thought’s meanest garb was golden;
   But now!

I.

A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
   A little soul.

Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this blind world’s girth
What things are writ in heaven’s full scroll.

Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time’s control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
   A little soul.

The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,
What hand leads upward back to God
   The little feet?

A rose in June’s most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.

Their pilgrimage’s period
A few swift moons have seen complete
Since mother’s hands first clasped and shod
   The little feet.

The little hands that never sought
Earth’s prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God’s servant, brought
   The little hands?

We ask: but love’s self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death’s dim heaven expands.

Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
   The little hands.

The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,
What new life now lights up anew
   The little eyes?

Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?

No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
   The little eyes.

Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
   So strait the wide world’s range,
He would not stay to wonder why
   Was life so strange?

Was earth’s fair house a joyless grange
   Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to estrange?

That here at once his soul put by
   All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
   ‘Was life so strange?’

Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
   The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man’s child were,
   Angel by name.

Rose-bright and warm from heaven’s own heart he came,
   And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth’s wan face with shame.

His little light of life was all too rare
   And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
   Angel by name.

The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
   The song that smiled.

His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.

But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
   The song that smiled.