in the face of ill!
Our spirits thrilled to answer thrill,
And trembled in their dream.
Truth comes, and tears, and glamour goes.
There's speech within the blood
More eloquent than language knows,
And woes make signal unto woes
While pity breathes and passion blows:
We looked:----we understood.
On summer's heart fell winter's snows ...
The death that dissipates the rose
Was busy in the bud ...
The spectre beckoned: none could save ...
The sundering grave ... The sundering grave! ...
Our lonely love in time could be
But whisper of a broken wave
Lost in a boundless sea ...
She spoke, so fair, so pale, so brave,----
Across infinity!
Ah meekness mute with tragedy!...
My body stirred as in a grave,
And looked forth wonderingly ...
The everlasting sea serene
'Neath everlasting sky
Shone, and across the morning sheen
The deathless winds went by.
And a face was there that I never had seen;
And a shadow stood where a glory had been;
The beauty hung at my heart like pain;
And love was lovely, but life was bane,
For all should die,--but the wonder remain,
And the earth, and the sea, and the sky ...
The hills have winds, the fields have flowers;
Not all alone is the wintry tree;
The stars that gleam in cloudy bowers
Have stars for company;
The waste hath peace of the drifting hours;
And night brings joy to the hoary sea:
But the heart of man is a lonely thing;
And lone the soul of the secret vows,
With its wasted love and its wounded wing,
In a withered world that hath no spring,
No burgeoning boughs:
The soul of man is the loneliest thing
In life's eternal wandering
That God allows ...
O, isle of dreams, and orient shore!
Ah miracle in sea and sky!
Ah youth that fleeting love made soar
To heaven! The glory upon high
To dusk hath waned, yet comes once more
A wonder and a cry!...
The ship's bell tolled off that fair land;
The sails bulged buoyantly:
The sun rose mute, and large, and bland;
The favouring wind swung free.
We stood from that enchanted strand
Into the morning sea.
We rode down swinging winds away,
Far o'er the moving waters wan,
Seen low at pale meridan,
The land was grey.
The dusk cam
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