The terrible night-watch is over,
I turn where I lie,
To eastward my dim eyes discover
Faint streaks in the sky ;
Faint streaks on a faint light, that dapples
And dawns like the ripening of apples,
Day closes with darkness and grapples,
And darkness must die.
And the dawn finds us where the dusk found us,
The quick and the dead ;
Thou dawn staying darkness around us,
Oh, slay me instead !
Thou pitiless earth, that would sever
Twain souls, reuniting them never,
Oh, gape and engulf me for ever !
Oh, cover my head !
The toils that men strive with stout-hearted,
The fears that men fly,
I have known them; but these have departed,
And those have gone by.
Men, toiling and straining and striving,
Are glad, peradventure, for living ;
I render for life no thanksgiving,
Glad only to die,
For alike now to me are all changes,
Naught gladdens, naught grieves ;
Alike now pale snow on the ranges,
Pale gold on the sheaves ;
Alike now the hum of glad bees on
Green boughs, and the sigh of sad trees on
Sere uplands, the fall of the season,
And the fall of the leaves.
Alike now each wind blows the breezes
That kiss where they roam,
The breath of the March wind that freezes
In,rime on the loam ;
The storm-blast lashes and scourges,
And rends the white crest of the surges,
As it sweeps with a thunder of dirges
Across the sea-foam
Alike now all rainfall and dewfall
Foul seasons and fair ;
Let the rose on my path or the rue fall,
I heed not nor care ;
Nor for red light of dawn, nor for dun light
Of dusk, nor for dazzle of sunlight
At noon, shall I seek light or shun light,
Seek warmth or shun glare.
Now for breaking of fast neither grateful,
Nor for quenching of thirst,
In the dawn or the eventide hateful,
In the noontide accursed.
In the watch of the night, sleep forsaken,
Till the sleep comes no watch shall rewaken,
Be the best things of life never taken,
Never feared be the worst.
Skies laugh and buds bloom, and birds warble
At breaking of day ;
Without and within on grey marble
The light glimmers grey.
Ah, pale silent mouth, surely this is
The spot where death strikes and life misses,
Warm lips pressing cold lips waste kisses
Clay cold on cold clay.
Through sunset and twilight and nightfall
And night-watches bleak,
We have lain thus, and broad rays of light fall
And flicker and streak.
The death-chamber, glancing and shining,
Where death and dead life lay reclining,
My hands with her hands intertwining,
My cheek to her cheek.
I conjure thee by days spent together,
So sad and so few,
By the seasons of fair and foul weather,
By the rose and the rue ;
By the sorrows and joys of past hours,
By the thorns of the earth and the flowers,
By the sun of the skies and the showers,
By the mist and the dew ;
By the time that annihilates all things
Our woes and our crimes,
By the gathering of great things and small things
At end of all times,
Let thy soul answer mine through the portal
Of the grave, if the soul be immortal,
As the wise men of all climes have taught all
The fools of all climes.
If these men speak truth I come quickly,
My life does thee wrong ;
Dost thou languish in shades peopled thickly
With phantoms that throng ?
Have they known thee, my love ? Hast thou
known one
To welcome the stranger, and lone one !
O loved one ! O lost one ! mine own one !
I tarry not long.
The flowers that no more shall enwreath us
Turn sunward, the dove
Sails skyward, the flowers are beneath us,
The birds are above.
Those skies (an illegible letter)
Seem fairer and farther, scarce better
Than earth to men crushed by life's fetter
When lifeless is love.
And none can live twice, say the heathen,
And none can twice die,
More hopeful than these were are we then
With hopes past the sky !
Yon Judge, will He swerve from just sentence,
For tardy, fear-stricken repentance ?
Ask those who came hither and went hence,
But hope no reply.
And He who shall judge us is mighty,
How then shall I trust
In Him, having sinned in His sight ? He
Is jealous and just.
So priests taught me once, in their learning
Perplexed, slower still in discerning,
Are ashes to ashes returning,
And dust seeking dust.
But the dead, these are tranquil, or seem so,
Nor laugh they nor weep,
And I who rest not, though I dream so,
Ask only their sleep.
I have sown tares and brambles on fickle,
False sands, and already my sickle
Has reaped the rank weed and the prickle
What more shall I reap ?
Can life thrive when life's love expires ?
Are life and love twain ?
Men say so nay, all men are liars,
Or all lives are vain.
Let our dead loves and lives be forgotten,
With the ripening of fruits that are rotten,
So we, loving fools, dust-begotten,
Go dustward again.
