The Dying Poet

Swing in thy splendour, O silent sun, Drawing my heart with thee over the west! Done is its day as thy day is done, Fallen its quest!

Swoon into purple and rose--then sink, Tho' to arise again out of the dawn. Sink while I praise thee, ere thro' the dark link Of death I am drawn!

Sunk? art thou sunken? how great was life! I like a child could cry for it again-- Cry for its beauty, pang, fleeting and strife, Its women, its men!

For, how I drained it with love and delight! Opened its heart with the magic of grief! Reaped every season--its day and its night! Loved every sheaf!

Aye, not a meadow my step has trod, Never a flower swung sweet to my face, Never a heart that was touched of God, But taught me its grace.

Off, from my lids then a moment yet, Fingering Death, for again I must see Miraged by memory all that I met Under Time's lee.

There!... I'm a child again--fair, so fair! Under the eyes does a marvel not burn? Speak they not vision, song, frenzy to dare, That still in me yearn?...

Youth! my wild youth!--O, blood of my heart, Still you can answer with whirling the thought! Still like the mountain-born rapid can dart, Joyous, distraught!...

Love, and her face again! there by the wood!-- Come thou invisible Dark with thy mask! Shall I not learn if she lives? and could I more of thee ask?...

Turn me away from the ashen west, Where love's sad planet unveils to the dusk. Something is stealing like light from my breast-- Soul from its husk ...

Soft!... Where the dead feel the buried dead, Where the high hermit-bell hourly tolls, Bury me, near to the haunting tread Of life that o'errolls.