Iii

Yet Hope survives. And Hope is blest Even when it fools us; loveliest, best Of heaven’s high brood; the hope to pluck Something from out the void; to suck Even from the heart of deep distress That hidden secret which to guess Were a long life’s completest meed; That unseen root from whose small seed Springs the young blossom of Content, A flower oft grown on foreign soil, Around whose hidden life-springs coil Sorrow, and suffering, and death, Sorrow and toil; whose very breath Is blent with sighs; yet in whose breast Still clings the magic perfume--Rest. And as in this far solitude Evening restores with her still mood Much that is lost and hid away Beneath the glamour of the day, So on the last remotest verge, Half-lost against the murmuring surge, ’Midst hollow Ocean-voices heard, Steals floating in that mystic word, The word mistaught, misunderstood Whose half is “Ill,” whose whole is “Good.” The word whose magic stirs the seeds, And knits the stars, and links the creeds: A whisper, solemn, soft and low, Telling the thing we fain would know, Yet could not earlier; only now Now when the tense and busy brow Swims, and the hands fall pale and dead, And in a voice serene but dread Life’s mystic sister, veiled and pale, Whispers the old, the unknown tale, Writ on some dim, mysterious scroll, Preludings of one magic whole. Yet, even while we strain to hear, Duller and duller grows the ear, Less and less clear the accents roll, Receding from the evanished soul, Darker, more dark, the shadows fall, Till grey-eyed Silence covers all.