 | Landmarks and other poems |  |
II.
THE DWELLERS.
Come at Morning—you shall see
What a blissful company
Enter in the open door!
Children, children, evermore,
Dancing, singing, laughing, play,
Making merry holiday—
Happy faces, garments gay!—
Introducing Fairy-land,
Back to barren desert sand
Bringing flowers flown from earth:
The long coming-in of Birth!
What a blissful company
Enter in the open door!
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Dancing, singing, laughing, play,
Making merry holiday—
Happy faces, garments gay!—
Introducing Fairy-land,
Back to barren desert sand
Bringing flowers flown from earth:
The long coming-in of Birth!
Come at Midnight—you shall see
What a ghostly company
Pass from out the open door!
Old men, old men, evermore,
Wrinkled, dusty, travel-spent,
Burden-bearers bow'd and bent,
Songless, sighing, halting, slow,
In funereal garments go,
But, upon the threshold, lo!
Sudden children, vanish there,
Lost in light and lifting air,
Beautiful with blissful breath:
The long going-forth of Death!
What a ghostly company
Pass from out the open door!
Old men, old men, evermore,
Wrinkled, dusty, travel-spent,
Burden-bearers bow'd and bent,
Songless, sighing, halting, slow,
In funereal garments go,
But, upon the threshold, lo!
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Lost in light and lifting air,
Beautiful with blissful breath:
The long going-forth of Death!
| Landmarks and other poems | |