 | Lyrical Poems |  |
40
VNREST
Day
is again begun
By the unresting sun:
Morning o'er all the lands
Rises with clasped hands:
And in the increasing light
Sickens the Moon of night:
For darkness leaves her there
To linger pale and bare,
Till fullest light, more kind,
From view her form shall wind.
By the unresting sun:
Morning o'er all the lands
Rises with clasped hands:
And in the increasing light
Sickens the Moon of night:
For darkness leaves her there
To linger pale and bare,
Till fullest light, more kind,
From view her form shall wind.
But in this rising morn
Muse not on things forlorn,
Knowing thyself the thrall
Of life beyond them all.
Another day shall pass
Like yesterday that was;
Another night shall come,
Like the last perished gloom:
And thou shalt never rest,
Nor yet attain thy quest:
But, like thy very earth,
Betwixt dark death, dark birth,
Speed, and not know thy speed,
While days and nights recede:
Thy seeming rest to be
Gyres in immensity;
The paces of thy strength
Small measures of fate's length:
Thy waste or use of powers
Predestined to their hours:
And thou thyself?—The sob
Of pallid lips, the throb
Of every heart this day,
By which life ebbs away,
And yet by which life lives,—
Ah, this thy emblem gives.
Muse not on things forlorn,
41
Of life beyond them all.
Another day shall pass
Like yesterday that was;
Another night shall come,
Like the last perished gloom:
And thou shalt never rest,
Nor yet attain thy quest:
But, like thy very earth,
Betwixt dark death, dark birth,
Speed, and not know thy speed,
While days and nights recede:
Thy seeming rest to be
Gyres in immensity;
The paces of thy strength
Small measures of fate's length:
Thy waste or use of powers
Predestined to their hours:
And thou thyself?—The sob
42
Of every heart this day,
By which life ebbs away,
And yet by which life lives,—
Ah, this thy emblem gives.
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