The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

With a wild cry he dropped his harp adown
Scarce knowing what a change in him was grown,
He smote his hands together, and ran on
As though he deemed at last the end nigh won,
For far away betwixt the trees 'gan gleam
A feeble light, that verily did seem
To be the day:

“O me, Eurydice,
Be swift,” he cried, “to follow after me,
For in the world, if nowhere else, love lives,
And with the very best of all he gives
Shall we be glad, if for a little space.
O the fair earth, my sweet, the joyous place,
Filled with the pleasure of thy loveliness
New-born at last my weary eyes to bless!”

No answer to his breathless cry there came
Whatso he hoped; again he cried her name,
And the light broadened, as his swift feet drew
On toward it, until breathless, dazed, he knew
The goal anigh, but on he staggered still:
The trees grew thinner, the world's light did fill
His eyes, his heart: yet e'en with all so won
The last sick fear and horror fell upon
His quivering soul—Was all a dream, drawn forth
From his great grief that the Gods held no worth
More than another's?

Sick and faint he stood
Now on the very border of the wood,
And strove to think and strove to heed and see.
Without the winter wind sang mournfully
About the lonely place, and the light snow
Was driven round about and to and fro,
Veiling the sky and earth: he gasped for breath
For all seemed failing:

“O thou bitter Death,”
He cried, “and shall I die, and shall she live,

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Is [this] then all the gift that thou wilt give,
Her life for my life?”

Still he faced the world
And heard no sound but of the wind that hurled
The white snow up and on; till suddenly
Rigid and stark he grew, and shrieked:

“A lie,
A lie! she never followed me, but dwells
Down in the dark depths whereof no tongue tells.”

Then with a dreadful face slowly he turned
Unto the wood, and through the dark there burned
A sudden white light, pure, that blinded not,
And for an instant all was well forgot
But very love; for through the midst of it
His mortal eyes beheld her body flit,
Yea coming toward him: her remembered eyes
Gazing upon him in no other wise
Than when upon the earth in some fair wood
Their feet drew each to each and all was good.

So was it for a space no man may name
Or measure; then a dreadful darkness came
O'er all things, such a sickening void as though
His feet alone must wander to and fro
About a wide waste world made all in vain,
The very body of the deathless pain
Immeasurable, that was himself, his soul.
He moved and knew it not; the wind did roll
The snowflakes greater grown still o'er and o'er,
And in the close-set beech-trees did it roar,
As on the white world went the dusk adown
Mid cold and clamour: but o'er him was thrown
The dreadful silence of the Gods, as he
Went through the unheeding world most listlessly,
With heart too dead to think of life or death,
Which was the best, or why he yet drew breath.