 | Song and Story |  |
125
YESTERDAY.
We are met, with tearless eyes,
With variant sounds of sighs,
With souls that many memories fondly sway,
We are met, we two alone,
Where long winds move and moan,
We are met to make a grave for Yesterday.
With variant sounds of sighs,
With souls that many memories fondly sway,
We are met, we two alone,
Where long winds move and moan,
We are met to make a grave for Yesterday.
See on his piteous face
The inalienable trace
Of morning and of youth's impetuous thrill;
And wreathen amid his hair
The ruin of roses there,
And amaranths where the dim dews linger still!
The inalienable trace
Of morning and of youth's impetuous thrill;
And wreathen amid his hair
The ruin of roses there,
And amaranths where the dim dews linger still!
Let his low grave lie deep
For that sepulchral sleep
In glooms where blind oblivion loves to grope!
Deep as our piercing care,
And hollow as our despair,
And dark as the smouldering torches of our hope!
For that sepulchral sleep
In glooms where blind oblivion loves to grope!
Deep as our piercing care,
And hollow as our despair,
And dark as the smouldering torches of our hope!
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About his rigid shape
What drapery shall we drape
Against the unholy hands decay would reach?
Let it be woven and wrought
Of many a mournful thought,
Yet white as the faith once plighted each to each!
What drapery shall we drape
Against the unholy hands decay would reach?
Let it be woven and wrought
Of many a mournful thought,
Yet white as the faith once plighted each to each!
What requiem shall we raise,
Loveliest of Yesterdays,
Above the abasement of your brows divine?
What coronal of sweet sound,
In heavenly ways profound,
Shall music with aerial fingers twine?
Loveliest of Yesterdays,
Above the abasement of your brows divine?
What coronal of sweet sound,
In heavenly ways profound,
Shall music with aerial fingers twine?
Let her take sobs of waves
In void reverberant caves
Where the great sea's elegiac passion stirs;
Let her take gales that go
With dreary adagio
Through lonely leafage of funereal firs!
In void reverberant caves
Where the great sea's elegiac passion stirs;
Let her take gales that go
With dreary adagio
Through lonely leafage of funereal firs!
Let her take doleful cries
Of ominous birds in skies
That vaporous autumn twilights leave forlorn,
Or chimes of chill cascades
That plash through mountain-glades
From livid glaciers in the wintry morn!
Of ominous birds in skies
That vaporous autumn twilights leave forlorn,
Or chimes of chill cascades
That plash through mountain-glades
From livid glaciers in the wintry morn!
127
Let her blend strains with these,
Heard through the Italian trees,
Through olive and ilex when the moon floats pale;
Strains rapturous and yet mild,—
That glory of grief, that wild
Melodious anguish named the nightingale!
Heard through the Italian trees,
Through olive and ilex when the moon floats pale;
Strains rapturous and yet mild,—
That glory of grief, that wild
Melodious anguish named the nightingale!
O music, mix in one,
With eloquent unison,
All sorrowing chords that Nature's lyre can make,
Till your voluminous dirge
May echo and swell and surge,
And speak for the breaking hearts that mutely break!
With eloquent unison,
All sorrowing chords that Nature's lyre can make,
Till your voluminous dirge
May echo and swell and surge,
And speak for the breaking hearts that mutely break!
What lavish flowers and leaves,
Exequial crowns or sheaves,
On his austere tranquillity may we strew?
Pale violets dead for years,
Bathed by dead lovers' tears,
With pathos lingering in their wistful blue!
Exequial crowns or sheaves,
On his austere tranquillity may we strew?
Pale violets dead for years,
Bathed by dead lovers' tears,
With pathos lingering in their wistful blue!
Chaplets that brides have worn
When tyrannous war has torn
Young heart from quivering heart, with tortures keen;
Warm passion-flowers that show
Gethsemane in their glow,
And all the agony of the Nazarene!
When tyrannous war has torn
Young heart from quivering heart, with tortures keen;
Warm passion-flowers that show
Gethsemane in their glow,
And all the agony of the Nazarene!
128
Dusk myrtles that have grown
Round statues overthrown,
Pitying the crumbled grandeurs where they creep;
Poppies that softly bring
Opiates for suffering,—
Red vassals in the shadowy courts of sleep!
Round statues overthrown,
Pitying the crumbled grandeurs where they creep;
Poppies that softly bring
Opiates for suffering,—
Red vassals in the shadowy courts of sleep!
Ivy that wraps its bowers
Round gray disconsolate towers,
Where sombre tapestries wave in dusty state;
Grasses that lean and drip
O'er slumberous pools where slip
The stealthy and bloodless lives that sunbeams hate!
Round gray disconsolate towers,
Where sombre tapestries wave in dusty state;
Grasses that lean and drip
O'er slumberous pools where slip
The stealthy and bloodless lives that sunbeams hate!
Heap these above the clay
Of beauteous Yesterday,
Ere uncompassionate earth enfolds his head;
While on through days to be,
With prescient eyes we see
Monotonous morrows their dull vista spread!
Of beauteous Yesterday,
Ere uncompassionate earth enfolds his head;
While on through days to be,
With prescient eyes we see
Monotonous morrows their dull vista spread!
Wandering wide-sundered here,
But one faint hope shall cheer
The spirits that falter as they journey thus:
That where death dares not stray,
Re-arisen, our Yesterday
In patient immortality waits for us!
But one faint hope shall cheer
The spirits that falter as they journey thus:
That where death dares not stray,
Re-arisen, our Yesterday
In patient immortality waits for us!
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