 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
“THIS HOUR MY HEART WENT FORTH, AS IN OLD DAYS”
This hour my heart went forth, as in old days,To one I loved, forgetting she was dead—
So fluttered back the message, like the dove
That found no rest in all the weltering world.
Is it then so—all blankness and black void,
No welcome, no response, no voice, no sign?
Ah, Heaven! let us be foolish—give us faith
In what is not; cheat us a little longer;
Comfort us mortals with envisioned forms;
Let us, tho' but in dreams, see spirits near,
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That hold the souls we love—that have gone forth
Into the land of shadows, but still live
In memory, O, most dear! Beguile our lives
With dim, half-fashioned phantoms of dead hours,
Lest the long way grow hateful; give us faith
Unreasoned, vague, unsubstanced, but still faith;
For faith is hope, and hope alone is life.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |