University of Virginia Library


90

EPILOGUE.

Oh, Love—no, Love! All the noise below, Love,
Groanings all and moanings—none of Life I lose!
All of Life's a cry just of weariness and woe, Love—
“Hear at least, thou happy one!” How can I, Love, but choose?
Only, when I do hear, sudden circle round me
—Much as when the moon's might frees a space from cloud—
Iridescent splendours: gloom—would else confound me—
Barriered off and banished far—bright-edged the blackest shroud!
Thronging through the cloud-rift, whose are they, the faces
Faint revealed yet sure divined, the famous ones of old?

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“What”—they smile—“our names, our deeds so soon erases
Time upon his tablet where Life's glory lies enrolled?
“Was it for mere fool's-play, make-believe and mumming,
So we battled it like men, not boylike sulked or whined?
Each of us heard clang God's ‘Come!’ and each was coming:
Soldiers all, to forward-face, not sneaks to lag behind!
“How of the field's fortune? That concerned our Leader!
Led, we struck our stroke nor cared for doings left and right:
Each as on his sole head, failer or succeeder,
Lay the blame or lit the praise: no care for cowards: fight!”
Then the cloud-rift broadens, spanning earth that's under
Wide our world displays its worth, man's strife and strife's success:
All the good and beauty, wonder crowning wonder,
Till my heart and soul applaud perfection, nothing less.

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Only, at heart's utmost joy and triumph, terror
Sudden turns the blood to ice: a chill wind disencharms
All the late enchantment! What if all be error—
If the halo irised round my head were, Love, thine arms?
Palazzo Giustinian-Recanati, Venice: December 1, 1883.