 | Elegies and memorials |  |
III.
Vain broken promise of unfinished lives!
From your untimely ashes what survives?
Who shall fulfil your unlived half of life?
Who win the crown of your unfoughten strife?
Is your lost future like the dusky shade
The new moon carries in her golden boat?
Ah, no; for in full royalty arrayed
The perfect orb through ether yet shall float;
But neither light nor colour comes to thee,
Faint outline of a life that shall not be!
On that blank page, the student, Fancy, reads
The unwrit story of what should have been,
Sees, mournful paradox, the never seen,
And knows what was not. Yet the grief which needs,
For life's support, a faith and not a dream,
Holds that the spirit in its sigh supreme
With sudden flame shall interpenetrate
Some form unearthly in some unknown state,
A beauteous mystery of meeting bliss
Reserving for the souls that weep and wait.
But vainly towards that state we strain from this;
The earthly heart, the face, the self we miss,
'Tis that which was we fain would re-create.
We talk in earth's old language to our lost,
With our own sighs revivify its ghost:
The form Love meets advancing through the gloom,
Is but the reflex of her own desire,
Flashed on the glass, as in a darkening room
We meet ourselves.—Love once within the tomb,
Shall not that reflex of herself expire?
Can any form our thought may fashion here
Have life beyond this bounding atmosphere?
From your untimely ashes what survives?
Who shall fulfil your unlived half of life?
Who win the crown of your unfoughten strife?
Is your lost future like the dusky shade
The new moon carries in her golden boat?
Ah, no; for in full royalty arrayed
The perfect orb through ether yet shall float;
But neither light nor colour comes to thee,
Faint outline of a life that shall not be!
On that blank page, the student, Fancy, reads
The unwrit story of what should have been,
Sees, mournful paradox, the never seen,
And knows what was not. Yet the grief which needs,
For life's support, a faith and not a dream,
Holds that the spirit in its sigh supreme
With sudden flame shall interpenetrate
Some form unearthly in some unknown state,
A beauteous mystery of meeting bliss
Reserving for the souls that weep and wait.
21
The earthly heart, the face, the self we miss,
'Tis that which was we fain would re-create.
We talk in earth's old language to our lost,
With our own sighs revivify its ghost:
The form Love meets advancing through the gloom,
Is but the reflex of her own desire,
Flashed on the glass, as in a darkening room
We meet ourselves.—Love once within the tomb,
Shall not that reflex of herself expire?
Can any form our thought may fashion here
Have life beyond this bounding atmosphere?
Yet, long-lost sister! can a soul like thine
Drop from the march of Nature's foremost line
So early, so unmissed? Can all her pride
In that rich promise be so cast aside?
Oh, long-lost brother! Shall the myriad years
Make plain to Man this mystery of tears?
Shall light come ever to this blind sad Earth
That knows not what is death nor what is birth?
It will, but not to me. Earth yet shall know,
By a new light, the secret of her past,
Shall ask no more, “Why do I suffer so?”
But smile in one great harmony at last.
And we, with faith in what we shall not see,
May call the dead whose tomb is in our heart,
To rise and take their own unconscious part
Of service in the glory that shall be.
For, could we link their memories to the chain
Of souls whose lights in long procession move
From Past to Future, so might yearning love
Behold their buried beauty live again,
To glide with solemn purifying glow
Along the endless way the ages go;
Might joy o'er something added—casting in
Such jewels—to the world's great treasure heap;
And here and there some living souls might win
To reverent fellowship with souls that sleep.
Drop from the march of Nature's foremost line
So early, so unmissed? Can all her pride
In that rich promise be so cast aside?
Oh, long-lost brother! Shall the myriad years
Make plain to Man this mystery of tears?
Shall light come ever to this blind sad Earth
That knows not what is death nor what is birth?
It will, but not to me. Earth yet shall know,
By a new light, the secret of her past,
Shall ask no more, “Why do I suffer so?”
But smile in one great harmony at last.
22
May call the dead whose tomb is in our heart,
To rise and take their own unconscious part
Of service in the glory that shall be.
For, could we link their memories to the chain
Of souls whose lights in long procession move
From Past to Future, so might yearning love
Behold their buried beauty live again,
To glide with solemn purifying glow
Along the endless way the ages go;
Might joy o'er something added—casting in
Such jewels—to the world's great treasure heap;
And here and there some living souls might win
To reverent fellowship with souls that sleep.
Oh, perfect Race to be! Oh, perfect Time!
Maturity of Earth's unhappy youth!
Race whose undazzled eyes shall see the truth,
Made wise by all the errors of your prime!
Oh, Bliss and Beauty of the ideal Day!
Forget not, when your march has reached its goal,
The rich and reckless waste of heart and soul
You left so far behind you on your way!
Forget not, Earth, when thou shalt stretch thy hands
In blessing o'er thy happy sons and daughters,
And lift in triumph thy maternal head,
Circling the sun with music from all lands,
In anthems like the noise of many waters—
Forget not, Earth, thy disappointed Dead!
Forget not, Earth, thy disinherited!
Forget not the forgotten! Keep a strain
Of divine sorrow in sweet undertone
For all the dead who lived and died in vain!
Imperial Future, when in countless train
The generations lead thee to thy throne,
Forget not the Forgotten and Unknown!
Maturity of Earth's unhappy youth!
Race whose undazzled eyes shall see the truth,
Made wise by all the errors of your prime!
Oh, Bliss and Beauty of the ideal Day!
Forget not, when your march has reached its goal,
The rich and reckless waste of heart and soul
You left so far behind you on your way!
Forget not, Earth, when thou shalt stretch thy hands
In blessing o'er thy happy sons and daughters,
23
Circling the sun with music from all lands,
In anthems like the noise of many waters—
Forget not, Earth, thy disappointed Dead!
Forget not, Earth, thy disinherited!
Forget not the forgotten! Keep a strain
Of divine sorrow in sweet undertone
For all the dead who lived and died in vain!
Imperial Future, when in countless train
The generations lead thee to thy throne,
Forget not the Forgotten and Unknown!
| Elegies and memorials | |