AN AUTUMN DIRGE
(E. F. H.)
I
O ease my heart, sad song, O ease my heart!
In all this autumn pageantry no part
Hath sorrow! Woods, and fields, and meadows glow
With jeweled colors. All alone I go
Amid the poignant beauty of the year,
Too heavy-hearted for one easeful tear.
For she who loved this autumn splendor,
These flaming marsh-flowers, oak-leaves rich and tender,—
And who in loving all, made all to me more dear,—
No more is here;
No more, no more is here!
Sad song, O, bring some thought
With music from some happy memory caught!
No light for me in all the lovely day
Those eyes being shut that first did lead the way
'Neath these great pines whose green vault hides the sky,
And down the rock-strewn shore where the white seabirds cry!
II
All fades but those young, happy hours,
And in my soul once more the old joy flowers.
It flowers once more only to bring new pain;
For all in vain,
O song! thou singest in my grieving heart!
Thou hast no art
To bring again the smile I loved so well,
The voice that like a bell
Sounded all moods of sorrow and of laughter,
And the dear presence that in childhood's earliest thought,
And all the bright or darkened days thereafter,
Into my life a saddened sweetness brought—
Something of mother and of sister love,
A friendship far above
The ties that bind and loosen as we tread
The throngèd pleasures of life's later days.
Sweet maiden soul, I cannot praise
But mourn thee, mourn thee, to the shadows fled.
III
Shadows, O nevermore!
For when past forth thy spirit it did seem
As if against the black a golden door
Were opened and a gleam
From the eternal Light fell on thy face
And made a visible glory in the place.
Ah, well I know
Whatever be the source from whence we flow,
Whate'er the power begot these hearts of ours,—
As the great earth brings forth the summer flowers,—
That power is good, is God, and in her dying room
Humaned itself to sense and lightened all the gloom.
