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DEATH AND SLEEP.
The last good-night of the vesper-bell
Shook the still leaf with a longer swell;
The small bird slept in his woven bed,
With brown wing shrouding his weary head.
You looked—and the stars were all away;
You looked—and they spangled the silent grey,
Blossoming out as sudden and soon
As the last new buds in a night of June;
And over the hills was a silver bar
Where the moon kept watch for the evening-star;
For never unloved, and never alone,
The Star-queen comes to her cloudy throne.
Shook the still leaf with a longer swell;
The small bird slept in his woven bed,
With brown wing shrouding his weary head.
You looked—and the stars were all away;
You looked—and they spangled the silent grey,
Blossoming out as sudden and soon
As the last new buds in a night of June;
And over the hills was a silver bar
Where the moon kept watch for the evening-star;
For never unloved, and never alone,
The Star-queen comes to her cloudy throne.
'Twas even then when the sky was still
I saw two shapes on a western hill;
One was sadly and sweetly fair,
Stoled in the gloss of his sable hair;
His fingers were filled with a sheaf of spears,
But their blades were dull with his falling tears.
One was a fair and a blooming boy,
His forehead alight with a quiet joy;
But his lids were low, and his lips locked tight,
And he spake the speech of a dream at night.
One had wings of the raven's plume,
The other was wingèd with silver bloom;
I knew them then, and I know them now—
The Gods of the dark and the drooping brow;
Dreams beyond counting, and nights without number
I had seen the smile of the God of slumber.
The other not yet—but I knew his name,
Before, from his brother, its accent came.
Sleep.
I saw two shapes on a western hill;
One was sadly and sweetly fair,
Stoled in the gloss of his sable hair;
His fingers were filled with a sheaf of spears,
But their blades were dull with his falling tears.
171
His forehead alight with a quiet joy;
But his lids were low, and his lips locked tight,
And he spake the speech of a dream at night.
One had wings of the raven's plume,
The other was wingèd with silver bloom;
I knew them then, and I know them now—
The Gods of the dark and the drooping brow;
Dreams beyond counting, and nights without number
I had seen the smile of the God of slumber.
The other not yet—but I knew his name,
Before, from his brother, its accent came.
Brother of me! I have waved my wing!
The world and its sorrows are slumbering:
I have driven the morning and noon away,
And man is free to forget to-day;
They sleep by the river and on the hill,
Never, before, were their hearts as still;
For I fastened the fingers of sorrow and pain
With a bond, till the sun-light shall break it again;
And Silence, our beautiful sister, keeps
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Thou, who dost love them better than they
Have the wit to know, or the strength to say,
Wilt thou not sit thee and sharpen to-night
The sting of thy spears, that they strike aright,
And tell me thy tales of the sorrow of life,
And the soul's sweet joy at the ended strife;
How Anguish doth strive for its Angel-prey,
Till the glad life springs from the sinking clay;
And the groan of pain is a cry of bliss
When the spirit hath sight of its happiness?
Why dost thou sorrow, strong brother, now
With a drooping plume, and a darkened brow?
Death.
Silver-winged Sleep! when the dawnings break
Do they sing thee hymns for thy service-sake?
Cometh there ever a blessing or prayer
For thy gentle love and thy tender care?
Sleep.
Dost thou not know that the Poets keep
Their rarest rhymes for the Soother, Sleep?
Hast thou not heard as thou flittest along
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At the sick-girl's pillow they know me well,
And woo me with many a magical spell!
But most thou may'st hear them at break of day
Chorussing sleep, when the gloom is away.
The lover that leaps from the promise of dreams
To a bride and a kiss, that no longer seems;
The worker that wakes from his healthful rest
With a steadier hand and a stronger breast;
The love-stricken lady and sorrowing man,
And the captive that slept while the watches ran,
All sing me praise at the step of morn,
For the pleasant sleep that is over and gone.
Death.
Have I not loved them as well as thou,
Though I came with a sterner and sadder brow?
The spears that I bear in my strong right-hand,
Are they not keys to the Better-Land?
Alas! if they strike to the sinking heart,
So must the soul and the body part;
But they open the prison and shatter the chain,
And loosen from life and its lingering pain;
Yet never to me do the mortals sing
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When shall the blindness of man have end?
When shall they know me their lover and friend?
Sleep.
Comfort thee, brother? they do but sleep,
And the darkness of life doth their senses keep.
Spake I not now, that my praise is said
Most when the midnight is vanished and fled?
Kind-hearted Brother! the time shall be
When anthems and hymns shall be all to thee;
For the morning shall come to the long life-night,
Then shall they know thee and love thee aright.
And I saw them fade into the stars above,
With hands fast locked, as in spirit love.
And I wandered again to the city by,
With a hope to live and a heart to die.
With hands fast locked, as in spirit love.
And I wandered again to the city by,
With a hope to live and a heart to die.
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