On Viol and Flute :: :: University of Virginia Library

Night's canker feeds upon the day's white rose,
This book of verse must have a sorry close;
So leaf by leaf the flowers of joy decay,
And song by song the poet wins repose.

Yea! rest at last from life and life's delight,
Where dreamless faces throng the courts of night,
When softly down his tired limbs he may lay
Where pallid marbles and dark slabs invite.

There you and I at last will have to go,
And if this book prevene us there or no,
'Tis but the difference of a year or twain
If we or it find earlier sleep below.

179

Rise up and come; the iron-coloured breast
Of sombre sea resumes its old unrest;
The air is full of thunderous sounds of rain,
The pale flowers tremble, bowing toward the west.

I sing of love and sunshine, but my breath
Is all too weak to sing of night and death;
The sweet dark hours have found us unawares,
The solemn air around us sorroweth.

Before we go, I pluck the leaves that lie
Most near to where we nestled, you and I;
Behold this knot of flowering grass! It bears
An arcane sense of what it is to die.

Here, under shining stars and dropping dews,
The failing life of grasses Death renews,
Mows them and heaps them to be born again,
And gives them back the green delight they lose.

These pale brown roots and feathery tips may know
More truth of what time brings us here below,
More wisdom far of life and change and pain,
Than all the schoolmen arguing to and fro.

180

One thing is sure, like flower of grass we fade,
Of crumbling clay and dust our lives are made;
O would it were as sure that we return
As that new leafage springs from leaves decayed!

Howe'er it be, find somewhere in your breast
A place to lay these tender roots to rest,
And, if you have a kindly heart to learn,
Their presence may not leave you all unblest.

Death comes, uncalled or wished for, late or soon,
To all men wandering underneath the moon,
But some few years are left for love and song,—
Take heed we do not waste the thrifty boon!

With strength to hold one lover and one friend
Through life, and on till fleeting life shall end,
I care not whether time be short or long,
Nor heed what grief the envious Fates may send.

And if the words my page has sung to-day
Have touched your heart or charmed one care away,
They were not rhymed in vain; and for the rest,
What matters what the passing world may say?

181

But if you find my verses harsh and slow,
Yet bow your head and hear my heart below
Beat warm and true within my tuneless breast,
Then rise and touch my hand and let us go.