Life and Phantasy by William Allingham: With frontispiece by Sir John E. Millais: A design by Arthur H. Hughes and a song for voice and piano forte |
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[I know not if it may be mine] |
 | Life and Phantasy |  |
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[I know not if it may be mine]
I know not if it may be mineTo add a song, nay, half a line,
To that fair treasure-house of wit,
That more than cedarn cabinet,
Where men preserve their precious things,
Free wealth, surpassing every king's.
I only know, I felt and wrote
According to the day and hour,
According to my little power;
Unskill'd to break and weigh and measure
The World's materials—as it seem'd
Lovely, I loved it, worshipp'd, dream'd,
And sung, for sadness or for pleasure.
If souls unborn shall take some note
Or none at all, 'tis their affair;
I cannot guess, and will not care;
Yet hoping still that something done
Has so much life from earth and sun,
Drawn through man's finer brain, as may
In mystic form, with mystic force,
Reach forward from a fleeting day,
But a profound perennial source,
To touch upon his earthly way
Some brother pilgrim-soul, and say
(A whisper in the wayside grass)—
“I have gone by, where now you pass;
Been sorely tried with frost and heat,
With stones that bruise the weary feet,
With crag and quag, with fire and flood,
With desert sands that parch the blood;
Nor fail'd to find a flowery dell,
A shady grove, a crystal well:
And I am gone, thou know'st not whither.
—Thou thyself art hastening thither.
Thou hast thy life; and nothing can
Have more. Farewell, O Brother Man!”
| Life and Phantasy | |