Amenophis and Other Poems Sacred and Secular :: :: University of Virginia Library

Where eyes that from youth ne'er look'd on me
But the heart's bright message they bore,
The welcoming lip, the hand's honest grip,
Were mine—mine now never more:—

There with amaranth cross and bay-wreath,
Inane munus, I strove,
Knelt there and pray'd where they said he was laid
To do the last office of love;

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Love reverent, grateful, deep,
For the treasure that only they,
The poets of love, the wise from Above,
To the world in its deadness convey:

For he, Star-crested, Hope-armour'd,
Struck straight at a swelling tide;
In the valley of doubt, with clarion shout,
Chased coward and doubter aside.

Then the vanish'd Presence in brightness
Was felt once more in the room,
While the worn-out shred the great spirit had shed
Lay garnish'd and still for the tomb.

Not there was the soul I had loved,
Where the mortal raiment was laid,—
Death's vanishing spoil, the lamp without oil,
Blank sheath of the God-wrought blade,—

Bare walls of man's house, where no fire
On the central hearth-stone glows!—
Till silently round me a vapour of sound,
The music of memory, rose:—

And Blest are the dead in the Lord;
For they rest from their labours, I heard;
With a Love is best!—and the life now at rest
Was summ'd in that one brief word.