Collected Poems: With Autobiographical and Critical Fragments By Frederic W. H. Myers: Edited by his Wife Eveleen Myers |
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PALLIDA MORTE FUTURA |
 | Collected Poems: With Autobiographical and Critical Fragments |  |
381
PALLIDA MORTE FUTURA
I
This is not shame in her courageous eyes,Nor on those lids the glitter of a tear,—
Nay, but a rapt seclusion of surprise
After such woe to find an end so near:—
How lorn in heaven the hurrying winds arise!
How black the slow waves sway upon the pier!
On the edge of death her haunting memory flies,
And the utmost marvel has not place for fear.
O waves that ebb, O shadowy airs that err,
With you she speaks, with you she would confer,
Demanding dumbly what it is to die:
Yet hush ye winds, nor let the billows stir,
I with a single look shall answer her,
For death knows death and what she is am I.
382
II
For even so forlorn and so forsaken,So shut and severed from all homes that are,
While in the vault the auroral glories waken,
False flames, and dying ere the morning star,
My soul in solitude her post has taken,
Between the two seas, on the narrowing bar,—
Sees on each hand the stormful waters shaken,
The twin Eternities unite afar.
There 'mid faiths slain and idols shattered low,
And many a fallen friend and fallen foe,
She waits by night the flooding tides to be;
And only to herself, and hushed, and slow,
Makes hidden melodies and wails her woe,
Till roar meet roar and sea be mixt with sea.
| Collected Poems: With Autobiographical and Critical Fragments | |