Embers Part 11

Dead, with the dew on your brow, Dead, with the may in your face, Dead: and here, true to my vow, I, who have won in the race, Weave you a chaplet of song Wet with the spray and the rime Blown from your love that was strong-- Stronger than Time.

August it was, and the sun Streamed through the pines of the west; There were two then--there is one; Flown is the bird from the nest; And it is August again, But, from this uttermost sea, Rises the mist of my pain-- You are set free.

"Tell him I see the tall pines, Out through the door as I lie-- Red where the setting sun s.h.i.+nes-- Waving their hands in good-bye; Tell him I hold to my breast, Dying, the flowers he gave; Glad as I go I shall rest Well in my grave."

This is the message they send, Warm with your ultimate breath; Saying, "And this is the end; She is the bride but of death."

Is death the worst of all things?

What but a bursting of bands, Then to the First of All Things Stretching out hands!

Under the gra.s.s and the snow You will sleep well till I come; And you will feel me, I know, Though you are motionless, dumb.

I shall speak low overhead-- You were so eager to hear-- And even though you are dead, You will be near.

Dead, with the dew on your brow, Dead, with the May in your face, Dead: and here, true to my vow, I, who have won in the race, Weave you a chaplet of song Wet with the spray and the rime Blown from your love that was strong-- Stronger than Time.

IN WASTE PLACES

The new life is fief to the old life, And giveth back pangs at the last; The new strife is like to the old strife A token and tear of the Past.

We change, but the changes are only New forms of the old forms again, We die and some s.p.a.ces are lonely, But men live in lives of new men.

We hate, and old wrongs lift their faces, To fill up the ranks of the new; We love, and the early love's graces Are signs of the false and the true; We clasp the white hands that are given To greet us in devious ways, But meet the old sins, all unshriven, To sadden the burden of days.

Though we lose the green leaves of the first days, Though the vineyards be trampled and red, We know, in the gloom of our worst days, That the dead are not evermore dead: December is only December, A s.p.a.ce, not the infinite whole; Though the hearthstone bear but the one ember, There still is the fire of the soul.

The end comes as came the beginning, And shadows fail into the past; And the goal, is it not worth the winning, If it brings us but home at the last?

While over the pain of waste places We tread, 'tis a blossoming rod That drives us to grace from disgraces, From the plains to the Gardens of G.o.d.

LAST OF ALL

Wave, walls to seaward, Storm-clouds to leeward, Beaten and blown by the winds of the West, Sail we enc.u.mbered Past isles unnumbered, But never to greet the green island of Rest.

Lips that now tremble, Do you dissemble When you deny that the human is best?

Love, the evangel, Finds the Archangel-- Is that a truth when this may be a jest?

Star-drifts that glimmer Dimmer and dimmer, What do ye know of my weal or my woe?

Was I born under The sun or the thunder?

What do I come from, and where do I go?

Rest, shall it ever Come? Is endeavour Still a vain twining and twisting of cords?

Is faith but treason; Reason, unreason, But a mechanical weaving of words?

What is the token, Ever unbroken, Swept down the s.p.a.ces of querulous years,-- Weeping or singing-- That the Beginning Of all things is with us, and sees us, and hears?

What is the token?

Bruised and broken, Bend I my life to a blossoming rod?

Shall then the worst things Come to the first things, Finding the best of all, last of all, G.o.d?

AFTER

Bands broken, cords loosened, and all Set free. Well, I know That I turned my cold face to the wall, Was silent, strove, gasped, then there fell A numbness, a faintness, a spell Of blindness, hung as a pall, On me, falling low, And a far fading sound of a knell.

Then a fierce stretching of hands In gloom; and my feet, Treading tremulous over hard sands; A wind that wailed wearily slow, A plas.h.i.+ng of waters below, A twilight on bleak lone lands, Spread out; and a sheet Of the moaning sea shallows aflow.

Then a steep highway that leads Somewhere, cold, austere; And I follow a shadow that heeds My coming, and points, not in wrath, Out over: we tread the sere path Up to the summit; recedes All gloom; and at last The beauty a flower-land hath.

REMEDIAL

Well it has come and has gone, I have some pride, you the same; You will scarce put willow on, I will have buried a name.

A stone, "Hic Jacet"--no more; Let the world wonder at will; You have the key to the door, I have the cenotaph still.

A tear--one tear, is it much, Dropped on a desert of pain?

Had you one pa.s.sionate touch Of Nature there had been rain.

Purpose, oh no, there was none!

You could not know if you would; You were the innocent one.

Malice? Nay, you were too good.

Hearts should not be in your way, You must pa.s.s on, and you did; Ah, did I hurt you? you say: Hurt me? Why, Heaven forbid!

Inquisitorial ways Might have hurt, truly, but this, Done in these wise latter days, It was too sudden, I wis.

"Painless and pleasing," this is No bad advertis.e.m.e.nt, true; Painless extinction was his, And it was pleasing-to you.

Still, when the surgery's done (That is the technical term), Which has lost most, which has won?

Rise now, and truly affirm.