Astrophel and Other Poems Part 16

1893

The sea of the years that endure not Whose tide shall endure till we die And know what the seasons a.s.sure not, If death be or life be a lie, Sways. .h.i.ther the spirit and thither, A waif in the swing of the sea Whose wrecks are of memories that wither As leaves of a tree.

We hear not and hail not with greeting The sound of the wings of the years, The storm of the sound of them beating, That none till it pa.s.s from him hears: But tempest nor calm can imperil The treasures that fade not or fly; Change bids them not change and be sterile, Death bids them not die.

Hearts plighted in youth to the royal High service of hope and of song, Sealed fast for endurance as loyal, And proved of the years as they throng, Conceive not, believe not, and fear not That age may be other than youth; That faith and that friends.h.i.+p may hear not And utter not truth.

Not yesterday's light nor to-morrow's Gleams nearer or clearer than gleams, Though joys be forgotten and sorrows Forgotten as changes of dreams, The dawn of the days unforgotten That noon could eclipse not or slay, Whose fruits were as children begotten Of dawn upon day.

The years that were flowerful and fruitless, The years that were fruitful and dark, The hopes that were radiant and rootless, The hopes that were winged for their mark, Lie soft in the sepulchres fas.h.i.+oned Of hours that arise and subside, Absorbed and subdued and impa.s.sioned, In pain or in pride.

But far in the night that entombs them The stars.h.i.+ne as suns.h.i.+ne is strong, And clear through the cloud that resumes them Remembrance, a light and a song, Rings l.u.s.trous as music and hovers As birds that impend on the sea, And thoughts that their prison-house covers Arise and are free.

Forgetfulness deep as a prison Holds days that are dead for us fast Till the sepulchre sees rearisen The spirit whose reign is the past, Disentrammelled of darkness, and kindled With life that is mightier than death, When the life that obscured it has dwindled And pa.s.sed as a breath.

But time nor oblivion may darken Remembrance whose name will be joy While memory forgets not to hearken, While manhood forgets not the boy Who heard and exulted in hearing The songs of the sunrise of youth Ring radiant above him, unfearing And joyous as truth.

Truth, winged and enkindled with rapture And sense of the radiance of yore, Fulfilled you with power to recapture What never might singer before-- The life, the delight, and the sorrow Of troublous and chivalrous years That knew not of night or of morrow, Of hopes or of fears.

But wider the wing and the vision That quicken the spirit have spread Since memory beheld with derision Man's hope to be more than his dead.

From the mists and the snows and the thunders Your spirit has brought for us forth Light, music, and joy in the wonders And charms of the north.

The wars and the woes and the glories That quicken and lighten and rain From the clouds of its chronicled stories, The pa.s.sion, the pride, and the pain, Whose echoes were mute and the token Was lost of the spells that they spake, Rise bright at your bidding, unbroken Of ages that break.

For you, and for none of us other, Time is not: the dead that must live Hold commune with you as a brother By grace of the life that you give.

The heart that was in them is in you, Their soul in your spirit endures: The strength of their song is the sinew Of this that is yours.

Hence is it that life, everlasting As light and as music, abides In the sound of the surge of it, casting Sound back to the surge of the tides, Till sons of the sons of the Nors.e.m.e.n Watch, hurtling to windward and lee, Round England, unbacked of her hors.e.m.e.n, The steeds of the sea.