Swing in thy splendour, O silent sun, Drawing my heart with thee over the west! Done is its day as thy day is done, Fallen its quest!
Swoon into purple and rose, then die: Tho’ to arise again out of the dawn: Die as I praise thee, ere thro’ the Dark Lie Of death I am drawn!
Sunk? art thou sunken? how great was life! I like a child could cry for it again — Cry for its beauty, pang, fleeting and strife, Its women, its men!
Aye, not a meadow my step has trod, Never a flower swung sweet to my face, Never a heart that was touched of God, But taught me its grace.
Off from my lids then a moment yet, Fingering Death, for again I must see Lifted by memory all that I met Under Time's lee.
There!... I'm a child again — fair, so fair! Under the eyes does a marvel not burn? Speak they not vision — and frenzy to dare, That still in me yearn?...
Youth! my wild youth!— O, blood of my heart, Still you can answer with swirling the thought! Still like the mountain-born rapid can dart, Joyous, distraught!...
Love, and her face again! there by the wood!— Come, thou invisible Dark with thy mask! Shall I not learn if she lives? and could I more of thee ask?...
Turn me away from the ashen west, Where love's sad planet unveils to the dusk. Something is stealing like light from my breast — Soul from its husk...
Soft!... Where the dead feel the buried dead, Where the high hermit-bell hourly tolls, Bury me, near to the haunting tread Of life that o'errolls.
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