Sister, the sun has ceased to shine;
By companies of twain and trine
Stars gather; from the sea
The moon comes momently.
On all the roads that ring our hill
The sighing and the hymns are still:
It is our time to gain
Strength for to-morrow's pain.
Yet still your eyes are wholly bent
Upon the way that Virgil went,
Following Sordello's sign,
With the dark Florentine.
Night now has barred their upward track:
There where the mountain-side folds back
And in the Vale of Flowers
The Princes count their hours
Those three friends sit in the clear starlight
With the green-clad angels left and right,—
Soul made by wakeful soul
More earnest for the goal.
So let us, sister, though our place
Is barren of that Valley's grace,
Sit hand in hand, till we
Seem rich as those friends be.