| |
| THREE days I heard them grieve when I lay dead, | |
| (It was so strange to me that they should weep!) | |
| Tall candles burned about me in the dark, | |
| And a great crucifix was on my breast, | |
| And a great silence filled the lonesome room. | 5 |
| |
| I heard one whisper, “Lo! the dawn is breaking, | |
| And he has lost the wonder of the day.” | |
| Another came whom I had loved on earth, | |
| And kissed my brow and brushed my dampened hair. | |
| Softly she spoke: “Oh that he should not see | 10 |
| The April that his spirit bathed in! Birds | |
| Are singing in the orchard, and the grass | |
| That soon will cover him is growing green. | |
| The daisies whiten on the emerald hills, | |
| And the immortal magic that he loved | 15 |
| Wakens again—and he has fallen asleep.” | |
| Another said: “Last night I saw the moon | |
| Like a tremendous lantern shine in heaven, | |
| And I could only think of him—and sob. | |
| For I remembered evenings wonderful | 20 |
| When he was faint with Life’s sad loveliness, | |
| And watched the silver ribbons wandering far | |
| Along the shore, and out upon the sea. | |
| Oh, I remembered how he loved the world, | |
| The sighing ocean and the flaming stars, | 25 |
| The everlasting glamour God has given— | |
| His tapestries that wrap the earth’s wide room. | |
| I minded me of mornings filled with rain | |
| When he would sit and listen to the sound | |
| As if it were lost music from the spheres. | 30 |
| He loved the crocus and the hawthorn-hedge, | |
| He loved the shining gold of buttercups, | |
| And the low droning of the drowsy bees | |
| That boomed across the meadows. He was glad | |
| At dawn or sundown; glad when Autumn came | 35 |
| With her worn livery and scarlet crown, | |
| And glad when Winter rocked the earth to rest. | |
| Strange that he sleeps today when Life is young, | |
| And the wild banners of the Spring are blowing | |
| With green inscriptions of the old delight.” | 40 |
| |
| I heard them whisper in the quiet room. | |
| I longed to open then my sealèd eyes, | |
| And tell them of the glory that was mine. | |
| There was no darkness where my spirit flew, | |
| There was no night beyond the teeming world. | 45 |
| Their April was like winter where I roamed; | |
| Their flowers were like stones where now I fared. | |
| Earth’s day! it was as if I had not known | |
| What sunlight meant!… Yea, even as they grieved | |
| For all that I had lost in their pale place, | 50 |
| I swung beyond the borders of the sky, | |
| And floated through the clouds, myself the air, | |
| Myself the ether, yet a matchless being | |
| Whom God had snatched from penury and pain | |
| To draw across the barricades of heaven. | 55 |
| I clomb beyond the sun, beyond the moon; | |
| In flight on flight I touched the highest star; | |
| I plunged to regions where the Spring is born, | |
| Myself (I asked not how) the April wind, | |
| Myself the elements that are of God. | 60 |
| Up flowery stairways of eternity | |
| I whirled in wonder and untrammeled joy, | |
| An atom, yet a portion of His dream— | |
His dream that knows no end….
I was the rain, | |
| I was the dawn, I was the purple east, | 65 |
| I was the moonlight on enchanted nights, | |
| (Yet time was lost to me); I was a flower | |
| For one to pluck who loved me; I was bliss, | |
| And rapture, splendid moments of delight; | |
| And I was prayer, and solitude, and hope; | 70 |
| And always, always, always I was love. | |
| I tore asunder flimsy doors of time, | |
| And through the windows of my soul’s new sight | |
| I saw beyond the ultimate bounds of space. | |
| I was all things that I had loved on earth— | 75 |
| The very moonbeam in that quiet room, | |
| The very sunlight one had dreamed I lost, | |
| The soul of the returning April grass, | |
| The spirit of the evening and the dawn, | |
| The perfume in unnumbered hawthorn-blooms. | 80 |
| There was no shadow on my perfect peace, | |
| No knowledge that was hidden from my heart. | |
| I learned what music meant; I read the years; | |
| I found where rainbows hide, where tears begin; | |
| I trod the precincts of things yet unborn. | 85 |
| |
| Yea, while I found all wisdom (being dead), | |
| They grieved for me .. I should have grieved for them! | |
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