Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Communion
By David Gray (1836–1888)W
Leaps from his lair of cloud,
And treads the darkness of the sea to foam;
When wild awake is night,
And, not too full nor bright,
The moon sheds stormy light
From heaven’s high dome;
Watch of the sounding deep,
And midnight, and the white shore’s curving form,
Wakeful, I let the din
Of their shrill voices in,
And feel my spirit win
Strength from the storm.
It wins, till I can bear
To beckon him who waits for me, apart—
Him, the long dead, whom love,
Deathless, hath set above
All other Lares of
My hearth and heart.
Save where the wind has crept,
And utters at the door its cry of fear.
While the weak moonbeams swim
Down from the casement dim,
I wait for sign of him:
Hush! he is here;
He fronts me, in mid-room;
I stir not, nor a greeting hand extend;
But the loud-throbbing breast
And silence greet him best,
Beloved, yet awful, guest—
Spirit, yet friend!
In his calm eyes to look,
And dare an utterance of my dread delight:
Oh, as in midnights flown,
Bide with me, thou long-gone;
Are we not here alone—
We and the night?
He takes the ancient place,
Vacant so long, a sorrow’s desolate shrine.
Night shuts us in, yet seems
Lit, as in festal dreams,
And the storm past us streams
In song divine.
Its covering of sad art;
Joy rushes back in speech as sweet as tears;
Tell me, I cry, O friend,
Whose calm eyes see the end,
Unto what issues bend
The awful years?
From mountains of the sun,
Over this earth’s unstarred and blackened sphere.
This life of weary breath
Vainly one questioneth—
Oh! from the halls of death
What cheer? What cheer?