Poetry Archives

        Once as the aureole
        Day left the earth,
        Faded, a twilight soul,
        Memory, had birth:
Young were her sister souls, Sorrow and Mirth.

        Dark mirrors are her eyes:
        Wherein who gaze
        See wan effulgencies
        Flicker and blaze—
Lorn fleeting shadows of beautiful days.

        Scan those deep mirrors well
        After long years:
        Lo! what aforetime fell
        In rain of tears,
In radiant glamour-mist now reappears.

        See old wild gladness
        Tamed now and coy;
        Grief that was madness
        Turned into joy.
Fate cannot harry them now, nor annoy.

        Down from yon throbbing blue,
        Passionless, fair,
        Still faces look on you,
        Sunlit their hair,
With a slow smile at your pleasure and care.

        Life and death murmurings
        From their lips go
        In vaster music-rings;
        Outward they flow,
Tenderer, wilder, than songs that we know.