• Around the vase of Life at your slow pace
• He has not crept, but turned it with his hands,
• And all its sides already understands.
• There, girt, one breathes alert for some great race;
• Whose road runs far by sands and fruitful space;
• Who laughs, yet through the jolly throng has
• pass'd;
• Who weeps, nor stays for weeping; who at last,
• A youth, stands somewhere crowned, with silent face.

• And he has filled this vase with wine for blood,
• 10 With blood for tears, with spice for burning vow,
• With watered flowers for buried love most fit;
• And would have cast it shattered to the flood,
• Yet in Fate's name has kept it whole; which now
• Stands empty till his ashes fall in it.

   

• As thy friend's face, with shadow of soul o'erspread,
• Somewhile unto thy sight perchance hath been
• Ghastly and strange, yet never so is seen
• In thought, but to all fortunate favour wed;
• As thy love's death-bound features never dead
• To memory's glass return, but contravene
• Frail fugitive days, and alway keep, I ween,
• Than all new life a livelier lovelihead:—

• So Life herself, thy spirit's friend and love,
• 10 Even still as Spring's authentic harbinger
• Glows with fresh hours for hope to glorify;
• Though pale she lay when in the winter grove
• Her funeral flowers were snow-flakes shed on her
• And the red wings of frost-fire rent the sky.

   

• Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
• I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;
• Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell
• Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;
• Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
• Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell
• Is now a shaken shadow intolerable,
• Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.

• Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart
• 10 One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
• Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of
• sighs,—
• Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart
• Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart
• Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes.

   

• Whence came his feet into my field, and why?
• How is it that he sees it all so drear?
• How do I see his seeing, and how hear
• The name his bitter silence knows it by?
• This was the little fold of separate sky
• Whose pasturing clouds in the soul's atmosphere
• Drew living light from one continual year:
• How should he find it lifeless? He, or I?

• Lo! this new Self now wanders round my field,
• 10 With plaints for every flower, and for each tree
• A moan, the sighing wind's auxiliary:
• And o'er sweet waters of my life, that yield
• Unto his lips no draught but tears unseal'd,
• Even in my place he weeps. Even I, not he.

       

• To-day Death seems to me an infant child
• Which her worn mother Life upon my knee
• Has set to grow my friend and play with me;
• If haply so my heart might be beguil'd
• To find no terrors in a face so mild,—
• If haply so my weary heart might be
• Unto the newborn milky eyes of thee,
• O Death, before resentment reconcil'd.

• How long, O Death? And shall thy feet depart
• 10 Still a young child's with mine, or wilt thou stand
• Fullgrown the helpful daughter of my heart,
• What time with thee indeed I reach the strand
• Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art,
• And drink it in the hollow of thy hand?

   

• And thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss,
• With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast,
• I wandered till the haunts of men were pass'd,
• And in fair places found all bowers amiss
• Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss,
• While to the winds all thought of Death we cast:—
• Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at last
• No smile to greet me and no babe but this?

• Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose
• hair
• 10 Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath;
• And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair;
• These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breath
• With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them
• there:
• And did these die that thou mightst bear me
• Death?

   

• When vain desire at last and vain regret
• Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,
• What shall assuage the unforgotten pain
• And teach the unforgetful to forget?
• Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet,—
• Or may the soul at once in a green plain
• Stoop through the spray of some sweet life-
• fountain
• And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet?

• Ah! when the wan soul in that golden air
• 10 Between the scriptured petals softly blown
• Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown,—
• Ah! let none other alien spell soe'er
• But only the one Hope's one name be there,—
• Not less nor more, but even that word alone.

       

• Let no man ask thee of anything
• Not yearborn between Spring and Spring.
• More of all worlds than he can know,
• Each day the single sun doth show.
• A trustier gloss than thou canst give
• From all wise scrolls demonstrative,
• The sea doth sigh and the wind sing.

• Let no man awe thee on any height
• Of earthly kingship's mouldering might.
• 10The dust his heel holds meet for thy brow
• Hath all of it been what both are now;
  page: 268  
• And thou and he may plague together
• A beggar's eyes in some dusty weather
• When none that is now knows sound or sight.

• Crave thou no dower of earthly things
• Unworthy Hope's imaginings.
• To have brought true birth of Song to be
• And to have won hearts to Poesy,
• Or anywhere in the sun or rain
• 20To have loved and been beloved again,
• Is loftiest reach of Hope's bright wings.

• The wild waifs cast up by the sea
• Are diverse ever seasonably.
• Even so the soul-tides still may land
• A different drift upon the sand.
  page: 269  
• But one the sea is evermore:
• And one be still, 'twixt shore and shore,
• As the sea's life, thy soul in thee.

• Say, hast thou pride? How then may fit
• 30Thy mood with flatterers' silk-spun wit?
• Haply the sweet voice lifts thy crest,
• A breeze of fame made manifest.
page: 270  
• Nay, but then chaf'st at flattery? Pause:
• Be sure thy wrath is not because
• It makes thee feel thou lovest it.

• Let thy soul strive that still the same
• Be early friendship's sacred flame.
• The affinities have strongest part
• In youth, and draw men heart to heart:
• 40As life wears on and finds no rest,
• The individual in each breast
• Is tyrannous to sunder them.

• In the life-drama's stern cue-call,
• A friend's a part well-prized by all:
• And if thou meet an enemy,
• What art thou that none such should be?
page: 271  
• Even so: but if the two parts run
• Into each other and grow one,
• Then comes the curtain's cue to fall.

• 50Whate'er by other's need is claimed
• More than by thine,—to him unblamed
• Resign it: and if he should hold
• What more than he thou lack'st, bread, gold,
• Or any good whereby we live,—
• To thee such substance let him give
• Freely: nor he nor thou be shamed.

• Strive that thy works prove equal: lest
• That work which thou hast done the best
• Should come to be to thee at length
• 60(Even as to envy seems the strength
page: 272  
• Of others) hateful and abhorr'd,—
• Thine own above thyself made lord,—
• Of self-rebuke the bitterest.

• Unto the man of yearning thought
• And aspiration, to do nought
• Is in itself almost an act,—
• Being chasm-fire and cataract
• Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd.
• Yet woe to thee if once thou yield
• 70Unto the act of doing nought!

• How callous seems beyond revoke
• The clock with its last listless stroke!
• How much too late at length!—to trace
• The hour on its forewarning face,