‘Tell them how, early and late, Glad ran the days with me, Seeing how goodly and great, Love, were your ways with me.’ p. 57XLI p. 57 Dear hands, so many times so much When the spent year was green and prime, Come, take your fill, and touch This one poor time. Dear lips, that could not leave unsaid One sweet-souled syllable of delight, Once more—and be as dead In the dead night. Dear eyes, so fond to read in mine The message of our counted years, Look your proud last, nor shine Through tears—through tears. p. 58XLII p. 58 When, in what other life, Where in what old, spent star, Systems ago, dead vastitudes afar, Were we two bird and bough, or man and wife? Or wave and spar? Or I the beating sea, and you the bar On which it breaks? I know not, I! But this, O this, my Very Dear, I know: Your voice awakes old echoes in my heart; And things I say to you now are said once more; And, Sweet, when we two part, I feel I have seen you falter and linger so, So hesitate, and turn, and cling—yet go, As once in some immemorable Before, Once on some fortunate yet thrice-blasted shore. Was it for good? O, these poor eyes are wet; And yet, O, yet, Now that we know, I would not, if I could, Forget. p. 59XLIII p. 59 The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain— They are with us like a disease: They worry the heart, they work the brain, As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane, And savage the helpless trees. What does it profit a man to know These tattered and tumbling skies A million stately stars will show, And the ruining grace of the after-glow And the rush of the wild sunrise? Ever the rain—the rain and the wind! Come, hunch with me over the fire, Dream of the dreams that leered and grinned, Ere the blood of the Year got chilled and thinned, And the death came on desire! p. 60XLIV p. 60 He made this gracious Earth a hell With Love and Drink. I cannot tell Of which he died. But Death was well.
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