p. 65

Gray hills, gray skies, gray lights, And still, gray sea— O fond, O fair, The Mays that were, When the wild days and wilder nights Made it like heaven to be!

Gray head, gray heart, gray dreams— O, breath by breath, Night-tide and day Lapse gentle and gray, As to a murmur of tired streams, Into the haze of death.

p. 66XLIX

p. 66

Silence, loneliness, darkness—  These, and of these my fill, While God in the rush of the Maytide Without is working His will.

Without are the wind and the wall-flowers, The leaves and the nests and the rain, And in all of them God is making His beautiful purpose plain.

But I wait in a horror of strangeness—  A tool on His workshop floor, Worn to the butt, and banished His hand for evermore.

p. 67L

p. 67

So let me hence as one Whose part in the world has been dreamed out and done: One that hath fairly earned and spent In pride of heart and jubilance of blood Such wages, be they counted bad or good, As Time, the old taskmaster, was moved to pay; And, having warred and suffered, and passed on Those gifts the Arbiters preferred and gave, Fare, grateful and content, Down the dim way Whereby races innumerable have gone, Into the silent universe of the grave.

Grateful for what hath been— For what my hand hath done, mine eyes have seen, My heart been privileged to know; p. 68With all my lips in love have brought To lips that yearned in love to them, and wrought In the way of wrath, and pity, and sport, and song: Content, this miracle of being alive Dwindling, that I, thrice weary of worst and best, May shed my duds, and go From right and wrong, And, ceasing to regret, and long, and strive, Accept the past, and be for ever at rest.

p. 68

p. 69FINALE

p. 69

Schizzando ma con sentimento

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