Time may give way, his weary wings
May drop in middle flight;
The sun may faint, and earth, that springs
As fondly in his light,
As to a mother bending o'er
Her nursling, waked from timely sleep,
May lie, as it hath lain before;
And darkness yet once more
May be upon the surface of the deep.
What worth the cave, within whose chambers coiling
Like a gorged dragon lies, his head thrust forth,
The clammy Dark, when all the miners' toiling
Is o'er, and all the gold has long been spent in mirth?
—As little worth as Thou,
Earth, that hummest now
So proudly with thy myriad souls, when they
Have had their trial here and all are called away.
Then shall the empty planet roll
As idly on the immeasurable space
As doth a blind man's eye upon his leaden face
Or let it be extinguished like a coal,
Its blackness and its cold, let them return:
Shall the stars mourn in heaven, that happy throng,
Their sinful sister long?
I watched the Pleiads one serenest night
(The flowers were shut—a solitary bird
Was in that silence heard),
Pellucid, soft, and bright,
They seemed methought to share
The tender pleasure of the earth and air,
They clung and clustered happily—methinks they did not mourn!