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.