Verily, nothing dies; a brief eclipse
Is all; and this blessed union of our
lips
Shall bind us still though
we have lips no more:
For as the Rose and as the gods are we,
Returning ever; but the shapes
we wore
Shall have some look of immortality
More shining than before.
Make we our offerings at Adonis’
shrine,
For this is Love’s own
resurrection day,
Bring we the honeyed cakes, the sacred
wine,
And myrtle garlands on his
altars lay:
O Thou, beloved alike of Proserpine
And Aphrodite, to our prayers incline;
Be thou propitious to this love of ours,
And we, the summer long, shall bring thee
flowers.
Nature the healer
When all the world has gone awry,
And I myself least favour
find
With my own self, and but to die
And leave the whole sad coil
behind,
Seems but the one and only way;
Should I but hear some water
falling
Through woodland veils in early May,
And small bird unto small
bird calling—
O then my heart is glad as they.
Lifted my load of cares, and fled
My ghosts of weakness and
despair,
And, unafraid, I raise my head
And Life to do its utmost
dare;
Then if in its accustomed place
One flower I should chance
find blowing,
With lovely resurrected face
From Autumn’s rust and
Winter’s snowing—
I laugh to think of my disgrace.
A simple brook, a simple flower,
A simple wood in green array,—
What, Nature, thy mysterious power
To bind and heal our mortal
clay?
What mystic surgery is thine,
Whose eyes of us seem all
unheeding,
That even so sad a heart as mine
Laughs at the wounds that
late were bleeding?—
Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.
I think we are not otherwise
Than all the children of thy
knee;
For so each furred and winged one flies,
Wounded, to lay its heart
on thee;
And, strangely nearer to thy breast,
Knows, and yet knows not,
of thy healing,
Asking but there awhile to rest,
With wisdom beyond our revealing—
Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.
Love eternal
The human heart will never change,
The human dream will still
go on,
The enchanted earth be ever strange
With moonlight and the morning
sun,
And still the seas shall shout for joy,
And swing the stars as in
a glass,
The girl be angel for the boy,
The lad be hero for the lass.
The fashions of our mortal brains
New names for dead men’s
thoughts shall give,
But we find not for all our pains
Why ’tis so wonderful
to live;
The beauty of a meadow-flower
Shall make a mock of all our
skill,
And God, upon his lonely tower
Shall keep his secret—secret
still.