Chapter IV

Here lies the tablet graven in the past,
Clear-charactered and firm and fresh of line.
See, not a word is gone; and yet how fast
The secret no man living may divine!

What did he choose for witness in the grave?
A record of his glory on the earth?
The wail of friends? The Pæans of the brave?
The sacred promise of the second birth?

The tombs of ancient Greeks in Sicily
Are sown with slender discs of graven gold
Filled with the praise of Death: “Thrice happy he
Wrapt in the milk-soft sleep of dreams untold!”

They sleep their patient sleep in altered lands,
The golden promise in their fleshless hands.

_Venetian Nocturne._

Down the narrow Calle where the moonlight cannot enter,
The houses are so high;
Silent and alone we pierced the night’s dim core and centre—
Only you and I.

Clear and sad our footsteps rang along the hollow pavement,
Sounding like a bell;
Sounding like a voice that cries to souls in Life’s enslavement,
“There is Death as well!”

Down the narrow dark we went, until a sudden whiteness
Made us hold our breath;
All the white Salute towers and domes in moonlit brightness,—
Ah! could this be Death?

_The Dead Friend._

I.

When you were alive, at least,
There were days I never met you.
In the study, at the feast,
By the hearth, I could forget you.

Moods there were of many days
When, methinks, I did not mind you.
Now, oh now, in any place
Wheresoe’er I go, I find you!

You ... but how profoundly changed,
O you dear-belov’d dead woman!
Made mysterious and estranged,
All-pervading, superhuman.

Ah! to meet you as of yore,
Kind, alert, and quick to laughter:
You, the friend I loved Before;
Not this tragic friend of After.

II.

The house was empty where you came no more;
I sat in awe and dread;
When, lo! I heard a hand that shook the door,
And knew it was the Dead.

One moment—ah!—the anguish took my side,
The fainting of the will.
“God of the living, leave me not!” I cried,
And all my flesh grew chill.

One moment; then I opened wide my heart
And open flung the door:
“What matter whence thou comest, what thou art?—
Come to me!”... Never more