Astrophel and Other Poems/Threnody (1)
THRENODY.
October 6, 1892.
I.
and ruled its breath,
Changed it, bade it be glad or sad, and hear what
change in the world's ear saith,
Shines more fair in the starrier air whose glory lightens
the dusk of death.
Suns that sink on the wan sea's brink, and moons that
kindle and flame and fade,
Leave more clear for the darkness here the stars that set
not and see not shade
Rise and rise on the lowlier skies by rule of sunlight and
moonlight swayed.
So, when night for his eyes grew bright, his proud head
pillowed on Shakespeare's breast,
Hand in hand with him, soon to stand where shine the
glories that death loves best,
Passed the light of his face from sight, and sank
sublimely to radiant rest.
II.
voiceless praise,
Shines for ever the name that never shall feel the shade
of the changeful days
Fall and chill the delight that still sees winter's light on
it shine like May's.
Strong as death is the dark day's breath whose blast has
withered the life we see
Here where light is the child of night, and less than
visions or dreams are we:
Strong as death; but a word, a breath, a dream is
stronger than death can be.
Strong as truth and superb in youth eternal, fair as the
sundawn's flame
Seen when May on her first-born day bids earth exult in
her radiant name,
Lives, clothed round with its praise and crowned with
love that dies not, his love-lit fame.
III.
the songs that rang
Loud through heaven from the choral Seven when all
the stars of the morning sang,
Shines the song that we loved so long—since first such
love in us flamed and sprang.
England glows as a sunlit rose from mead to mountain,
from sea to sea,
Bright with love and with pride above all taint of sorrow
that needs must be,
Needs must live for an hour, and give its rainbow's glory
to lawn and lea.
Not through tears shall the new-born years behold him,
crowned with applause of men,
Pass at last from a lustrous past to life that lightens
beyond their ken,
Glad and dead, and from earthward led to sunward,
guided of Imogen.