All down the river's stretch I float,
While song-birds carol in the air;
Sweet ripples swirl about my boat,
And all the wakening world is fair.
The world is fair: I should be glad
When Nature showers her gifts on me,
Ah me! my portion is the sad
Sweet bitterness of memory;
And all my world is in one face,
One face upon the distant shore,
That looks and longs for me, whose place
Is with the live who live no more.
For surely this is death in life,
To know that I can never move
The fates, and that no toil or strife
Can ever win me her I love.
I hear the loud cicalas sing
Upon the river's grassy slope,
And still their ceaseless chirrups ring
Two weary words, "No hope — no hope."
O fond white arms that loved to play
About my neck and soothe my pain,
Will there be nevermore a day
For me to know your touch again?
O soft low voice that loved to tell
Sweet tales to my enraptured ears!
O voice that answered mine so well,
In laughter and in loving tears!
O love, my lost, my only love,
Who make the barren years so slow,
I see you in the skies above,
And in the whirling stream below,
Where all the ripples sound and swell
With all the words you spoke to me,
Till life once more runs smooth and well,
While I am fooled by memory.
Come back, O love, to speak one word,
One little word before I die,
One of the many I have heard
And always hear in memory.
It cannot be. The visions wane
And pale before reality;
The world is cold and bare again —
There is no joy in memory.
Yet could I only this believe,
That some day in the heaven they dream
We two should meet, I'd cease to grieve,
The heavy time would lightened seem.
Nought see I but this wretched world,
A shore whereon the fierce wind drives
Weird wrecks upon the shingle hurled,
The jetsam of divided lives.
What hard and weary punishment
The awful fates contrive for men:
They will not let me give, content.
All days of now for one of them!
Ah no! Where'er I pass my years,
That darken on the deathward slope,
Those words will echo in mine ears,
Those weary words, "No hope — no hope!"
II.
Still cradled on the waters clear
The mirror of the dropping sun,
I slowly float, and strangely dear
Appear the days that now are done.
The sunset breezes lightly kiss
The treetops with their last low breath;
And there is happiness in this,
The happiness that comes with death.
They tower in the waning light
Those shadowy trees that stud the dell,
And through the softly opening night
Peals far away the evening bell.
The birds have hushed their noise above,
All through the day they sang their best;
They interchange last notes of love,
And sink with all the world to rest.
A strange and sweetly solemn mirth
Is waiting on the dying day;
Peace holds secure upon the earth
And in my weary heart her sway;
As like a worn-out child I lie,
To slumber rocked on Nature's breast,
And the night-wind comes sighing by
With faintly whispered words of rest.
