- A FAREWELL
LIFT not your head before you turn away!
Let not your eyes grow tender, as they grew
Long since — long since! Oh! it is hard to say
How long, so cruel-fast that hour flew!
Go, then, and take away with you the light
Laughter of all the leaves, the pleasant stir
Of all the rain falling on all the flowers;
You cannot take away with you the night!
That you must leave — Love's Holy Sepulchre;
Whereat forlorn hope weeps thro' the dead hours.
Go, then, and take with you the tender mist,
That all these days has floated round the trees,
And gathered in the glens and lightly kissed
The willows quivering in the scarce- felt breeze;
Take it with you and with it take along
The vague sweet thoughts that into it I've poured,
Glimpses and dreams, such as the gods afford,
So rarely, that to earth they scarce belong.
Take them with you! They are far better gone
Than mirrored in my heart, as on a stone.
Go quickly, with no word, if you must go;
Nay, it is only pity in your eyes;
Only sweet pity — and too well I know
How soon that little mist will leave its skies!
