118
BY THE DEAD.
Despoiled at last, and waste and barren lies
This once so rich domain. Where lives and moves,
In what new world, the splendor of these eyes
That dauntless lightened like imperial Jove's?
This once so rich domain. Where lives and moves,
In what new world, the splendor of these eyes
That dauntless lightened like imperial Jove's?
Annihilated, do you answer me?
Blown out and vanished like a candle flame?
Is nothing left but this pale effigy,
This silence drear, this dread without a name?
Blown out and vanished like a candle flame?
Is nothing left but this pale effigy,
This silence drear, this dread without a name?
Has it been all in vain, our love and pride,
This yearning love that still pursues our friend
Into the awful dark, unsatisfied,
Bereft, and wrung with pain? Is this the end?
This yearning love that still pursues our friend
Into the awful dark, unsatisfied,
Bereft, and wrung with pain? Is this the end?
Would God so mock us? To our human sense
No answer reaches through the doubtful air;
Yet with a living hope, profound, intense,
Our tortured souls rebel against despair;
No answer reaches through the doubtful air;
Yet with a living hope, profound, intense,
Our tortured souls rebel against despair;
As bowing to the bitter fate we go
Drooping and dumb as if beneath a curse;
But does not pitying Heaven answer "No!"
With all the voices of the universe?
Drooping and dumb as if beneath a curse;
But does not pitying Heaven answer "No!"
With all the voices of the universe?
