Page:Preludes, Meynell, 1875.djvu/117

Gone, gone into the west, for ever gone,
O little one, my flower; not you alone,
My son who are leaving me, but he, the child
Of five years back. That is the worst farewell.
I had not thought him lost until to-day.
But he had kept with me until to-day;—
Never seen, never heard; but he was there,
Behind the door on which I laid my hand,
Out in the garden when I sat within,
A turn of road before me in my walks.
As others greet a presence I did greet
An absence, O my sweet, my sweet surprise!
How will it be now? for he is so changed
I hardly knew the face I saw pass by.
And yet it is the one that must of needs
Grow from that long ago face innocent,
Grave with the presage of a human life.
So, child, giving again in thought my kiss,
My last, long since, I kiss you tall and changed
In that one kiss, and kiss you a man and old,
And so I kiss you dead. And yet, O child,
O child, a certain soul goes from my days;

They fall together like a rosary told,