Poems (Blake)/Vale
For works with similar titles, see Vale.
VALE.
Hail, and farewell! O balm and bane Of earthly joy and earthly sorrow!We only meet to part again, And night still shrouds the brightest morrow.
One day, and drunken with delight, The wild bird sings to each new-comer;The next, he wings his alien flight, To find far off the vanished summer.
One moment, and our hearts have flown Through clasping hands and fond lips meeting;The next, we stand and wait alone, While memory holds the place of greeting.
O promised land, supremely fair, To whose blest height our feet are turning!Of all thy gifts most strange and rare For which our longing hearts are burning,—
Will any be so sweet as this: That when the soul,—divinely shakenBy that first throbbing pulse of bliss Which bids its slumbering sense awaken,—
Shall turn to meet its God at last, In that "All hail!" so sweet and tender?Farewell shall evermore be cast From heaven's eternal light and splendor!
Nor, through all time, shall parting rend, Or grief bemoan, or loss dissever,But fair lost hope and fair lost friend Once more our own, be ours forever!