Poems (Dorr)/This Day

by Julia Caroline Dorr

THIS DAY

I wonder what is this day to you,
 Looking down from the upper skies!
Is there a pang at your gentle heart?
 Is there a shade in your tender eyes?
Do you think up there of the whispered words
 That thrilled your soul long years ago?
Does ever a haunting undertone
 Blend with the chantings sweet and low?

When this day dawned (if where you are
 Skies grow red when the morn is near)
Did you know that before its close
 The love once yours would be on its bier?
Did you know that another's lip
 Would redden with kisses once your own,
And the golden cup of a younger life
 O'erflow with the wine once yours alone?

Do you remember? Ah, my saint,
 Bend your ear from the ether blue!
Have you risen to heights so far
 That earth and its loves are nought to you?
Do you care that your place is filled?
 Does it matter that now at last
The turf above you has grown so deep
 That its shadow overlies your past?

O, belovèd, I may not know!
 Heaven is afar, and the grave is dumb,
And out of the silence so profound
 Neither token nor voice may come!
We try to think that we understand;
 But whether you wake, or whether you sleep,
Or whether our deeds are aught to you,
 Is still a mystery strange and deep!