Dedication - A Channel Passage and Other Poems

The sea that is life everlasting     And death everlasting as life     Abides not a pilot's forecasting,     Foretells not of peace or of strife.     The might of the night that was hidden     Arises and darkens the day,     A glory rebuked and forbidden,     Time's crown, and his prey.     No sweeter, no kindlier, no fairer,     No lovelier a soul from its birth     Wore ever a brighter and rarer     Life's raiment for life upon earth     Than his who enkindled and cherished     Art's vestal and luminous flame,     That dies not when kingdoms have perished     In storm or in shame.     No braver, no trustier, no purer,     No stronger and clearer a soul     Bore witness more splendid and surer     For manhood found perfect and whole     Since man was a warrior and dreamer     Than his who in hatred of wrong     Would fain have arisen a redeemer     By sword or by song.     Twin brethren in spirit, immortal     As art and as love, which were one     For you from the birthday whose portal     First gave you to sight of the sun,     To-day nor to-night nor to-morrow     May bring you again from above,     Drawn down by the spell of the sorrow     Whose anguish is love.     No light rearising hereafter     Shall lighten us here as of old     When seasons were lustrous as laughter     Of waves that are snowshine and gold.     The dawn that imbues and enkindles     Life's fluctuant and fugitive sea     Dies down as the starshine that dwindles     And cares not to be.     Men, mightier than death which divides us,     Friends, dearer than sorrow can say,     The light that is darkness and hides us     Awhile from each other away     Abides but awhile and endures not,     We know, though the day be as night,     For souls that forgetfulness lures not     Till sleep be in sight.     The sleep that enfolds you, the slumber     Supreme and eternal on earth,     Whence ages of numberless number     Shall bring us not back into birth,     We know not indeed if it be not     What no man hath known if it be,     Life, quickened with light that we see not     If spirits may see.     The love that would see and would know it     Is even as the love of a child.     But the fire of the fame of the poet     Who gazed on the past, and it smiled,     But the light of the fame of the painter     Whose hand was as morning's in May,     Death bids not be darker or fainter,     Time casts not away.     We, left of them loveless and lonely,     Who lived in the light of their love,     Whose darkness desires it, we only,     Who see them afar and above,     So far, if we die not, above us,     So lately no dearer than near,     May know not of death if they love us,     Of night if they hear.     We, stricken and darkling and living,     Who loved them and love them, abide     A day, and the gift of its giving,     An hour, and the turn of its tide,     When twilight and midnight and morrow     Shall pass from the sight of the sun,     And death be forgotten, and sorrow     Discrowned and undone.     For us as for these will the breathless     Brief minute arise and pass by:     And if death be not utterly deathless,     If love do not utterly die,     From the life that is quenched as an ember     The soul that aspires as a flame     Can choose not but wholly remember     Love, lovelier than fame.     Though sure be the seal of their glory     And fairer no fame upon earth,     Though never a leaf shall grow hoary     Of the crowns that were given them at birth,     While time as a vassal doth duty     To names that he towers not above,     More perfect in price and in beauty     For ever is love.     The night is upon us, and anguish     Of longing that yearns for the dead.     But mourners that faint not or languish,     That veil not and bow not the head,     Take comfort to heart if a token     Be given them of comfort to be:     While darkness on earth is unbroken,     Light lives on the sea.