In Memory of John William Inchbold

Farewell: how should not such as thou fare well,     Though we fare ill that love thee, and that live,     And know, whate'er the days wherein we dwell     May give us, thee again they will not give?     Peace, rest, and sleep are all we know of death,     And all we dream of comfort: yet for thee,     Whose breath of life was bright and strenuous breath,     We think the change is other than we see.     The seal of sleep set on thine eyes to-day     Surely can seal not up the keen swift light     That lit them once for ever. Night can slay     None save the children of the womb of night.     The fire that burns up dawn to bring forth noon     Was father of thy spirit: how shouldst thou     Die as they die for whom the sun and moon     Are silent? Thee the darkness holds not now:     Them, while they looked upon the light, and deemed     That life was theirs for living in the sun,     The darkness held in bondage: and they dreamed,     Who knew not that such life as theirs was none.     To thee the sun spake, and the morning sang     Notes deep and clear as life or heaven: the sea     That sounds for them but wild waste music rang     Notes that were lost not when they rang for thee.     The mountains clothed with light and night and change,     The lakes alive with wind and cloud and sun,     Made answer, by constraint sublime and strange,     To the ardent hand that bade thy will be done.     We may not bid the mountains mourn, the sea     That lived and lightened from thine hand again     Moan, as of old would men that mourned as we     A man beloved, a man elect of men,     A man that loved them. Vain, divine and vain,     The dream that touched with thoughts or tears of ours     The spirit of sense that lives in sun and rain,     Sings out in birds, and breathes and fades in flowers.     Not for our joy they live, and for our grief     They die not. Though thine eye be closed, thine hand     Powerless as mine to paint them, not a leaf     In English woods or glades of Switzerland     Falls earlier now, fades faster. All our love     Moves not our mother's changeless heart, who gives     A little light to eyes and stars above,     A little life to each man's heart that lives.     A little life to heaven and earth and sea,     To stars and souls revealed of night and day,     And change, the one thing changeless: yet shall she     Cease too, perchance, and perish. Who shall say?     Our mother Nature, dark and sweet as sleep,     And strange as life and strong as death, holds fast,     Even as she holds our hearts alive, the deep     Dumb secret of her first-born births and last.     But this, we know, shall cease not till the strife     Of nights and days and fears and hopes find end;     This, through the brief eternities of life,     Endures, and calls from death a living friend;     The love made strong with knowledge, whence confirmed     The whole soul takes assurance, and the past     (So by time's measure, not by memory's, termed)     Lives present life, and mingles first with last.     I, now long since thy guest of many days,     Who found thy hearth a brother's, and with thee     Tracked in and out the lines of rolling bays     And banks and gulfs and reaches of the sea     Deep dens wherein the wrestling water sobs     And pants with restless pain of refluent breath     Till all the sunless hollow sounds and throbs     With ebb and flow of eddies dark as death     I know not what more glorious world, what waves     More bright with life,if brighter aught may live     Than those that filled and fled their tidal caves     May now give back the love thou hast to give.     Tintagel, and the long Trebarwith sand,     Lone Camelford, and Boscastle divine     With dower of southern blossom, bright and bland     Above the roar of granite-baffled brine,     Shall hear no more by joyous night or day     From downs or causeways good to rove and ride     Or feet of ours or horse-hoofs urge their way     That sped us here and there by tower and tide.     The headlands and the hollows and the waves,     For all our love, forget us: where I am     Thou art not: deeper sleeps the shadow on graves     Than in the sunless gulf that once we swam.     Thou hast swum too soon the sea of death: for us     Too soon, but if truth bless love's blind belief     Faith, born of hope and memory, says not thus:     And joy for thee for me should mean not grief.     And joy for thee, if ever soul of man     Found joy in change and life of ampler birth     Than here pens in the spirit for a span,     Must be the life that doubt calls death on earth.     For if, beyond the shadow and the sleep,     A place there be for souls without a stain,     Where peace is perfect, and delight more deep     Than seas or skies that change and shine again,     There none of all unsullied souls that live     May hold a surer station: none may lend     More light to hope's or memory's lamp, nor give     More joy than thine to those that called thee friend.     Yea, joy from sorrow's barren womb is born     When faith begets on grief the godlike child:     As midnight yearns with starry sense of morn     In Arctic summers, though the sea wax wild,     So love, whose name is memory, thrills at heart,     Remembering and rejoicing in thee, now     Alive where love may dream not what thou art     But knows that higher than hope or love art thou.     "Whatever heaven, if heaven at all may be,     Await the sacred souls of good men dead,     There, now we mourn who loved him here, is he,"     So, sweet and stern of speech, the Roman said,     Erect in grief, in trust erect, and gave     His deathless dead a deathless life even here     Where day bears down on day as wave on wave     And not man's smile fades faster than his tear.     Albeit this gift be given not me to give,     Nor power be mine to break time's silent spell,     Not less shall love that dies not while I live     Bid thee, beloved in life and death, farewell.