No More Adieu

Unconscious on thy lap I lay,     A spiritual thing,     Stirless until the yet unlooked-for day     Of human birth     Should call me from thy starry twilight, Earth.     And did thy bosom rock and clear voice sing?     I know not--now no more a spiritual thing.     Nor then thy breathed Adieu     I rightly knew.     --Until those human kind arms caught     And nursed my head     Upon her breast who from the twilight brought     This stranger me.     Mother, it were yet happiness to be     Within your arms; but now that you are dead     Your memory sleeps in mine; so mine is comforted,     Though I breathed dear Adieu     Unheard by you.     And I have gathered to my breast     Wife, mistress, child,     Affections insecure but tenderest     Of all that clutch     Man's heart with their "Too little!" and "Too much!"     O, what anxieties, what passions wild     Bind and unbind me, what storms never to be stilled     Until Adieu, Adieu     Breathe the night through.     O, when all last farewells are said     To these most dear;     O, when within my purged heart peace is shed;     When these old sweet     Humanities move out on hushing feet,     And all is hush; then in that silence clear     Who is it comes again--near and near and near,     Even while the sighed Adieu     Fades the hush through?     O, is it on thy breast I fall,     A spiritual thing     Once more, and hear with ear insensual     The voice of primal Earth     Breathed gently as on Eden faint airs forth;     And so contented to thy bosom cling,     Though all those loves are gone nor faithful echoes ring,     Nor fond Adieu, Adieu     My parted spirit pursue?     --So hidden in green darkness deep,     Feel when I wake     The tides of night and day upon thee sweep,     And know thy forehead bared before the East,     And hear thy forests hushing in the West     And in thy bosom, Earth, the slow heart shake:     But hear no more the infinite forest murmurs break     Into Adieu, Adieu,     No more Adieu!