The Interpreters

I     Days dawn on us that make amends for many     Sometimes,     When heaven and earth seem sweeter even than any     Man's rhymes.     Light had not all been quenched in France, or quelled     In Greece,     Had Homer sung not, or had Hugo held     His peace.     Had Sappho's self not left her word thus long     For token,     The sea round Lesbos yet in waves of song     Had spoken. II     And yet these days of subtler air and finer     Delight,     When lovelier looks the darkness, and diviner     The light -     The gift they give of all these golden hours,     Whose urn     Pours forth reverberate rays or shadowing showers     In turn -     Clouds, beams, and winds that make the live day's track     Seem living -     What were they did no spirit give them back     Thanksgiving? III     Dead air, dead fire, dead shapes and shadows, telling     Time nought;     Man gives them sense and soul by song, and dwelling     In thought.     In human thought their being endures, their power     Abides:     Else were their life a thing that each light hour     Derides.     The years live, work, sigh, smile, and die, with all     They cherish;     The soul endures, though dreams that fed it fall     And perish. IV     In human thought have all things habitation;     Our days     Laugh, lower, and lighten past, and find no station     That stays.     But thought and faith are mightier things than time     Can wrong,     Made splendid once with speech, or made sublime     By song.     Remembrance, though the tide of change that rolls     Wax hoary,     Gives earth and heaven, for song's sake and the soul's,     Their glory.