To Meet, Or Otherwise

Whether to sally and see thee, girl of my dreams,         Or whether to stay     And see thee not! How vast the difference seems         Of Yea from Nay     Just now. Yet this same sun will slant its beams         At no far day     On our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh!     Yet I will see thee, maiden dear, and make         The most I can     Of what remains to us amid this brake Cimmerian     Through which we grope, and from whose thorns we ache,         While still we scan     Round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan.     By briefest meeting something sure is won;         It will have been:     Nor God nor Daemon can undo the done,         Unsight the seen,     Make muted music be as unbegun,         Though things terrene     Groan in their bondage till oblivion supervene.     So, to the one long-sweeping symphony         From times remote     Till now, of human tenderness, shall we         Supply one note,     Small and untraced, yet that will ever be         Somewhere afloat     Amid the spheres, as part of sick Life's antidote.