’I did not think that you could die. 
    Only some veil would cover you
    Our loving eyes could still pierce through;
    And see through dusky shadows still
    Move as of old your wild sweet will,
    Impatient every heart to win
    And flash its heavenly radiance in.’ 
    Though all the worlds were sunk in rest
    The ruddy star within his breast
    Would croon its tale of ancient pain,
    Its sorrow that would never wane,
    Its memory of the days of yore
    Moulded in beauty evermore. 
    Ah, immortality so blind,
    To dream all things with it conjoined
    Must follow it from star to star
    And share with it immortal years. 
    The memory, yearning, grief, and tears,
    Fall from it and it goes afar. 
    He walked at night along the sands,
    And saw the stars dance overhead,
    He had no memory of the dead,
    But lifted up exultant hands
    To hail the future like a boy,
    The myriad paths his feet might press. 
    Unhaunted by old tenderness
    He felt an inner secret joy! 
    A spirit of unfettered will
    Through light and darkness moving still
    Within the All to find its own,
    To be immortal and alone.

THE VESTURE OF THE SOUL

    I pitied one whose tattered dress
    Was patched, and stained with dust and rain;
    He smiled on me; I could not guess
    The viewless spirit’s wide domain.

    He said, ’The royal robe I wear
    Trails all along the fields of light: 
    Its silent blue and silver bear
    For gems the starry dust of night.’

    ’The breath of joy unceasingly
    Waves to and fro its folds starlit,
    And far beyond earth’s misery
    I live and breathe the joy of it.’

THE TWILIGHT OF EARTH

    The wonder of the world is o’er: 
    The magic from the sea is gone: 
    There is no unimagined shore,
    No islet yet to venture on. 
    The Sacred Hazels’ blooms are shed,
    The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.

    Oh, what is worth this lore of age
    If time shall never bring us back
    Our battle with the gods to wage
    Reeling along the starry track. 
    The battle rapture here goes by
    In warring upon things that die.

    Let be the tale of him whose love
    Was sighed between white Deirdre’s breasts,
    It will not lift the heart above
    The sodden clay on which it rests. 
    Love once had power the gods to bring
    All rapt on its wild wandering.

    We shiver in the falling dew,
    And seek a shelter from the storm: 
    When man these elder brothers knew
    He found the mother nature warm,
    A hearth fire blazing through it all,
    A home without a circling wall.