I would have lingered then—­but he—­
“Oh, let us haste:  the dream grows dim,
Another night, another day,
A thousand years will part from him

“Who is that Ancient One divine
From whom our phantom being born
Rolled with the wonder-light around
Had started in the fairy morn.

“A thousand of our years to him
Are but the night, are but the day,
Wherein he rests from cyclic toil
Or chants the song of starry sway.

“He falls asleep:  the Shadowy Fount
Fills all our heart with dreams of light: 
He wakes to ancient spheres, and we
Through iron ages mourn the night. 
We will not wander in the night
But in a darkness more divine
Shall join the Father Light of Lights
And rule the long-descended line.”

Even then a vasty twilight fell: 
Wavered in air the shadowy towers: 
The city like a gleaming shell,
Its azures, opals, silvers, blues,
Were melting in more dreamy hues. 
We feared the falling of the night
And hurried more our headlong flight. 
In one long line the towers went by;
The trembling radiance dropt behind,
As when some swift and radiant one
Flits by and flings upon the wind
The rainbow tresses of the sun.

And then they vanished from our gaze
Faded the magic lights, and all
Into a Starry Radiance fell
As waters in their fountain fall.

We knew our time-long journey o’er
And knew the end of all desire,
And saw within the emerald glow
Our Father like the white sun-fire.

We could not say if age or youth
Were on his face:  we only burned
To pass the gateways of the Day,
The exiles to the heart returned.

He rose to greet us and his breath,
The tempest music of the spheres,
Dissolved the memory of earth,
The cyclic labour and our tears. 
In him our dream of sorrow passed,
The spirit once again was free
And heard the song the Morning-Stars
Chant in eternal revelry.

This was the close of human story;
We saw the deep unmeasured shine,
And sank within the mystic glory
They called of old the Dark Divine.

Well it is gone now,
        The dream that I chanted: 
On this side the dawn now
        I sit fate-implanted.

But though of my dreaming
        The dawn has bereft me,
It all was not seeming
        For something has left me.

I fell in some other
        World far from this cold light
The Dream Bird, my brother,
        Is rayed with the gold light.

I too in the Father
        Would hide me, and so,
Bright Bird, to foregather
        With thee now I go.

—­December 15, 1896

A New Earth

        “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
        When a new planet swims within his ken.”