Near multitudinous lament of Dawn’s
Low-rustling leaves, stirred by some opal wing,—
Oft have I felt my pilgrim soul come home,
For all its caging flesh a wanderer
That in the night goes out by those stern gates
Where five grim warders guard the body well.
It was not I, but one long dead that woke,
When, half in dreams, I felt this errant soul
Once more to its tellurian cage return:
An angel exile, looking for its lost,—
A draggled glory, brooding for its own!
Then faint and strange on my half-hearing ears
There fell the flute and pipe of early birds;
And strange the odour of the opening flowers;
And strange the great world lay; and stranger still
The quiet rain along the glimmering grass:
And Earth, sad with so many memories
Of bliss, and beautiful with vague regrets,
Took on a poignant glory, strange as death;
And light and water, grass, and dark-leaved trees
Were good to look on, and most dear was life!
Phaon
What is this dim-eyed madness and dark talk
Of Death?
Sappho
Of Death? Hush! I have seen Death pass a hand
Along old wounds, and they have ached no more;
And with one little word lull pain away,
And heal long-wasting tears.
35
