They tell fair tales of a far-off land, Of love rekindled, of forms renewed;
There may I only touch one hand Here life's ruin will little be rued;
But the hand I have pressed and the voice I have heard,
To lose them for ever, and all for a word !
Now do I feel that my heart must break All for one glimpse of a woman's face;
Swiftly the slumbering memories wake Odour and shadow of hour and place ;
One bright ray through the darkening past
Leaps from the lamp as it brightens last,
Showing me summer in western land
Now, as the cool breeze murmureth In leaf and flower And here I stand
In this plain all bare save the shadow of death; Leaving my life in its full noonday, And no one to know why I Hung it away.
Why? Am I bidding for glory's roll?
I shall be murdered and clean forgot; Is it a bargain to save my soul?
God, whom I trust in, bargains not; Yet for the honour of Knglish race, May I not live or endure disgrace.
Ay, but the word, if I could have said it,
I by no terrors of hell pcrplext; Hard to be silent and have no credit
From man in this world, or reward in the next;
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