Names Upon a Stone

Across bleak widths of broken sea A fierce north-easter breaks, And makes a thunder on the lea — A whiteness of the lakes. Here, while beyond the rainy stream The wild winds sobbing blow, I see the river of my dream Four wasted years ago.

Narrara of the waterfalls, The darling of the hills, Whose home is under mountain walls By many-luted rills! Her bright green nooks and channels cool I never more may see; But, ah! the Past was beautiful — The sights that used to be.

There was a rock-pool in a glen Beyond Narrara's sands; The mountains shut it in from men In flowerful fairy lands; But once we found its dwelling-place — The lovely and the lone — And, in a dream, I stooped to trace Our names upon a stone.

Above us, where the star-like moss Shone on the wet, green wall That spanned the straitened stream across, We saw the waterfall — A silver singer far away, By folded hills and hoar; Its voice is in the woods to-day — A voice I hear no more.

I wonder if the leaves that screen The rock-pool of the past Are yet as soft and cool and green As when we saw them last! I wonder if that tender thing, The moss, has overgrown The letters by the limpid spring — Our names upon the stone!

Across the face of scenes we know There may have come a change — The places seen four years ago Perhaps would now look strange. To you, indeed, they cannot be  What haply once they were: A friend beloved by you and me  No more will greet us there.

Because I know the filial grief That shrinks beneath the touch — The noble love whose words are brief — I will not say too much; But often when the night-winds strike Across the sighing rills, I think of him whose life was like The rock-pool's in the hills.

A beauty like the light of song Is in my dreams, that show The grand old man who lived so long As spotless as the snow. A fitting garland for the dead I cannot compass yet; But many things he did and said I never will forget.

In dells where once we used to rove The slow, sad water grieves; And ever comes from glimmering grove The liturgy of leaves. But time and toil have marked my face, My heart has older grown Since, in the woods, I stooped to trace Our names upon the stone.