Page:Hephaestus, Persephone at Enna, and Sappho in Leucadia.djvu/43

 :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!


 * What is this dim-eyed madness and dark talk
 * 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.