Page:Preludes, Meynell, 1875.djvu/117

Rh Gone, gone into the west, for ever gone,

O little one, my flower; not you alone,

My son who are leaving me, but he, the child

Of five years back. That is the worst farewell.

I had not thought him lost until to-day.

But he had kept with me until to-day;—

Never seen, never heard; but he was there,

Behind the door on which I laid my hand,

Out in the garden when I sat within,

A turn of road before me in my walks.

As others greet a presence I did greet

An absence, O my sweet, my sweet surprise!

How will it be now? for he is so changed

I hardly knew the face I saw pass by.

And yet it is the one that must of needs

Grow from that long ago face innocent,

Grave with the presage of a human life.

So, child, giving again in thought my kiss,

My last, long since, I kiss you tall and changed

In that one kiss, and kiss you a man and old,

And so I kiss you dead. And yet, O child,

O child, a certain soul goes from my days;

They fall together like a rosary told,