Page:Songs before sunrise (IA beforesunrisongs00swinrich).pdf/228

 I could be fain to drink my death and sleep, And no more wrapped about with bitter dreams Talk with the stars and with the winds and streams And with the inevitable years, and weep; For how should he who communes with the years Be sometime not a living spring of tears?

O child, that guided of thine only will Didst set thy maiden foot against the gate To strike it open ere thine hour of fate, Antigone, men say not thou didst ill, For love's sake and the reverence of his awe Divinely dying, slain by mortal law;

For love is awful as immortal death. And through thee surely hath thy brother won Rest, out of sight of our world-weary sun, And in the dead land where ye ghosts draw breath A royal place and honour; so wast thou Happy, though earth have hold of thee too now.

So hast thou life and name inviolable And joy it may be, sacred and severe, Joy secret-souled beyond all hope or fear, A monumental joy wherein to dwell Secluse and silent, a selected state, Serene possession of thy proper fate.