Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/98

70 For well, ah well, the darkened vale recalls

A thousand times ten thousand vanished suns;

Ten thousand sunsets from whose blackened walls

Reflamed the white and living day that runs,

In light which brings all beauty to the birth,

Deathless forever round the ancient earth.

II

O Thou the Lord and Maker of life and light!

Full heavy are the burdens that do weigh

Our spirits earthward, as through twilight gray

We journey to the end and rest of night;

Tho' well we know to the deep inward sight

Darkness is but Thy shadow, and the day

Where Thou art never dies, but sends its ray

Through the wide universe with restless might.

O Lord of Light, steep Thou our souls in Thee!

That when the daylight trembles into shade,

And falls the silence of mortality,

And all is done, we shall not be afraid,

But pass from light to light; from earth's dull gleam

Into the very heart and heaven of our dream.